118. Financial Wellbeing and Work with Aadil Abbas and Prina Shah

SPEAKER_00 0:06

Hello, and welcome to this episode. If we just change the WordPress with myself, we know Charles. I love what I do. I'm not level leadership, a consultant, a train artist, a keynote speaker, a podcaster. I help you to develop your leaders, your team, and I help you to optimize your organizational cultures. I'm here to help you find ways to change your workplaces. Why? Because we spend more time in our waiting days at work than we do with our loved ones. It has to be a good place to be. So in this podcast, you can expect a mix of interviews with amazing thought leaders and then some solo episodes from myself as well. Hello and welcome to this very important episode of the Ways to Change Your Workplace podcast with myself, Preena Shah. And I'm really, really excited to invite you to a repeat upcoming guest today, who is my friend, Adil Abbas, who is a financial planner. And he has a company called Own Financial Planning based in Sydney, Adil. How are you?

SPEAKER_01 1:24

I'm good, Preena. Lovely to be here and uh look forward to our conversation with you.

SPEAKER_00 1:31

Really, really great to have you, Adil. Now, we've been talking about this for a while, Adil, and I think it's really important to bring you on board to my podcast because I've got a million questions for you. And I want to create a series of snippets for our people. And the reason I want to talk to you is because we need to talk about the issue that many workplaces are still not talking about. And that is the issue about why bother on financial wellness at work, Adil. I'm going to give you a little bit of information, Adil, just to give you a preamble. So let's not ignore the issue that money makes the world revolve. We're all working for money, right? But at work, we're not talking about money from a financial wellness perspective. We're all very aware of the fact that we are in a cost of living crisis. And Adil, I foresee that for many years to come. This isn't anything new. And the other thing, Adil, I've been talking about from a workplace perspective, is that work-life integration is the new norm. So if we're talking about it from that perspective, Adil, you know, I've been doing lots of research and I've shared some statistics with Adel. Adel, to cope with financial stress, Ernest Young and Flair Research have done a study and they have shown that one in ten Australian employees have chosen to take time off from work. And that is in relation to financial stress. So moreover, these employees have taken an average of eight days off per year to deal with issues regarding financial stress. So for workplaces, for employers, there's real implications here, Adil, in terms of directly or indirectly related to work. So it's estimated that stress-related issues in relation to financial stress is costing the Australian economy as much as $15 billion a year with absenteeism or presenteism of people in the workplace. Adil, this is a real issue that we're not talking about. That's why I'm really glad to have you here. What are your thoughts, firstly, in relation to this, Adil?

SPEAKER_01 3:40

Those are some amazing stats. But to be honest, at one level, as I think about these stats and the clients I work with, it doesn't surprise me actually at all because I can tell you very confidently that we work with people from people with from all walks of life in different age groups and in different levels in their in their career. So I work with some, I work with clients who are early careers, some people who are in bid management, some in senior management. And there is not one client in the last, I would say, 12 months, irrespective of their income levels, income, irrespective of their pay levels, who have not felt some strain in their finances. And these are driven by two key factors I'm finding. One is inflation. We all are talking about high and high living in a high inflationary environment. And secondly, rising interest rate, which has led to rise in housing costs, be it rent or to mortgage payments. And as a financial planner, what this has meant for me is that when I work with people, when I'm when I'm working with my clients, in the last 12 months, we've just had to go back to the basics for many people and really get them to put in place a budget or is or a spending plan, as as I like to call it, because let's let's face it, nobody likes likes doing a budget. A spending plan, more exciting to do a spending plan. Let me tell you where you can spend your money. So as a financial planner, that's a better, I find using the word spending plan creates better outcomes for my clients. So we talk about spending plan and not budgets that much. But this has really meant that as part of this putting in place a budget or a spending plan, I've had to ask my clients who are employees to actually go back to their employee benefit schedules, to go back and review their contractual arrangements to really understand through the workplace what are the benefits they can get which can help them manage this cost of living crisis, manage their, to manage their budgets. And interestingly, what I'm also hearing is that the tools and support which are available to employees today through their through their organizations, there are very limited tools to help them manage their financial well-being. A lot of focus, I'm sure Preena, you know this from me, from the work you do, the lot of support for mental health, for physical health, for volunteering programs as part of the employment value proposition. And I feel that's that's great. Like, you know, it's wonderful to have all these things. But when your employees are living paycheck to paycheck, and you know, not many employers actually have visibility into the how the how employees are actually managing their life, uh, the employees may not know this, that actually, irrespective of income level, some of your most senior employees or mid-career employees may be living paycheck to paycheck, they may be on good salaries. But then, but it's that but then as you can imagine, the stress this creates potentially for the employee because the living paycheck to paycheck means they become focused on tangible benefits of the employment value proposition like pay, bonus, promotion. And both of us know how difficult these conversations are generally, both for the organization, the managers, and the employee themselves. So more stress all around. So hence I think financial wellness, financial well-being, financial wellness, whatever employers like would like to call it, is very critical because if you are, if you want your employees to embrace the entire employment value proposition which you have, the tangible and the intangible benefits, you need to make sure that you're equipping your employees with the right tools to manage the monetary benefits. Yeah, to begin with, because once that is sorted, then people can appreciate the intangible benefits. If you just think of Mastro's hierarchy of needs, you need to get your basics sorted. The hygiene factors are pay from base pay and base pay and bonuses. If the hygiene isn't sorted, nobody's going to bother about the other uh the other factors in the employment value proposition.

