Human Resources held a retirement seminar, Spring into Financial Wellness, for University of Houston faculty and staff to help them better prepare for and navigate the retirement process, whether they are close to or far from it.
The seminar was held at the M.D. Anderson Library, in the Elizabeth Rockwell Pavilion and featured workshops from financial institutions like Social Security, TexaSaver, Corebridge Financial, Fidelity, TIAA, and VOYA.
This was the first Spring into Financial Wellness program led by UH Human Resources since before the pandemic.
“It’s always exciting to have folks have the opportunity to come in person and interact with approved vendors that we do have here on campus,” said DeAnna Holmes, Human Resources Sr Benefits Coordinator. “So often we have folks soliciting outside of the university from providers not approved so folks get confused.”
Any confusion a faculty or staff member may have had could be cleared up by the approved financial vendors in attendance and faculty and staff were grateful.
“The feedback is that folks are excited that we offer these workshops,” said Holmes. “They would like us to host it in the spring and in the fall, which we do. We are going to have a fall event as well.”
Whitney Johnson, Staff Council President and Director for Student Success in the Office of Undergraduate Business Programs at C.T. Bauer College of Business, called Spring into Financial Wellness a beneficial event for faculty and staff, adding that having two a year would provide the community with another opportunity to learn about the retirement process and how to better prepare themselves.
For her part, Johnson came into the seminar eager to learn, and left with important homework for her social security retirement.
“That is the takeaway that I put as an action item for myself to go and create an account of log into my account on Social Security,” said Johnson. “I’m not at the retirement age just yet but the resounding thing was to make sure you start early so that’s what I plan on doing.”
