Financial wellness for everyone. You’ve heard us talk about how we think this is an achievable goal and that we’re committed to making it a reality through our partnerships, programs, tools, resources, and solutions.
But, we’re always pushing for more. In 2019, we focused on advancing the ways in which we support the financial wellness of our team and colleagues at Envestnet. Like the 62 percent of the 808 employer respondents to Bank of America’s workplace survey who feel “extremely” responsible for their employees’ financial wellness, we know that we can play a critical role for our own team, especially now.2 The past year has been stressful for a lot of people, and the COVID-19 pandemic helped to illuminate many Americans’ financial gaps and concerns:
- 19% were living outside of their means prior to the pandemic.1
- 22% regretted not putting more money into their investments.1
- 40% regretted not having enough emergency savings.1
- 32% felt they were not saving enough for retirement.1
We want our employees to feel empowered to take control, be better prepared for the future, and equipped to tackle their individual challenges and goals. And so in April 2020, we gave them access to Envestnet | MoneyGuide’s MyBlocksSM, a self-service financial planning tool.
Empowering Our Team to Take Charge of Their Financial Futures
MyBlocks is a digital financial planning tool that facilitates incremental decision-making by breaking up key financial wellness topics into bite-sized “blocks.” There are more than 30 interactive, easy-to-use modules for learning how to achieve a goal or diving deeper into key topics:
- How do I buy a home or go on my dream vacation? (Modules: Purchase Goal, Experience Goal)
- How do I increase my savings? (Module: Emergency Fund)
- How do I decrease my debt? (Modules: Pay Off Credit Cards, Pay Off College Loans)
- How do I retire? (Module: Basic Retirement Forecast)
There are also modules related to social security, inflation, healthcare, and much more. The user is in total control and can complete the modules on their own time, at their own pace as they plan and execute a strategy to progress toward financial wellness.
To help our team make the most of the tool, we’ve offered webinars and walkthroughs to demonstrate its capabilities, as well as a comprehensive user guide. We’ve also asked for their feedback as we build toward the future and plan for updates to the tool and our employee-specific offering. The response has been overwhelming. As of 9/2/20, more than 70 percent of our employees had logged into MyBlocks. Some of the most popular blocks for our team so far include:
- Basic Retirement Forecast: This block uses various data on current income, expected age of retirement, living expenses, etc. to help the user determine if they’ll have enough money for retirement, and what adjustments they could make to improve the probability of success.
- Retirement Expectations: This block helps the user uncover what they’re most looking forward to in retirement.
- Retirement Concerns: This block helps the user uncover their anxieties and fears related to retirement.
- Social Security: This block takes into account your current income, desired retirement date, anticipated age of death, and the age at which you plan to start drawing Social Security to help the user plan ahead and uncover topics to discuss further with a financial professional.
- Emergency Fund: This block helps the user uncover a path to a fully-funded emergency fund with 1 month, 3 months, and 6 months of expenses.
It’s easy to see that our employees’ financial focus trends towards retirement. With that in mind, we hope to provide them with additional resources to help them understand how to achieve their goals and relieve any anxieties they may have. We’re excited that they’re taking advantage of the tool and looking forward to driving adoption over the long term.
We hope that more companies seek out opportunities to provide financial wellness benefits for their employees. So far, it seems to be a trend that’s taking hold. The Mass Mutual Financial Wellness Trend Study survey this past February found that nearly half (42 percent) of 863 employers surveyed offered financial wellness programs as part of their retirement plans. Another 19 percent were in the process of implementing programs, while an additional 19 percent said they planned to introduce wellness programs within the next three years. As more companies seek out opportunities to play a greater role in helping their employees achieve financial wellness, MyBlocks can be a great starting point. Learn how MyBlocks can help turn this vision into reality.
Sources:
- Dr. Francesca Ortegren, “How COVID-19 Has Impacted Americans Financially: September Update,” ListWithClever.com, last modified on September 24, 2020, https://listwithclever.com/research/covid-impact-september/.
- “2020 Workplace Benefits Report,” Bank of America, last modified in September 2020, https://benefitplans.baml.com/publish/content/application/pdf/GWMOL/2020-Workplace-Benefits-Report.pdf.
The information, analysis and opinions expressed herein are for informational purposes only and do not necessarily reflect the views of Envestnet. These views reflect the judgment of the author as of the date of writing and are subject to change at any time without notice. Nothing contained in this piece is intended to constitute legal, tax, accounting, securities, or investment advice, nor an opinion regarding the appropriateness of any investment, nor a solicitation of any type.