A new report has found that workers are enjoying more financial wellness benefits from their employers, including the hiring of advisors to provide them with free financial advice.

Forty-seven percent of employers offer workers access to a financial advisor through their benefits plan, up from 40% just a year ago, according to Bank of America’s new 2021 Workplace Wellness Benefits Report. The survey, released today, yielded data from 834 employers and 1363 employees across the country.

“Employers are really moving to improve their benefit programs by offering employees access to financial advisors. In turn, employees rank access to financial advisors as the number one service they get from their plans,” Steve Ulian, managing director of retirement and wealth solutions at BoA, said in an interview.

“For the first time, 95% of employers now feel a sense of responsibility for employees. This might be shocking, but 56% say they find an extreme sense of responsibility,” Ulian said.

That tracks with the uptick in employers who are offering financial wellness programs to employees (46% in 2021, up from 40% in 2020).

“What we’re seeing is a shift from employers who offer a perfunctory benefit plan, to employers who now see plans as key to attracting and retaining talent. This is significant. ... I have been in the defined benefits arena for 27 years and I think this is an amazing transformation,” Ulian added. 

More employers are also offering auto-escalation in their plans, so that annually employee contributions and the likelihood they’ll meet retirement goals are increased, the survey found. Some 83% of employees say they're fine with automatic enrollment at a 6% deferral percentage and 90% of participants stay in a plan once they're automatically enrolled, according to research from the Principal Financial Group.

“We absolutely have seen an increase in auto escalation. It bounced up from 23% in 2020 up to 38% in 2021. That’s a big jump. I think this comes from employees asking for more help in meeting their retirement goals. I also think advisors who help employers design benefit plans know auto programs, including auto enrollment and auto escalation, help drive financial wellness,” Ulian said.

With the economy reopening and man signs of the pandemic lifting, employee feelings of financial wellness are also rebounding, the survey found. Some 51% of employees rate their financial wellness as good or excellent, up from 49% in 2020, and are headed to toward pre-pandemic levels, which hit 55% in 2019.

Still, women continue to lag their male counterparts both in preparedness and levels of worry about financial wellness, BoA found. Some 47% of women rate their financial wellness as good or excellent, compared to 57% of men.

At the same time 92% of women feel some level of stress about their financial situation, compared to 88% of men. Women are also twice as likely to be kept up at night by financial stress (11% vs. 5%).

This is where priorities and benchmarking retirement readiness may come in handy, Ulian said. While saving for retirement is the top financial priority for men and women alike, a smaller percentage of women are prioritizing saving (34% vs. 46% of men).

Women also are more likely than men to have credit card debt (53% vs. 43%) and student loans (25% vs. 17%). They’re also more likely to be adversely affected by this debt. Some 59% of women don’t have control over their debt (compared to 50% of men); and 32% say debt impacts their ability to achieve their goals, compared to 23% of men, BoA found.

One of the best ways for advisors to demonstrate their worth to employer plans and employees is to be able to introduce tools and services to help employees take control of their financial and retirement wellness, Ulian said.

“Half the battle of helping women is helping them to understand where they are now financially, where they want to go and then helping them make moves to get there,” he added. “For instance, our financial wellness tracker has been a great tool for all employees, but especially for women who now want to focus on informed decision-making to help their advance their financial and retirement goals.”