Halloween has always been a memorable holiday but not just for the decorations, costumes, candy and fun. My husband defended his PhD dissertation on Halloween (which I proofread in its entirety, the title forever etched in my memory.)
We bought our first house on Halloween, had Covid on Halloween (pretending not to be home is hard when your doorbell rings every 5 minutes) and the unexpected trip to the ER on Halloween.
One year we ran out of candy forcing my husband to give out “diet popcorn” claiming no kid would ever want until the middle-school girls showed up screeching, “Oooh, Chicky Pop!”
‘Tis the season of fall and the annual enrollment of company benefits. It happens every year and companies often use Halloween to kick-start this annual review and for good reason.
A recent Gallup poll revealed how most Americans get their financial information and advice. While I’m happy to see that financial websites came in 3rd outranking many sources, there is one source that is highly underutilized. One that should be near the top but isn’t: financial advice programs sponsored by your workplace.
Employees don’t know this benefit exists, they may think they don’t qualify, costs too much, they don’t need it or will receive some substandard advice. All of the above were reasons we didn’t access this benefit until recently and I highly recommend it.
Since a large percentage of your investment assets will be held in a 401(k) or other type of retirement fund especially early in your career, you won’t have a great deal of disposable funds to invest with a Financial Advisor to meet their minimum requirements. Often the financial advice programs offered by your workplace will be from the financial institution that holds your 401(k) funds such as Fidelity, Schwab, Vanguard.
You get matched with the level of service needed at whatever career point you are, early, mid or nearing retirement. Video conferencing provides the communication medium, and you get access to financial planning tools (more on this to come).
It’s not surprising to note that the government is the lowest trusted source.
Company benefits like employee stock purchase plans, short-and long-term incentive plans, deferred compensation, health insurance subsidies bridging you to Medicare are often overlooked and misunderstood. The PDF and webpage overviews don’t address the specifics of how these plans work when you leave for another company, retire or even die.
Other financial benefits companies may offer:
• Covered meetings with financial planners
• College planning meetings for children and parents
• Will preparation
• Power of attorney
• Credit building or rebuilding coaching
• Financial debt management
• Student loan repayment
• Budget planning and assistance
• Discount programs
These benefits are often outlined in documents that read like legal instruments. If you aren’t good at reading and following legal documents, get someone who is to review them with you. I was appointed to read these since I had a lot of experience reviewing legal documents in my career. If you still have questions, which we did, contact your benefits department.
You could use your company AI agent to explain the legal verbiage but using an external AI agent poses the risk of exposing confidential and proprietary company information.
I can’t emphasize enough the importance of knowing and understanding the employment benefits offered to you and how they work in each circumstance, especially if you are considering moving to another company late in your career.
And the final fall benefit which has arrived early this year are the holiday discounts. Many of them started on Thursday (Nov. 20) and I took advantage of this. My 8-year-old Windows/travel laptop can no longer support 4k high-definition video and audio. It crashes into the blue screen of death. A new one is on the way and no video links until then. The ones posted on bonds I fixed.
While I am grateful my laptop reboots, true gratitude will be given due attention this week. With all the distractions of the holiday season, giving attention to who and what you are most grateful for is the most invaluable thing you can do.
Americans Still Turn to People for Financial Advice
16+ Unique Employee Benefits to Keep Your Workplace Competitive – Blue Lion