Financial stress weighs more heavily than ever on today's workforce, offering meaningful financial wellness solutions has moved from a "nice to have" to "must have". This panel, moderated by the Employee Benefit News Editorial team, brings together HR and benefits leaders and a leading financial wellness expert to discuss how eliminating employee debt serves as a catalyst for improved well-being, engagement, and organizational performance. Our Leaders will explore how good financial wellness programs lead to measurable decreases in absenteeism and turnover, while boosting productivity and mental health. Attendees will gain practical insights into implementing scalable, tech-enabled financial wellness solutions, and learn how to demonstrate ROI through real-world examples and data.
- Financial Wellness as a Business Strategy
- Why supporting employee financial health is essential—not optional—in today's competitive talent landscape.
- The Hidden Cost of Debt, how employee debt contributes to stress, absenteeism, turnover, and decreased productivity
- What makes a successful financial wellness strategy: education, communication, coaching, and ongoing management, and how HR/benefit managers should be adapting their offerings
- Metrics and success stories demonstrating how financial wellness programs drive measurable business outcomes.
LEADERS is a flagship channel spotlighting C-level executives and top experts as they share insights on the transformative issues shaping employee benefits. Designed for an audience of key decision-makers, the series delivers forward-looking thought leadership on the most pressing challenges and opportunities in workforce well-being, health care, and benefits strategy. The LEADERS series is made possible through the support of top industry collaborators, including Ramsey Solutions.
Transcription:
Transcripts are generated using a combination of speech recognition software and human transcribers, and may contain errors. Please check the corresponding audio for the authoritative record.
Alyssa Place (00:21):
Welcome to today's leaders. My name is Alyssa Place and I'm editor-in-chief of Employee Benefit News. Today, we're going to be talking about the strategic business imperative of financial wellness, health for employers and employees alike. And I'm joined by some top leaders today. We have Bill Strahan, EVP of HR at Comcast, Kate Fisher, Total Rewards and Wellness Leader at Cummins, and Paula Sanders, Senior Director of Marketing for Smart Dollar, which is the financial wellness benefit through Ramsey Solutions. Hi everyone. Welcome. Thanks for joining me today.
William J.T. Strahan (00:53):
Thank you for having us.
Alyssa Place (00:54):
So we certainly have a lot to discuss. Financial wellness has continued to be a hot topic and also a major struggle for employees despite all the investments that you and a lot of other employers have made in this over the last couple of years. So I'm really excited to dig in. I really wanted to start just by level setting. Obviously, financial wellness has been a bit of a rollercoaster for people, so I want to get a sense of what employees are struggling with today. What are some of those things that are really top of mind that are keeping people in this sort of persistent financial instability? What are you all hearing?
Paula Sanders (01:27):
Yeah, I'll go. We're seeing that employees are really just very, very overwhelmed, right? They're just living paycheck to paycheck more than you can imagine. We recently saw a study that said 78% of people would have a financial hardship if their paycheck was delayed by one week, just one week. So they're really, really stressed out and that financial stress is coming into work, but they are embarrassed and ashamed and afraid to talk about it. And so only about half, 52% of people are willing to talk about their financial situation with anyone. And things are changing, I think, though. I think it's exciting that they're looking to their employer more. And we'll talk about that, I'm sure. But yeah, it's just the living paycheck to paycheck cycle and being buried in debt that people are just struggling with. And things cost more and more, as you know, the cost of eggs keeps rising and so on and so forth.
(02:14):
So it's challenging.
Kate Fisher (02:17):
Yeah. We're hearing a lot from our employees about the economy and the cost of just everyday living. And what we also hear from them is that they're struggling more and that's really taking away from their focus at work, at home. It's impacting their mental health, it's impacting their physical health. So we know that it's a significant problem and it's not just for our manufacturing employees, we're hearing it from every level, really.
