UAP Inc. is supporting employees’ financial wellness and retirement readiness with a new retirement toolkit.
The toolkit, which launched this week, explains the company’s retirement savings plans and additional post-employment income sources such as Canada and Quebec Pension Plan benefits, as well as information on adjusting to life in retirement. It also includes resources for managers who are supporting pre-retirees and onboarding new employees to fill those vacant roles.
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“We have an ageing [employee] population and we want them to be ready for retirement, so we’ve prepared something very comprehensive for them,” says Geneviève Hébert, senior director of global compensation for UAP.
The toolkit is just one part of UAP’s financial wellness strategy. The company offers several savings plans — including a registered retirement savings plan, a tax-free savings account and a registered education savings plan. During Financial Literacy Month, UAP also hosts live information sessions on its retirement and savings programs and provides recordings of these presentations to employees who want to revisit the information.
It also hosts an e-learning module on financial health with information and resources to help employees make a budget, set financial goals and choose appropriate savings vehicles.
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Hébert says the strategy has been shaped by the financial stress that employees experienced due to the coronavirus pandemic, as noted in employee surveys that were fielded at the height of the health crisis.
“Everybody could feel the pressure with the increase in inflation and the increase in the price of groceries. . . . [Our savings plans] were originally geared towards retirement but we’ve since added a TFSA and RESP, making sure that everybody could find what they needed in the programs that were offered.
“Our goal was really to give employees all the tools they need . . . to make the right decision and relieve some of the stress that was increasing with the economic environment we were seeing.”
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