SPEAKER_00 7:28

Imagine that, Adil. So as you were talking, I was writing, and equipping employees with the right tools for financial wellness and financial management is huge. And Adele, I'm thinking about the employee lifecycle perspective and you know the different types of employees that we'll have. So let's say there's a graduate who's brand new in. We've got great plans. You know, as a graduate, you know, I want to go up my career, there's money related to this as well. And then I talk about life moments, you know, births, deaths, marriages, all of those impact our financial needs as well. Um, when one has a child, we have to plan ahead. You know, when we're getting married, one has to plan ahead. And when we're planning our retirement, Adil, as well, one has to plan ahead. So this is a huge missing factor within the workplace in relation to the kind of support that is lacking, Adil. Do you have anything else to state in relation to this or your final aha moment for employers to really consider why they should be bringing financial wellness into the workplace conversation, Adil?

SPEAKER_01 8:33

I think it's I think the what the real the probably the aha moment as you like to call it is probably because you we must remember that money is a significant enabler for people to design the life they want to create.

SPEAKER_00 8:47

Yes.

SPEAKER_01 8:48

Um, and if you are about helping your employees realize their true potential and you don't really create the life they want to create for themselves, and of course, being uh through their I would say career management, they are of course trying to realize the potential in the workplace, but of course, there's there's realization of potential in life, and money helps you realize your potential in life. Like let's let's accept that. Yes, money is not everything, but is a great enabler of you helping you to realize the potential in your life and all aspects of your life. So I think it's important that if employers are really looking for a taking a holistic view of the employee, ignoring the money aspect or ignoring financial well-being is probably a very missing, glaring gap there in the employment value proposition.

SPEAKER_00 9:35

Beautifully said, Adil. And I could not attest to that statement. So in my one-to-one coaching, as you know, I coach many a leader, many a person within the workplace. The financial stress that people have within themselves that they can't articulate to their workplace is something else. And it's something, as you said, that really holds people back. It diminishes them from being their best selves. So I love the beautiful line that you said that money is a significant lever to create the life that you want to create. Let's leave it at that, Adel. More to talk about in our future episodes. But right now, employers, if you're listening, please, please, please consider financial wellness for your workplace. And if you're an employee listening to this, please share this with your workplace. Ask them to consider your financial wellness and your support that you need. I think we need to start having the conversation. And Ali's details are going to be in the show notes, as are mine. Let's continue the conversation. For now, I will see you in the next episode. How good was that episode? If you liked it, be sure to share it with a couple of other people. Also in the show notes are details about my newsletter. Keep in touch. I send a newsletter out around once a month. It won't be spammy, it will be very practical. And if we're not connected on LinkedIn yet, we must be connect with me on LinkedIn. And on Instagram, I am Krina.shar. I will see you somewhere else or in the next episode. Until then, goodbye.