William J.T. Strahan (02:48):
Yeah. And I would say I completely agree and have the same experience as my colleagues. Maybe the only other things I would put on is the debt points I think is an important one. And we also find that people are kind of making bad decisions around debt. So they're taking action sometimes on their own, but the actions they're taking are actually making it worse. Maybe going to a 401k plan or paying a bill here by taking out a credit card loan there, that kind of thing. So sometimes it's actually getting worse as they try to react to the situation. And the health issues are also really prominent.
Paula Sanders (03:23):
That's a great point, Bill. I was thinking about a lot of companies are offering financial wellness. They're offering something that we believe will be helpful, but in a lot of cases, it's offering short-term loans to employees. So employees are taking out loans to help with their situation. It's only compiling that debt and it's putting them in a cycle. Pay advances, put them in that cycle of never getting ahead. And so while their employees are trying to do right and employees are trying to help, it's often just a cyclical, negative cycle that they're in.
Alyssa Place (03:53):
And it's so tough because you're talking about things that are very immediate in terms of needing their paycheck sooner in order to pay for their immediate financial needs. And there's also some other much larger financial challenges that have also continued to persist and are challenging employees today too. I mean, we're thinking about caregiving, you're talking about student loan debt, all of those different things. How does that, or how is that compounding the financial pressures that they're feeling in the immediate when they also have these very much longer term financial stressors too? Yeah.
William J.T. Strahan (04:26):
Yeah. I think that's where maybe the combination of looking at that burden of paying maybe a monthly note, whether it's for school or for car, maybe somebody got in over their head with a house because the market conditions were kind of just right, but really not something that they could sustain. And that's where it becomes bumped up against the living expenses, the day to day. And as we were talking about a few minutes ago, kind of leads them to sometimes these bad strategies or these bad decisions that just make it a little bit worse. I personally also think that when you talk about the kinds of things that create stress and the health issues, it's really that long-term debt. People can kind of figure out, I think paycheck to paycheck is hard, but it's not quite the same sense of an anchor pulling you down as that long-term
Kate Fisher (05:19):
Debt. That's why I think educate ... I'll say this, part of when we think about financial wellness strategy, education is a piece of it. Having tools and resources is the other piece. But what we do here, I hear from employees is, "I really need someone to teach me what to do. " And so that's where some of our focus is. Yeah,
Paula Sanders (05:43):
Absolutely. I was thinking about what you were talking about with debt. I think one of the things that is just permeating our society is that's being normalized. So it's normal to go to the school that's $85,000 a year and you just take out loans for it. And so they're doing this because they think that's the right thing to do to get ahead. And then it's just weighing on them. They have this weight around their neck that they can't get out from under. So you're right, Bill, like living paycheck, paycheck, that's tough, but then you compound that, excuse me, with also that debt that they can't get out of, the stress is just sometimes insurmountable.
Alyssa Place (06:18):
Yeah. And Kate, you had mentioned that that certainly takes a mental and physical toll. And Paula, you had also said though that people are really ashamed to talk about this. So I wanted to ask before we get into those solutions, different ways that that is showing up, what are some of the warning signs before you've even said, "Here's your financial wellness package that could help you, " that benefit leaders should really start to think about if they're thinking, "Oh, maybe this employee is sort of in trouble." What should we be looking out for?
Paula Sanders (06:47):
Yeah, I can think of a few right off the bat. I know that a lot of HR leaders, and you guys probably can confirm this, they're hearing constant requests for those pay advances. They are absent day to day or they're distracted on the phone dealing with calls or bill collectors and things like that. So there's just the natural things that they're struggling with, they're bringing into work, their productivity's dipping. They are just very much dealing with all of that, that they're not dealing with their work things. But then on top of that, employers can look at their 401k and see that there's a high level of 401k loans that are happening, withdrawals. So all that great money that employers are putting into their 401 is just coming right back out because employees are needing that to survive.
Kate Fisher (07:33):
Yeah. I'd say that that's one of the things that I think if you're an HR leader, you can look at your data. So what activity is happening in your 401k plan? What are people doing for loans or withdrawals? So that's a big indicator. I also think that seeing what employees, how they're reacting. So on top of just financial wellness, we try to train our managers to watch for signs of what does stress really look like in an employee and to familiarize them with the tools and resources we have so that they can put somebody in the right direction to get the help that they need. But I would say there's a lot of data within a company that can tell you, and that's usually in your retirement plans.
