There comes a time in every popular television series when fans decide “enough is enough” and viewership begins the slow decline towards cancellation. This is usually precipitated by an over-hyped event. For the hit show Happy Days, this event occurred when Fonzie jumped the shark. So infamous has this event become that the term “jumped the shark” has entered the lexicon to denote when anything has peaked.

Financial wellness has been labeled “hot” for so long (Forbes published an article with the headline “Why Workplace Financial Wellness Programs Are Hot” in May of 2017), one wonders if it hasn’t reached the point where it, too, has jumped the shark.

It seems every other day we see an article boasting the merits of offering a financial wellness program. For all this spilled ink, though, there remains no clear consensus on how to measure the success of such programs.

According to the Bureau of Consumer Financial Protection (BCFP), “financial well-being is a state of being wherein a person can fully meet current and ongoing financial obligations, can feel secure in their financial future, and is able to make choices that allow them to enjoy life.” Words and phrases like “ongoing,” “feel secure,” and “enjoy life” entail immeasurable subjectivity. It’s hard to define success if you can’t measure it.

Today, more than half the companies surveyed by EBRI offer a financial wellness program. Other surveys suggest the percentage is higher for big companies. This means a large number of workers have already been exposed to the fruits of financial wellness. What do they think of these programs? Just under half of them continue to show no interest.

If employees cannot see the value in financial wellness, how can companies continue to justify the costs? Indeed, half of the companies cite “cost” as a top consideration when determining whether to invest the resources into creating and offering financial wellness programs.

Obviously, the financial well-being goal as defined by the BCFP is laudable. It addresses the generally accepted belief regarding the overall lack of financial literacy. It seems too much of the financial wellness hype appears nothing more than throwing dollars haphazardly at an educational shortcoming in hopes something will stick. If we are to believe the statistics concerning secondary school students, this strategy hasn’t worked for general education. Why would we expect it to work for financial literacy?

What’s a better way to address financial wellness? Maybe by focusing on the root cause of most financial problems: behavior. Over the past two to three decades, we’ve accumulated a vast array of research in behavior finance. This research, in turn, has identified strategies one can employ to discourage bad decision-making (one of the key criteria in the BCFP’s definition of financial wellness).

We should therefore avoid the “textbook” solutions currently being offered in financial wellness programs. Instead, we should emphasize behavioral modification techniques. These can be gamified to make the road to financial wellness less stultifying and more fun.

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Has financial wellness jumped the shark?

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