How financial stress impacts job performance

Stress is a universal issue, impacting professionals across sectors, designations, and organizations. It severely deteriorates an employee’s work performance and comes in different forms and shapes. Take financial stress – featuring challenges in meeting loan EMIs, or managing the usual daily bills at times. As any leader may guess, this can be a huge detriment to overall organizational productivity. 

But before we figure out how to deal with it, it’s important to know what causes it. Here are the most common causes of financial stress professionals of today must face:

Causes

• Excess Debt: Taking too many loans at a time has people drowning in a sea of debt. Even before one debt has been paid up, another is taken. A certain life of thrift pushes folks towards taking too many loans and paying up huge credit card bills. The amount is often not small, and so is the interest.
• Way of living: The current living standards all over have increased with the coming of easy EMIs. People are trying to keep up with a glorified idea of a lifestyle. But everything comes with a price. And this price becomes a big cause of financial stress at a later stage.
• Insufficient savings: Despite a better stand of living, there are many of us living an urban equivalent of hand-to-mouth sustenance. Of course. And even if any savings are made, a thrifty nature ensures that even it is spent. In the end, all that remains is repayment.
• Instability of markets: With a wide variety of changes taking place in the market, it has been difficult to keep your market parked with it. Risks are being taken without proper inspection which generally leads to losing lots of money in the financial markets.

• Inadequate financial literacy: The majority of people with financial stress include millennials and youths. Being a newbie in the financial world, they aren’t very much acquainted with the nooks of their finances and are prone to hasty decisions. This reduces their chances of gaining success with money, thereby increasing their financial stress.
• Personal Issues: A sole bread-winner of his family needs to take care of their finances well. The satisfaction of everyone’s needs creates a dearth of finances. Further in cases of emergencies like illness, accidents or any similar condition suddenly would send a surge in the need for financial assistance. 
• Other issues: Since some consumers are quite vulnerable due to their lack of financial knowledge, some institutions may take undue advantage of this, with high-interest rates, expensive prepayment charges, and more. As you can guess, this compounds the situation instead of making it any better.

Impact

• Reduced productivity: Financial stress hampers mental health disabling better attention and thinking. This finally leads to a fall in productivity by an individual employee, and consequently a bigger fall for the organization in terms of productivity.
• Absenteeism: Regular mental breakdowns of the employee lead him to take excessive breaks. This also adds up to increased absenteeism among the employees.
• Disruption of health: Severe health problems can occur due to financial stress. Sleep disorders, headaches, heart ailments, hypertension are some of the possible impacts of financial stress. Further, stress clogs down the functioning of the brain which might lead to a bigger eventual shutdown of the body.
• Lesser control: An employee gripped with financial stress has lower control over their mind and body. Unhealthy lifestyle habits, substance abuse habituation,  and more become part of the package. 

It’s easy to see how any, or all of these can be significantly detrimental to an organization’s output. A professional with any of this background is a professional very unlikely to be delivering their 100%. 

How can organizations combat this?

• Greater focus: A keen observation and look out for stressed employees will certainly. Understand the causes of financial stress and think of ways to help them.
• Be empathetic: As a manager, put yourself in your employee’s shoes. Think about how you would have liked to be treated if it were you. Take care of your team in a similar way. Talk, counsel, and care.
• Undertake financial wellness programs: Several service providers offer financial wellness and assistance programs as an ongoing attempt to combat such issues before they arise in organizations. Partner with them and try making appropriate changes. Fibe’s Financial Wellness service helps employees remain fully secured in financial terms. Be it a medical emergency or paying a child’s school fees, EarlySalary has got you covered, thanks to a keen understanding of the importance of financial education and experience in assisting under-served customers, with seminars on financial wellness, and support for instant credit, as part of the Fibe Credit Suite – a newly launched offering for aspiring Indian professionals of tomorrow.

When is your Organisation Getting Started?

Financial stress is a burden most young professionals face. In the modern world, however, a support system, with tech tools and concerned mentors and managers, can make the experience far easier to deal with. Undertaking better policies and programs will not only help in employee’s welfare but consequently help in getting closer to the organization’s future goals.

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