Paula Sanders (08:23):
Yeah. I would add, because you mentioned earlier a little bit about the burnout and the mental health aspect of it. I think too, employers can see when turnover continues, that's often a sign because people are looking for a few more dollars add to their paycheck to try to get ahead thinking that's going to solve their problem. So I think that's an important thing for employers to look for too.
William J.T. Strahan (08:44):
I add is we ask people. So we use our employee engagement survey as an opportunity to ask people, do you feel stressed? We give them an opportunity to tell us why. From time to time, we'll put in a question about financial stress. And when we do open enrollment, in order to help people make the right choices about which plan they want to take, we run them through a little bit of an exercise. If they go through the whole process, they don't have to. But part of the process is how much of a financial stressor could you take? And we put it in the context of a car repair. Could you handle a $1,500 car repair? And then based upon that answer, then we guide them towards actually which healthcare plan, but it also gives us an opportunity then to introduce our financial wellness programs depending upon the answer.
Kate Fisher (09:33):
Yeah. And you make a good point. I think, and I know surveys are not always easy, but having like small pulse surveys that you can put, we actually have, it started as a mental health program and it's now all of our pillars that's a global program. And so we have a website for it and we'll put a pulse survey there to try to understand our engagement surveys. But wherever we can ask people, we try to ask, "What is it that's keeping you up at night?" Yeah, that's good.
Alyssa Place (10:04):
Yeah. And Paula, you mentioned that people are really willing to take new jobs just for those couple extra dollars. So I wanted to ask about the financial imperative for businesses to really be addressing this. What kind of a headache is this causing if you have employees walking out the door over perhaps even just a couple hundred dollars in their salary a year? And what are some of the ways that employers have been willing to mitigate that? Are they aware that they're willing to walk over such small pennies?
Paula Sanders (10:32):
You guys can probably answer this better, but I do know it costs like 10 to $30,000 to replace a frontline worker. So right there, there is a financial issue when you have people leaving for a few more dollars and they're leaving with all that stress that they're taking. They're also leaving stress with the people behind that are trying to fill in for those positions. So I'm sure you guys
Kate Fisher (10:51):
Can- Well, what we do, I mean, we have a pretty diverse population and we have shop floor employees, we have field tech workers, and yes, they will leave for a small amount. So one of the things we've done is we've really taken steps to make sure people, first of all, understand their income, understand their entire benefit package so that they understand that you might leave for a dollar more, but this is also like we have a pension, right? So a lot of our education and our financial wellness is looking at an ecosystem. And part of that ecosystem is educating employees about what do they have. And financial wellness isn't just an educational tool. It's not just an app or a resource. It's understanding your pension, your 401, your health savings accounts, how to use those. We have some ancillary benefits for medical that could help them.
(11:45):
Things that will help you in any way financially are all part of the ecosystem. And education is the other part of that. Do your employees have a ... We have a great website, we have AI, but if you're on a shop floor and you're not wired, how are you getting that information? So that's another thing you have to think about as your audience and how they're getting their information and learning.
William J.T. Strahan (12:08):
Yeah. I think one of the difficulties, and I completely agree again with my colleagues, obviously, but one of the difficulties is it's hard to have all of that information right at people's fingertips when they actually need it. It's like trying to learn a foreign language, you can learn it, but if you don't use it, you're going to forget it. So we can tell people about the full portfolio of the benefit products we offer them, but if they don't need it now or they don't recognize it, they don't have time, they're going to forget it. So we try to make sure that we make it easy for kind of one-stop shopping. So there's an entry place where you can start here for financial wellness and then everything behind that portfolio you can get from here. You can do the same thing for healthcare benefits, and then you can do the same thing for emotional health.
(12:57):
So by pointing to just three places and constantly reinforcing these gateways, we think that we're getting better uptake in terms of people actually going and making an inquiry at the point that they Need it.
