According to many experts, we live in difficult economic times. We also live in a time where employees are starting to expect much more of their workplace. With fewer companies offering retirement packages and much more complicated personal options for wealth investment and development, employees may benefit from a guiding hand from the talent development team. Talent programs can educate and direct employees towards free tools that will help them understand and improve their financial situation, and, as a result, your team can boost an employee’s overall financial health. Since money problems are a major stressor for many employees, helping them ease this burden could reduce absenteeism and improve productivity.

Too many consumers are paralyzed by the idea that they should somehow know how to keep a budget, get their credit organized, and generally make sure that everything is working fine without any help from anyone. The truth is that finances have become more complicated than they were fifty or even twenty years ago. Consumers are responsible for saving for their own retirements, managing investment accounts, and keeping track of their credit scores.

These simple steps will help you and your employees get your credit scores where they need to be and receive first-hand information on their financial strength.

Be Aware Of Your Finances

The first step in managing your finances is simply to know what’s going on. If you don’t have a budget, you are much less likely to understand where your money goes each month. If you don’t have visibility into your credit cards on a day to day basis, you’re more likely to overdraft your cards and pay substantial overage fees.

Using a service like Credit Sesame can give you valuable insight into your overall credit picture and help you make the right moves to improve your credit score.

Credit Visibility As A Right

On your own, you can only pull a free credit report once a year. If you move through each of the three main credit agencies every four months, you can get a report three times a year. But for the average person, this is a cumbersome and frustrating process.

Using an online service that monitors your credit is a simpler solution. While you do not get the same deep visibility into your credit that you get by pulling your credit report on your own, these services can help you see negatives and positives in general. If you see something that doesn’t make sense, then you can take the necessary steps to investigate.

By pulling your credit report every month, you will have a regular and ongoing update on your credit situation.

Gain Powerful Insights

Once you have visibility into the factors affecting your credit, you can begin to understand how to improve your credit score. For example, you might discover that you are using too high a percentage of your credit, and that opening a new credit source might actually improve your credit score. Alternatively, you might see that you have too few sources of credit (credit cards, auto loan, home loan), and you might see that getting a new car could actually improve your credit and make your morning commute more relaxing.

Many of the details of improving your credit are not intuitive. Having a service that helps you get organized and know where to focus your effort can be very helpful.

Receive Customized Offers

If you are considering getting a new credit card, loan, or opening a new credit line, you may be overwhelmed by the various options available to you. After all, almost every bank and credit company offers multiple options now. You may have heard, however, that applying for credit hurts your credit score over time. Armed with these insights, you may wisely cruise through various credit offers so that you can find the best possible option for your situation.

Protect Your Financial Gains

You work hard to get ahead and make your money work for you instead of the other way around. Taking those first steps is hard, however, and can lead to some complicated situations. This is especially true if you are trying to get out of substantial debt.

The process of taking care of finances can be entirely overwhelming. When talent development teams can offer advice to their employees on managing their finances, they can improve both the company health and the employee’s stress level. These tips, of course, can also help the talent development team find the best way to manage their own finances and make the most of their income. After all, working hard for your money should mean that you get to keep as much of it as possible, and let it grow to become something you can pass on.

How have you found free financial websites to be beneficial to you and your team?