The InCharge Education Foundation COPE™ Scale
Click Here for a financial wellness checkup!
Profina Debt Solutions 18-Month Panel Study: Impact of Financial Distress on Work Life
These are times when the consumer debt load is getting heavier every year. The immediate effect on cash flow and peace of mind can easily be imagined. However, are there wider and even more dangerous effects not yet fully recognized?
Profina Debt Solutions, a leader in debt management and credit counseling, wants to measure the impact that the consumer’s debt burden has in the workplace. While the direct cost to the debt-burdened client, in the form of interest payments and penalties, is obvious, a full assessment of total cost would have to include the negative effects on productivity on the job.
Not only would productivity be affected but workplace harmony could also be reduced with the onset of strife and arguments related to pre-occupation with personal financial problems. If left unchanged this situation could lead to loss of employment due to the inevitable employer reaction to lost productivity and workplace harmony.
One measure of the success of a debt management and counseling program is the extent to which the service it performs for its clients helps reduce problems of that kind. If improvement in the workplace can be claimed due to the DMP (debt management program) participation and education, then the total impact of the program would have to include the long range benefits accruing from sustained employment.
To find out whether the program has helped in that way, Profina decided to conduct a study in which clients joining the debt management program would be tracked to determine whether there were differences in work life between actives (those remaining in the program) and clients who either dropped out after at least one payment (called dropouts) and those who never even made a payment. The latter is used as a control group in this report.
