How Emergency Financial Assistance for Employees Can Actually Improve Your Company’s Bottom Line

In an article on personal resilience, authors Ann Cross and Donald Bearse outline the connection between the personal resilience of employees and the financial impact on organizations when employees are coping with unexpected personal emergencies. Personal resilience refers to individuals being prepared for emergency situations, both on a practical and on a financial level. These situations include difficulties such as elder- and child-care emergencies, death of a family member, house fires, divorce, and illness. Broadly speaking, Americans as a whole are not adequately prepared to face personal hardships such as these. These serious events can affect every aspect of the lives of those involved.

One relevant result in these situations is a negative impact on productivity at work, costing organizations money in the process. The authors state that almost 60% of absenteeism is due to issues other than illness. Arriving at work distracted or otherwise dealing with personal issues while at work also contributes to the organizational cost. Helping employees cope with their personal emergencies has the potential to both improve productivity and cut absenteeism rates. It also is a direct way to implement and develop corporate social values in-house.

Creating an employee hardship relief fund can provide assistance in the case of death, illness, or other financial emergencies that may arise. Grants that help employees cope with personal hardship also can cut the amount of time employees take off from work, and help them be more present and focused when they are at work. A grant can help an employee bounce back from hardship more quickly. Less absenteeism and fewer distractions boost productivity, and more productivity is always better for your bottom line. Not only that, the relief fund helps strengthen the entire corporate community.

Source: Cross, A., Bearse, R. November 25, 2013. The Return on Investing in Personal Resilience. GSN: Government Security News. http://www.gsnmagazine.com/article/39162/return_investing_personal_resilience?page=0,0