One of this morning’s headline news stories was about personal debt levels in the UK. https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-25108891

According to The Money Advice Service, some 9 million Britons (18% of the population) consider that they have serious debt problems. And hand-in-hand with debt is often the onset of depression and stress for the individual and their family. This in turn can result in lower productivity and engagement at work.

So in general terms, UK plc does rather badly all-round from personal debt (with the exception of those organisations involved in personal loans of course).

So not a pretty picture. But the stand-out point for me from this morning’s coverage is that most individuals in serious debt are not actively taking any professional advice to help resolve these issues. Such advice is available free from several sources, yet employees are not always aware of this, or indeed how to start the process.

Which takes us nicely to employee benefits, and in particular Employee Assistance Plans (EAP’s). In their simplest form an EAP is a confidential telephone based advice service, which offers advice and guidance to employees on a range of issues. And a principle component of such plans is often a free debt-counselling module.

Now some employers actively pay for a full EAP offering. Many other organisations may also find that their employees have access to a more basic EAP offered free of charge (or at a significantly reduced cost) as part of another offering (for instance Group Healthcare, Group Cashplans and Group Income Protection Plans). The point is that a huge number of the UK’s employed workforce may already have access to this valuable, free to use, service.

Yet I seriously doubt that many employees know about the service and/or understand that it includes confidential debt-counselling. Even if they are aware of this, how many know how to contact the EAP? Unfortunately it is very common for employers to fail to communicate their benefits package well, and EAP usage suffers as a direct result of this. This is bad news for both employees and employers.

And let us not forget, the time of maximum debt is shortly upon us. In The Muppet’s Christmas Carol *, Ebenezer Scrooge states that Christmas is:

“Harvest time for the Money Lenders”

And it is sadly true that many employees will borrow more to finance the cost of the festivities.

So, as your organisation gears up for the Christmas season, I would strongly suggest that now might well be a good time to remind all your staff of the EAP, what this includes, and how this can be accessed.

Best regards

Steve

*surely the best version of Charles Dickens’ classic tale (but not necessarily one that he would have liked!)