Kate Fisher (13:09):
And that's good to know. We've made a big investment in the past two years, I'd say, in having a centralized place. And I had the discussion today about not necessarily educating people about any one benefit, but educating them about where to go so that whatever your question may be, you know you have a place to go and easily find the information. That's a great point. And
William J.T. Strahan (13:32):
I'd add too that I think it's really important too that you take those kinds of, especially if they're vendors, if it's not a website that you're talking about or an app, in our case, it's three vendors making sure that each one knows about the other so that when they get sort of a whiff that something on the other side is there, that they make the referral and that they can make a warm referral. So I may call because of a question about a benefit claim for classic medical thing, but if I'm talking about financial stress, they know that they can introduce that element or they can direct somebody to the emotional wellness vendor and get it started there. So making sure that they're coordinated and that we're constantly looking end to end around employee health.
Kate Fisher (14:19):
That's a great point. We do a vendor integration summit every year to get our vendors to connect. So that's a really important point.
Paula Sanders (14:26):
I know with our clients, we talk to them a lot about it starts with the leaders and making sure they're communicating with just what these folks do, like communicating what is all available in totality and making sure it's really accessible. And especially when it comes to financial wellness, making sure you're really talking about at those key times of year. This time leading into the beginning of the year is so important because people really start to think about their finances and then want to get back on track in the new year. And then of course tax time and looking after the summer when back to school are key times when people are really investing and thinking about their money. And I think that just starts from the top down and really making sure that the employees are aware of all that's to offer. And I think when you have financial wellness, it's so foundational to the other benefits and making sure that people understand that because really you see a good lift in the voluntary benefits, about five to 15% when financial wellness is included because people when they have their money in order, they're much more excited about what's going on in the company and they feel like the company cares and they're willing to like invest in their time into the other benefits, see what else is out there and do that.
(15:30):
So I think that's really important.
Alyssa Place (15:33):
Yeah, such great information. So many different ways to kind of dive into all of these different things. You had mentioned entry points and making sure that people really understand how to get in there, but what is the entry point when it comes to financial wellness? What are some of the things that you do to get people invested in those programs? Does it just simply start with education or what's the thing that really hooks people in and says, "Oh, I need to look into that. " What does a benefit leader need to have when they're considering getting employees invested in financial wellness?
William J.T. Strahan (16:04):
So one of the things I think we've done a good job is sort of telling everybody about some of the success stories that we've had along the way. So you mentioned that sometimes there's a little bit of shame or maybe a little bit of concern, "Gee, I don't want people knowing my business," that kind of thing. So by telling more stories, I think somebody like me is already using this benefit and getting a value out of it, that's like a nice beginning point. One of the programs that has been good for us, and I appreciate what you say about some of the pay advances, that kind of thing. We don't do anything like that, but we do have a place where we can send people for what we've curated as an emergency loan for people to get out of debt. It's really hard gating though, where it starts with you have to go through counseling
(16:57):
To start the program. So we won't just send somebody to the place where they can get the loan. So we start with counseling. We have sort of a reasonable small step. So we gate how large that can be. We also run the payment system through payroll, which allows the person first off to have a little bit of a better credit profile when they walk in. Secondly, make sure that they keep up with their payments so that they don't go deeper into a hole because now they've had a consolidated loan. We do simple steps. And then the fourth one, the big one is incentives. So I assume if you're watching this, no disrespect to employee benefit news, you're probably a little bit of a benefit nerd. Probably you're not- That's
Alyssa Place (17:44):
A compliment.
William J.T. Strahan (17:45):
Yeah, exactly. I'll take it. It pays the bills for a long time. But everybody knows that you've got some relationships with vendors where you're receiving some kind of commission rebate or that kind of thing. That's where we gather all that money and then we make that our pot of money for incentives. So people who kind of do the right thing for themselves and either participate in the emergency loan program or something along those lines, that's where we keep some incentive dollars and we've been able to reduce ... The people that participate in the program have been able to reduce their debt by an average of $6,500, which is a huge amount of money spread across hundreds of people that have participated in it. So then you go back and you tell that story again louder to more people and then you get a little bit of that flywheel effect.
