The effectiveness of the Personal Financial Management Programme on the well-being of employees in the Department of Rural Development and Land Reform in the Pietermaritzburg region

Abstract

Financial management as a programme generally refers to a set of behaviours in the areas of cash management, credit management, financial planning, investments, insurance and retirement and estate planning (Dowling, Corney & Hoiles, 2009: 5). BancVue (2010) adds by describing a personal financial management programme as a tool that helps consumers to track and manage their finances, create budgets, categorise and anticipate spending, and analyse the distribution and performance of their investments. It involves the efficient use of personal finance to meet the individual s motives and goals . Survival in this century depends on having resources to sustain one self. The greatest resource nowadays is having income to meet the basic needs and other personal needs as indicated by Maslow s hierarchy of needs (Moaisi, 2013: 21). The income earned by an individual, just like any other resource, needs good management to ensure that the best value can be extracted and utilised efficiently and effectively (Muske & Winter, 2004). It is for these reasons that all consumers should have basic knowledge and skills in terms of personal financial management that would enable sufficient control of finances, resulting in meeting their basic needs and other necessities (Moaisi, 2013: 21-22). The researcher is of the opinion that in order to educate consumers government and the private sector should start by strengthening financial literacy programmes for all, especially the younger generation. If people are more financially literate, they will understand credit and debt management better. It is a well-known fact that there is a high prevalence of indebtedness among public servants in the public sector (Public Commission Report, 2007). A report released by the University of Pretoria, Law Clinic (Haupt et al., 2008:14) revealed that about R235 million (23%) which contributed to the garnishee debt of public servants was based in the national departments. This indicated that there was a substantial number of employees in national departments who were serving garnishees orders. This was confirmed by a report released by PERSAL in the Department of Rural Development and Land Reform in the Pietermaritzburg region which revealed that between March 2009 and January 2011, 15% of employees were garnisheed as a result of defaulting contracts with different credit providers. The goal of this study was to evaluate the effectiveness of the Personal Financial Management Programme for the financial well-being of employees in the Department of Rural Development and Land Reform in the Pietermaritzburg region within the KwaZulu- Natal province. A quantitative study has been conducted and the data was collected through a questionnaire from a sample of 15 employees in the Department of Rural Development and Land Reform in Kwa-Zulu Natal province in Pietermaritzburg region. Valuable conclusions and recommendations originated from the findings of this research study. In terms of the quantitative results it was clear that the Personal Financial Management Programme did not make a statistical significant impact on the respondents knowledge level and attitudes towards financial management. However, the qualitative comments made by respondents described the Personal Financial Management Programme as a good intervention and that it should be repeated and offered to a greater number of employees. The implications of the study could be that employees would gain financial skills to help them manage their finances better and therefore improve their work performance and reduce absenteeism as a result.