What could your company do with an extra three hours of productive time from your employees?

According to PwC, 56% of employees who are financially stressed spend three hours or more per week dealing with, or thinking about, issues related to their personal finances. That’s a lot of lost time for companies and a big weight for employees to shoulder.

Every HR professional has (at least) one thing in common: they want to attract and retain the best talent. Some of that is out of their hands. Interpersonal issues, salary shortfalls and relocation plans can drive even the best talent away.

So let’s focus on what HR professionals do have control over: benefits packages.

One often-overlooked benefit category is financial wellness. This extends beyond the obvious – salary – and includes discount and perk programs, financial planning and credit assistance. Workforce vitality – the overall health, well-being and productivity of employees within an organization – can be vastly improved by even small improvements to existing employee financial benefits.

By providing strong financial benefits and support, HR professionals can accomplish great things for everyone:

• Employees can reduce their financial stress
• Companies can recoup some of those three weekly lost hours
• HR professionals can reduce the time spent on recruiting

How do you do that?

By prioritizing workforce vitality and employee financial wellbeing, a workplace can be transformed. Healthy, stress-free employees come to work energized and motivated. That translates to increased productivity, creativity and innovation.

And those workplaces are the ones where employees want to stay.

Such a transformative way of retaining talent and improving productivity and vitality will set you apart more than you think. Currently only 40% of employers offer financial wellness programs. By making your company one of those 40%, you set yourself up for success in multiple ways. Beyond the retention benefits, you’re making your company more attractive to new talent. 76% of employees believe that their employers should play a part in their financial wellbeing.

In other words, 40% of companies have their pick of those 76% of employees and job seekers. Simply put: adding financial wellness benefits gives you better access to a larger pool of potential employees and makes them more productive once hired.