Kate Fisher (18:35):
Yeah. I think that the shared stories is huge. We haven't used them that much for financial wellness yet, but we've used them for our mental health. And shared stories are probably one of the most powerful tools that I think to connect people. But I do think that, and I understand that not everybody has the same resources that other companies do, but I think having an educational tool is imperative before you just tell somebody, "Here's an app or here's a benefit." There has to be some level of education. We also, and both of you had made the great point about debt cycle, and that's something I'm thinking about and concerned about is I don't want to perpetuate debt cycles for employees. However, we do know, and we look again at our data, and if I look at our data in the US, we know targets where employees are struggling more than others.
(19:29):
And what we have found is some of our employees don't even have bank, they don't have bank accounts. So educating them and making banking, so we're looking at a neobank option to- What does that mean? It's like an online bank, so there's no brick and mortar, but they make it very easy to bank.
William J.T. Strahan (19:44):
Got it. Thanks.
Kate Fisher (19:46):
And that seems, it may be sometimes very fundamental, but for somebody who's not, they're cashing their check and that's it, they don't have a chance. And there are options out there where you can just promote it. You don't even have to necessarily contract with a company. But I think that education and looking at some foundational things is really, it's critical. And again, going back to making sure employees really understand what they have within the company that might support them.
William J.T. Strahan (20:19):
We also saw this issue ... Sorry. Just to follow up on the banking issue, we'd realized that we had a large number of people that were unbanked and I came up with the clever idea that, because we're a big company and we buy other companies all the time, say, "Why can't we buy a credit union?" And so a number of people say that because that's a stupid idea, you're not going to do that. Okay, all right. Is there anything like that?
(20:41):
So we did a really nice national contract with a credit union, and then we're able to present them as a first choice for people to consider. I would say one of our number one goals is to keep people out of payday lending, that kind of corner store sort of lending kind of thing. That's sort of job one. And then we got to move up to 401k loans, that kind of thing. But the credit union has been a good idea and all it takes is essentially a contractual relationship. I think companies of any size, either with a local credit union or with a national organization can get some of those services in- house.
Kate Fisher (21:21):
Yeah. And then it's all about getting in, like for us, it's again, getting into those employees who might not be wired and really explaining it to them.
Paula Sanders (21:31):
Yeah. I don't think there's anything to add. Those were great. I would just say that absolutely, I love the story comment and the testimonials. I think that that's so important for other employees to see or hear people like them and like that it reduces the shame. Even leaders can talk about how they use the program and everybody has, no matter where you start, there's something to do to, you can improve and education does that, shows you where you can improve on your finances. And everybody starts at a different spot, but just kind of normalizing it and making it accessible. I think that's great. Yeah, that's
Kate Fisher (22:02):
Real. I mean, like I said, I'm hoping that we get some stories about financial wellness as we go into the next year, but just the ones that we've had for mental health, that's really what has snowballed our program over five years and around the world. So really powerful. Yeah.
Alyssa Place (22:17):
I thought what Bill was saying in the beginning was sort of funny actually because you're looking at data and you're hoping, "Oh, someone will come to me. " And then Bill said, "Well, we just ask them." So maybe you just need to ask them to tell about the financial challenges that they're having. I did want to comment on this sort of refrain that we're hearing about this kind of lack of education that we're seeing when it comes to financial wellness and really just sort of benefits in general. I mean, I think I've read that people spend maybe 15 minutes looking at their benefits, they don't have an understanding, certainly that's the case for taking out loans or anything else. Do you have any thoughts as to why that education piece is still such a big hurdle for people to get over and especially for benefit leaders to really kind of tackle that?
(23:01):
Why is that still something that is just like dogging you year after year that we have to get back to the absolute basics?
