Five Good Ideas for building financial health through the workplace

In this session, originally recorded on October 28, 2020, we asked Nora Beatty and Alex Mazer to share five good ideas for building financial health through the workplace.

With over 40% of Canadians living paycheque to paycheque, more employers are asking what they can do to increase the financial health of their staff. Alex Mazer and Nora Beatty of workplace retirement plan provider Common Wealth share their five good ideas to help you build financial security in the short and longer term. As an employer, you will come away with ideas you can take to reduce financial stress for your employees; as an individual, you will learn ways to make your hard-earned savings go further.

Five Good Ideas

1. Make the business case for employee financial health (HINT: it’s not just “nice to do”)
2. Take advantage of Tax-Free Savings Accounts
3. Keep fees low
4. Provide education on accessing government benefits
5. Make savings automatic

Related resource:

• Healthcare of Ontario Pension Plan, Common Wealth and the National Institute on Ageing, “The Value of a Good Pension: How to improve the efficiency of retirement savings in Canada” (2018) (learn about the surprisingly large financial value of a good workplace retirement plan – and what makes a plan “good”)
• John Stapleton, Open Policy Ontario, “Toolkit: Low Income Retirement Planning” (2020) (learn about the importance of the Tax-Free Savings Account, and other strategies to maximize income in retirement for modest earners)
• Larry Bates, “T-Rex” fee calculator (see how much of your returns are being eaten up by high fees)
• Prosper Canada, Financial Relief Navigator (find out what government benefits you might be eligible for)
• Ontario Securities Commission (access financial education tools and resources approved by one of Canada’s most prominent financial regulators)

For the full transcript, visit https://maytree.com/five-good-ideas/five-good-ideas-for-building-financial-health-through-the-workplace/

About Nora Beatty and Alex Mazer

Nora Beatty is the Director of People Operations at Common Wealth. She is passionate about people and connecting innovative people strategies to better business outcomes. Nora’s journey in HR started at Oracle, and since then she has had the opportunity to join some of the most exciting tech companies and start-ups in the city. Before joining Common Wealth, Nora built out and led the People function at Hubdoc, and supported the deal team during the acquisition by Xero. Post-acquisition, Nora took on a broader operations role, supporting some of the GTM initiatives, while also leading the People function.

Alex Mazer is a Founding Partner of Common Wealth, a mission-driven business that works with associations, unions, and groups of employers to provide value-for-money, collective retirement plans that combine user-friendly technology, digital retirement planning, low-cost investments, guaranteed lifetime income, and a fiduciary duty to members. The company’s focus is on constituencies that are uncovered or under-served by traditional employer-sponsored retirement arrangements.

Before co-founding Common Wealth, Alex served as a management consultant at McKinsey & Company and in various public service roles. As Director of Policy to the Ontario Minister of Finance during the global financial crisis, Alex helped deliver major reforms to Ontario’s retirement system, including laying the groundwork for the enhancement of the Canada Pension Plan. He is a graduate of McMaster University (as a Loran Scholar), the University of Toronto, and Harvard Law School (where he served as an editor on the Harvard Law Review).