Employers can support older workers by doing things like helping them manage current expenses and prepare for retirement. A useful financial wellness program makes those decisions easier.
An employee approaching retirement might still be paying a mortgage, supporting an adult child or caring for a parent. Others may want to keep working but need fewer hours.
Effective support starts with recognizing those differences and giving employees practical options they can explore privately. So, let’s look at several steps employers can take.
Provide Financial Education in a Practical Way
Start with financial education that reflects employees’ actual concerns. Budgeting tools have a place, but older workers may also need help comparing retirement income options, managing debt or understanding insurance coverage.
Many workers do not know where to find financial or retirement planning advice. So, make trustworthy help easy to locate and use.
Offer confidential appointments with qualified financial professionals, alongside short workshops held during paid working hours. Explain who provides the advice, what it costs and whether the adviser sells financial products.
Keep participation voluntary and avoid asking managers to assess employees’ finances. Anonymous feedback can reveal which topics deserve more attention without requiring anyone to disclose personal financial details to a supervisor.
Help Employees Review Existing Insurance Assets
Financial education should help employees understand what they already own, not just what they need to save. For example, existing life insurance deserves attention when family responsibilities, premium costs or coverage needs change.
A life settlement involves selling an existing life insurance policy to a third party for more than its cash surrender value but less than its net death benefit.
Explain the options that are available. You could use the Abacus settlement eligibility guide to help. Often, policyholders receive six to eight times more than the cash surrender value.
Encourage employees to prepare three questions before speaking with an independent adviser about settlements. They should ask whether:
- Anyone still depends on the coverage
- Alternatives are available
- Costs and tax questions need to be reviewed
Keep any employer-provided information educational, confidential and separate from performance reviews or retirement discussions.
Protect Earnings with Caregiver Support
Many employees provide care to loved ones. The thing is, caregiving can turn a manageable budget into a difficult balancing act. Employers can help by making it easier to meet family responsibilities without immediately cutting paid working hours.
Research by AARP found that 27% of surveyed caregivers at large US employers had reduced their hours or moved from full-time to part-time work. For your organization, that points to a concrete financial wellness priority: helping caregivers preserve their earnings where possible.
Offer predictable schedules, reasonable shift swaps and remote work where the role allows it. And make leave information easy to understand before an employee reaches a crisis.
Managers also need clear guidance on handling requests consistently. A supportive policy offers little reassurance if employees believe using it will damage their reputation or promotion prospects.
Strengthen Retirement Saving
Make retirement benefits easier to understand before encouraging employees to contribute more. Someone struggling with monthly bills needs a realistic plan, not a message that treats every missed savings opportunity as a personal failure.
Many older adults have concerns about financial security and retirement readiness. For employers, the practical response is to pair long-term savings education with support for present-day expenses.
Explain your plan’s contribution options, employer match and available planning resources in plain English. Use examples that reflect different pay levels rather than assuming everyone can afford the same contribution.
Give employees opportunities to revisit their choices after raises or changes in household expenses. Keep individual decisions private, and make clear that education sessions are not assessments of whether someone is financially ready to retire.
Make Health Care Costs Easier to Plan for
Help employees understand their health benefits before they need expensive care. Clear explanations can make it easier to budget for premiums, deductibles and other out-of-pocket expenses.
Offer benefits reviews that walk through realistic situations, such as ongoing prescriptions or a planned procedure. Avoid simply distributing a dense enrollment packet and expecting employees to connect every detail themselves.
Where your benefits package includes health-related savings accounts, explain their features and eligibility requirements using current plan materials.
Direct individual questions to the benefits administrator or another qualified professional rather than asking managers to interpret complicated rules.
Employees considering fewer hours also need a clear explanation of how that change could affect coverage. Provide written comparisons before they make a scheduling decision, allowing time to review the household budget and ask follow-up questions.
Offer Flexible Paths into Retirement
Treat retirement as a conversation about choices rather than a deadline tied to age. Some employees may prefer a gradual reduction in hours, while others want to continue in their current roles.
Consider phased retirement, job-sharing or project-based assignments where those arrangements fit operational needs. Explain how pay, responsibilities and benefits would change before anyone commits.
Build knowledge transfer into the arrangement without assuming older employees should automatically become mentors. Ask about their interests, recognize the work involved and agree on responsibilities together.
Publish clear criteria for accessing flexible arrangements so decisions do not depend solely on a manager’s preferences. Review the arrangement periodically with the employee, making room for changing needs on both sides.
Give Older Employees More Financial Choices
Supporting financial wellness for your workforce means offering useful information, confidential guidance and flexibility that respects individual circumstances. Employers shouldn’t make financial decisions for employees, but they can make those decisions easier to understand.
Start by reviewing the support already available to your aging workforce and asking employees where they encounter gaps. Then choose which improvements to implement, whether that means clearer benefits information, caregiver flexibility or access to qualified advice.
Hopefully this article has been helpful in enabling you to better support financial wellness for your aging employees as they approach ever closer to retirement. If you have found it to be useful, be sure to check out some of our other related content.
