As a society, our views on employer responsibilities are evolving. The Covid-19 pandemic has spurred employers to adopt a more proactive approach to staff wellbeing. While there will continue to be variation in expectations between employment relations that are transactional and those that are deeper, the cost of living crisis provides an opportunity for employers to accelerate their focus on financial wellbeing at work.
Recently published Work Foundation research on this topic found that nearly seven in ten senior decision makers (66%) feel they have a substantial role to play in supporting their staff through the cost of living crisis. We found that where employers have introduced financial wellbeing support for their workers over recent months, this has often been responsive with many introducing one-off bonuses, based on the notion that the high inflation seen in 2022 was a short, sharp shock.
