Omnium Employee Benefits

Practical steps to help employees with debt management: in association with Mental Health at Work (MHAW)

At our recent taster session at the Institute of Directors, MHAW invited Mark Hodson (pictured) from Omnium Benefits to discuss his experience in helping people with debt problems.

An Associate Director at Omnium, Mark has offered pro bono debt counselling with the Citizens Advice Bureau and, in every single case, he says he wishes he could have spoken to the person in debt earlier. 

There are a lot of known causal links between mental health and financial health, and Mark wanted to give employers this advice:

“My experience is that the number of employees, your employees, that have debt issues is on the rise. Many don’t know where to start; they know there’s a problem, but they don’t know what to do. They over-rely on the internet, which is fantastic if you know what you want; if you don’t, it’s a dangerous place when it comes to debt management.”

Mark qualified this by saying that debt is being normalised, with people believing debt is a fact of life and a very personal issue at the same time. By searching ‘debt advice’ on Google, for example, the top hits are debt consolidation companies – not necessarily helpful if you’re in debt crisis. 

Mark also explained that next year many pension statements, bank statements and other financial paperwork will become paperless, allowing debt to creep up if you don’t keep track of it. If, like many people, “you file paperwork in a drawer, with numbers that you don’t understand, and then go back to it in your fifties, you will find it virtually impossible to make sense of it.”

Mark advised there are three essential steps when faced with debt management. Most importantly as an employer, he said, to give your workforce time off to help them manage their finances by:

  • Early intervention: talk to someone if you notice changes; a conversation works across all generations for engagement, as with mental health issues.
  • Prioritisation: Red/Amber/Green – what needs to be dealt with immediately; to contact credit card companies and explain the issues and put in place a plan.
  • Incident Consequence Escalation Crisis – an incident could trigger a consequence in spending that could escalate and get out of hand. Look out for prolonged absences, pestering by debt companies, threats of further action, and so on.

Mark’s three areas to avoid, where possible, are:

Consolidation loans, including Payday loans, which can have an APR in excess of 50%
Individual Voluntary Arrangements, that are binding legal agreements and
Individual Bankruptcy – a ‘complete nightmare’ that will affect credit ratings for years and, as a matter of public record, could make financial life very difficult.

“Decide what you can and can’t do for your staff as an employer, but give them time – in my experience, the best organisations are the Citizens Advice service or Christians Against Poverty.

If you can spot the triggers early, have that conversation, point people in the right direction, you will be doing them a massive favour for both their financial and mental wellbeing.”

We can help

Alongside our comprehensive employee benefits packages, Omnium Employee Benefits can provide financial clinics, designed to support your employees with one-to-one reviews of their wider financial circumstances, not just limited to their company benefits.

To discuss your company’s employee benefits requirements, give Mark a call on 01483 205890

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