Kate Fisher (23:07):
I've been doing this for many, many years and I realized that there's no unicorn, there's no magic way to communicate with people. And I think, and we put a lot of pressure on ourselves as a company because we're trying to get people educated. In the past couple years, we've turned a lot to accountability and telling employees, "You have a role in this too. You need to understand the benefits that you have. We can provide you world-class benefits, but you need to understand." So we've changed our tone a little bit there. And I also think people don't think about these things until, as Bill said earlier, they really need it. And then there's a scramble. And I also think it's hard with money because no one wants to face it. And one of the things, as we've talked about financial health in the past year, and we've brought experts in to do podcasts or talk about this, a lot of it has been nobody can really get past their financial hurdles until you sit down and you face it.
(24:03):
And that's what people often do not want to do is to sit down and face it. So we've talked a lot about that, about how you can do it, how you can do it in small chunks. And I think a lot of times, so the struggle to get them to engage with a benefit like that or to look at their 401k or how much are you contributing? They don't want to because they just don't want to deal with it. So you have to kind of get past that hurdle.
Paula Sanders (24:27):
Yeah, that is so true. I think it reminds me of fitness and health and eating right and things like that. People know what to do. It's the doing that's hard, but they do. They have to face it. They have to be willing to learn and consume that education that companies are offering and then do something about it. And that's where then the resources and the tools and things that come alongside that to help them improve those money habits, the things that they've learned, put into action are so important. But again, it really does. 80% behavior change and only 20% head knowledge is really what it comes down to. They have to understand it, but then they actually have to do it.
Kate Fisher (25:01):
Well, and that's where I'm not usually a big fan of incentives, but because I don't think that incentives change people's long-term behavior for their health, at least their physical health. But what you said, I do think that incentives get people to do immediate actions. So I really like the idea of incenting people to use your program, especially if you are somebody who's facing a challenge.
William J.T. Strahan (25:23):
And Joe, I completely agree with you on the incentives on the healthcare side. And I would say this is different in practical terms for two reasons. One is it's so immediate in that the incentive goes to debt reduction. So if I ... And to be silly about if I say, "I'm going to give you $100 for eating carrots
(25:45):
For a year," the payoff of that for the person takes a long time to see and it's confusing. If I say, "I'm going to give you X number of dollars, but I need documentation that you've reduced your debt," it actually fixed a piece of the problem right then and there. And there's a little bit of an excitement factor. And sometimes you hear about whether it's companies or experiences where things are kind of either gamified or people kind of get that reward for doing something. Sometimes it's called the Ikea effect. When you build the furniture yourself, it seems more important to you than when you buy it. There's an IKEA effect here where they only get the incentive after they went through the guidance, after they went through the coaching, they went through the classes. So there's a little sense of, "I have earned it already.
(26:34):
I've done what you laid out for me. I've seen myself make progress and now I'm being rewarded for it. " So I think both of those things in combination of kind of, to your point, I think have swayed me because I wasn't immediately thinking this was a good idea, but I definitely, the benefit team was excellent at Comcast. I think actually they're national leaders, they really convinced me that this was something to do. That's great.
Alyssa Place (27:03):
And I wanted to touch on the role of technology. Obviously that's really intertwined in pretty much every benefit today. And I wanted to get your thoughts on has that made it easier for people to either access some of these programs, access education and communication. It sounds like it might be a little bit split, especially for people that, for you who might be dealing with frontline workers who don't have access to that. But what are your thoughts on technology and how that's helped you advance and deliver some of these financial wellness tools?
Kate Fisher (27:35):
I will say that, I mean, technology for us is imperative. We have to have it. We have a wide range of employees across a variants of ages. So you have to make the information usable for everybody. So technology is super critical. So if you've got a website, it has to be mobile friendly. It has to be easy to use, easy to understand. It has to be ... And when we think about our total rewards in general, our mantra is they have to be simple, they have to be easy to understand, it has to be clear. So your technology has to be that way. But where we struggle is, again, we have a lot of employees who are not wired. So then our challenge is you have to find a different way to tell them about. They can access it. For years, the past couple ... I would say I've been in manufacturing for a long time and all I kept hearing was that people in a plant, they're not going to use their smartphones.
(28:36):
Yes, they do. We have QR codes everywhere and they use them, but if they don't know, so we use our digital signage, we have our boots on the ground telling them about the benefits we do sessions within plants. So there's got to still be that element of showing up in front of people to educate them, but you can't do it. It'd be very hard to do it without technology.
