HELPING YOUR PEOPLE WITH THE COST OF LIVING CRISIS.
According to new data from Culture Amp, 60% or workers think their employers should help them with the cost of living crisis. What are your options for offering assistance?
If you want to help your staff with the cost of living crisis, your options include:
- making a one-off cost of living payment/bonus – this can be a set amount or a percentage of each employee’s salary
- offering inflation-busting pay increases – there’s nothing to stop you offering a second pay increase this year outside the terms of your usual annual salary review exercise, but do make clear that it’s a discretionary, one-off increase to help with the cost of living and it doesn’t set a precedent for future years
- enabling more home working to save on commuting costs
- expanding and promoting your benefits package, such as by offering enhanced pay during family-related leave, payment for professional subscriptions, and staff discount schemes
- making your benefits package flexible so that employees can swap out certain benefits they don’t really need for cash
- offering discretionary interest-free hardship loans to employees – but bear in mind that these won’t help if the employee can’t then afford to pay the loan back, so do put parameters in place on how much you’re willing to lend
- using an external provider to offer online or face-to-face financial education programmes
- signposting to debt counselling services, either through an existing employee assistance programme or employees can seek free impartial advice on money and debt from the government’s Money and Pensions Service (0800 138 7777 or https://moneyandpensionsservice.org.uk/)