Convergint Technologies is hosting what it calls a No Spender November effort this month to encourage its employees to be more aware about their individual financial situations.
The idea arose after human resources manager Regina Brodersen decided to look more closely at where she was spending her money. After a close examination of her chequing account, she called her telephone provider to cancel her landline and was able to reduce it to $21 from $36 a month.
“Let’s encourage people to look at what they spend their money on and see where they can save,” she says, noting the spending effort will encourage employees to share, at the end of the month, how much money they saved and how they did it.
Another consideration for the Calgary-based supplier of security systems is the Alberta city’s high unemployment rate amid the slump in oil prices.
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The spending effort will include yard sales at Convergint Technologies’ larger offices at which employees can bring in items they no longer need and sell them to their colleagues. The yard sale will cost a one-time fee of $10 that the organization will add to its fundraising pot. “And they can sell whatever they want,” says Brodersen. “This will help people, particularly before Christmas.”
At the beginning of November, employees received an email for them to respond to by the end of the month with three ways they saved. “And then we will share all the best suggestions with all colleagues across Canada, so that they can do that as well,” says Brodersen. “We want to create a little bit of hype around it, because our dollars just don’t go as far as they used to.”
If employees are able to save, Brodersen suggests they redirect the money to their group registered retirement savings plan. “Maybe they can increase their monthly contributions by 50 per cent, which would increase the employer contribution,” says Brodersen.
The company bases its employer match in the group RRSP on the organization’s global performance, but the minimum is 10 per cent on the first $6,000 of an employee’s RRSP contributions. In the past several years, according to Brodersen, the employer match was in the range of 37.5 and 43 per cent.
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Earlier in 2016, efforts to promote the group RRSP resulted in participation increasing to 60 per cent of employees, up from 50 per cent previously. “In the orientation process for new employees, we really dig into that it’s a great idea to participate,” says Brodersen. “When you start with the company, you have that period to register and after that, it’s open enrolment once a year.”
At the same time, information sessions hosted by its provider, Great-West Life Assurance Co., encouraged employees to find out what kind of investment personality they are so they could “maybe change from balanced to more aggressive,” says Brodersen. The exercise also included adding new target-date funds to the investment options as of Nov. 1.
For the No Spender November effort, the organization is encouraging saving but it will keep the options open in terms of how employees choose to save money. “It’s not a hard-and-fast thing,” says Brodersen.
“We don’t expect people to write down every penny to the day in terms of what they’re saving. It’s an awareness. It will be really interesting to share all the fantastic ideas people have,and then lead into more people being aware of their financial status.”
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