Financial wellbeing | Supporting your people to manage post-Christmas debt

According to debt charity StepChange, money borrowed to finance Christmas could take years to repay. Worries about debt led to a surge in enquiries to the charity as soon as the festive season was over – they advised more people on 3 January 2023 than on any day in 2022.

Similarly, a recent Savanta Comres poll, conducted for the BBC, suggested that a third of respondents were not confident about their ability to repay Christmas-related debt.

It’s not surprising that people are turning more to credit, with the same survey indicating that eight out of 10 people felt worried about the rising cost of living, with some inevitably also reporting that they are losing sleep about it.

Should your people’s financial resilience concern you? The answer is yes!

There is a significant amount of research showing that employees with poor financial situations do not perform as well as employees in stable financial situations. The link between a poor financial situation and job performance is the level of stress that money worries cause. Employees experiencing high levels of stress are less productive, as they are more focused on, and distracted by, their financial problems.