Rob Whalen talks to HR Daily Advisor on how HR teams can ease employee financial stress in 2026.

Employees are under real financial pressure this year, and it's showing up everywhere from productivity to retention. In a new piece for HR Daily Advisor, PTO Exchange CEO Rob Whalen lays out why 2026 is shaping up to be an especially difficult year financially for the workforce, and what HR teams can actually do about it.

The numbers paint a clear picture: over three-quarters of employees report feeling stressed about the economy, two-thirds say they're living paycheck to paycheck, and total household debt has climbed past $18.5 trillion. Rising healthcare costs, elevated mortgage rates, and mounting student loan balances are compounding the pressure, and the effects are spilling directly into the workplace, 78% of employers say their employees' financial stress is hurting operations, and the majority of HR leaders worry this stress is pushing people to look for other jobs.

Whalen's argument is that HR teams need to respond with more than good intentions. That means financial mentoring, upskilling, earned wage access, and revisiting underused benefits like PTO. Convertible PTO in particular lets employees redirect the value of unused time toward emergency savings, retirement, or student loan payments, meeting a growing employee expectation for benefits that are actually personalized to their financial reality, not just offered as a blanket policy.

Read the full piece here: Alleviating Financial Stress: How HR Teams Can Support Employees Amid Economic Turmoil