For Employers

Company Money Stress Assessment

Calculate what money stress is costing your company in 15 minutes.

Let's Talk Money

What is money stress costing your business?

Answer a few questions about your workforce. In about two minutes you'll see two estimates of what staff money stress costs you each year: a deliberately conservative one, and one based on what published research points to.

Your workforce

Rough numbers are fine. You can change them at any time.

Gross basic salary per employee
Most of your staff earn
Sets how many staff are likely to be highly stressed about money: 47%, 40% or 27% (Old Mutual, 2026) [1].

What you see at work

Your own figures make both estimates more accurate. Leave a box empty if you don't know.

Ask payroll. If empty, we use the share of staff in step 3.
A warning sign; not added to the cost.
In the last 12 months, have you noticed any of these? Tick all that apply.

Check the assumptions

For each assumption, the conservative input is the lowest credible figure and the research-based input is what published studies point to. Every number can be changed.

Show and adjust assumptions
Hours lost per stressed employee a week

Over half of stressed, distracted employees spend 3+ hours a week on money matters at work [4]. Canada's regulator models 3.5 hours for the most affected [2]. Lower-wage workers average 1.3 hours [3].

Extra days absent per stressed employee a year

Poorer financial wellness is linked to more absence [5]. The size of the effect is our assumption.

Staff with garnishee orders, if you left that box empty (%)

In 2013, 12% of public servants and 13% of mine workers had orders [6]. Numbers are likely lower since the 2016–2018 law changes.

Extra staff turnover among stressed staff (percentage points)

Financially stressed employees are about twice as likely to be looking for another job [4].

Payroll hours per garnishee order a month

Verifying, calculating and paying over each order [6]. Our assumption.

Cost to replace an employee (% of annual salary)

A conservative benchmark for recruiting and training a replacement. Our assumption.

Employment costs on top of salary (%)

UIF, SDL and basic benefits.

How we calculate this

We use the method published by the Financial Consumer Agency of Canada [2]: estimate how many staff are under money stress, how much time and money that costs, and what that time is worth. The share of stressed staff comes from South African data [1]. The costs per stressed employee come from international research, because no South African study has yet measured them directly.

Cost areaCalculation
Lost focus at workStressed staff × hours lost a week × 46 working weeks × hourly cost
Extra absenceStressed staff × extra days absent × daily cost
Garnishee order adminActive orders × payroll hours a month × 12 × hourly cost
Staff turnoverStressed staff × extra turnover rate × replacement cost

Hourly cost is monthly salary plus employment costs, divided by 173 hours. Daily cost uses 21.67 working days a month. Lost time does not always mean lost output one-for-one, which is one reason we show a conservative estimate alongside the research-based one.

Why two estimates? The conservative estimate uses the lowest credible input at every step, so it is hard to dispute. The research-based estimate uses what published studies actually found. Your real cost is most likely somewhere in between, or above, given South African conditions.

Sources
  1. Old Mutual (2026). Savings & Investment Monitor 2026. 40% of working South Africans highly stressed about money; 47% of those earning under R30,000 a month; 27% of those earning more.
  2. Financial Consumer Agency of Canada (2025). Calculating the cost of employee financial stress on productivity.
  3. Financial Health Network (2022). The Financial Health of Workers in Low-wage Jobs. Lower-wage workers spend about 1.3 hours a week on personal finances at work.
  4. PwC (2023). Employee Financial Wellness Survey (United States, 3,638 full-time employees).
  5. Joo, S. & Garman, E. T. Personal financial wellness may be the missing factor in understanding and reducing worker absenteeism.
  6. University of Pretoria Law Clinic & GIZ (2013). The incidence of and undesirable practices relating to garnishee orders; Van der Merwe, S. (2023). Caught in the Crossfire: Employers of Emolument Attachment Order Debtors. PER/PELJ 26.
  7. Statistics South Africa (2026). Quarterly Labour Force Survey, Q2 2026.
  8. US Bureau of Labor Statistics (2026). Current Population Survey: unemployment rate, September 2026.
  9. Statistics Canada (2026). Labour Force Survey, September 2026.
  10. South African Police Service annual crime statistics 2025/26 (23,096 recorded murders). Rate calculated by SafeSuburb from Census 2022 population estimates.
  11. Statistics Canada (2025). Trends in police-reported crime in Canada and the United States (2023 homicide rates).
  12. Let's Talk Money (2026). The Hidden Payroll Cost: What Money Stress Costs South African Employers. Full workings and references.

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