Employees within your company may be experts at their jobs, but many who are outside of finance probably don't understand accounting practices or even basic finance even when their jobs require it. Oracle recently surveyed more than 9,000 consumers and business leaders in 14 countries, finding financial literacy is poor regardless of age, gender, or country, and that seeps into the workplace. The resulting report, Money and Machines: 2021 Global Study, looks at the role of robots and AI in consumer and business finances. Today, we want to dive deeper into the data regarding our findings around the lack of financial literacy in the workplace and discuss how finance teams can improve it.

According to the survey, most people say they are managing personal and business budgets with little to no formal financial education. The majority of people learn about finance either on their own or through trial and error and 39% are still learning. Given that eight in ten respondents report never learning about finances in school, financial literacy is a business challenge with real consequences.

Without a financial foundation, non-finance employees may not be performing their workplace duties as well as they could, and they may not be optimizing all the potential opportunities possible.

April is National Financial Literacy Month, which makes it a good time to hone financial knowledge and identify the gaps, both personally and professionally.