Paula Sanders (28:56):
We do help clients promote both digitally and good old, like you mentioned, a poster on the wall, the QR code for those that don't have easy access. But I think technology is so important and that's why a digital program is so important twenty four seven, someone can access it because again, it's like when do they have that need, that feeling that they're like, "I need to do something." So you need to be available at all times. And then thinking of other types of technology, I think AI is just kind of everywhere, right? And I think that there's an expectation that there's more personalization using AI and helping people have content, share content and resources that helps them no matter where they are, very personal to them. If they're about to start a family or if they're trying to pay off a house, they want that kind of personalized content and resources.
(29:43):
And I think that's where that type of technology comes in as well. So yeah, technology for sure is important and here to stay for sure.
Kate Fisher (29:50):
Yeah. I think the personalization part, you can have tools that calculators or that type of thing when you can build it so that an employee can reference Their own situation, that's really important. So can they put their own information in and see what changes that they make impact them individually?That's just super critical.
William J.T. Strahan (30:12):
I think Kate and Polly nailed it. The one thing I would add too is technology can make it asynchronous in the sense of, I think one of the things, we talked about what kind of holds people back. One of the things I think holds people back is for finances, you typically have to deal with your partner or your spouse. And sometimes that can be a difficult conversation. You think it would be easier it's actually maybe a harder conversation. And by being able to consume some of these materials, do some of the calculator kind of work or the personalized modeling work at home with the person that you may share finances, that can be a real momentum builder to success.
Alyssa Place (30:50):
Yeah. I mean, it did make me think about what you had said in the beginning, Paula, about the shame that people feel. And if they're interacting at home, they don't even really have to share much. They can just kind of work through that. So it is interesting to see, despite some of the fear that we have, there are a lot of really potential positives from
Paula Sanders (31:07):
That. I think back to, and this still is going on and it's great, a 401k provider coming in and doing a quarterly seminar. That's wonderful. It's education. It's important, but it's often not enough. And it's often no one wants to go in a class. Even just showing up to that class, you're rightly admitting that you've got financial problems. So when you have the digital access, you have a little bit more privacy, a little bit more anonymity. I think that goes a long way for a certain group of people that don't want to share in a public setting.
Alyssa Place (31:36):
And I'd love to hear a little more about some of the ROI that you've seen. Bill, you shared that some of your employees were able to save $6,500 with some of your programs. What is a measure of success? Is it that dollar amount? How are you measuring that success and what are some of the successes that you've seen with your programs and offerings?
William J.T. Strahan (31:56):
We tend to think of ROI is used a lot in business and we kind of think in terms of return of value as opposed to return on investment. I personally think it's hard to draw a straight line between any one of these programs and a change in turnover or a change in employee engagement or a reduction in stress. Certainly you can ask people and they'll give you an answer, but there's so many things that go into the workplace, people's lives are so complex. It's really hard to do. But when we can go and get hard data on what percentage of our population is unbanked, or we know that we saved ... Because not all of this is the lowest paid people or the most vulnerable people, folks that are sort of transitioning into maybe a little bit more of a middle class life or they've begun to have children, that kind of thing.
(32:51):
We've run hard seminars on how to protect yourself with insurance and we kind of bundle that up as a product. We actually do estate planning as well, which sometimes you think of, oh, that's a wealthy person's issue. But estate planning in the sense of a living will, making sure that, especially if you do have children that assets that you have, you know where it will go. And we measure how much money we save for people. And then when we go and ask people at the end of the day, what are some of the reasons you stay here? Benefits are always right at the top of that list. I don't know that benefits are great at attracting people, but benefits can be really, at least in our experience, can be wonderful and powerful at retaining people to avoid leaving and going across the street for a couple hundred bucks.
(33:37):
Yeah,
Kate Fisher (33:38):
That's a great point. At Cummins, for a very old manufacturing company, we have an amazing array of benefits. And you're right, it's a tool that helps keep people if they know about them, but we kind of look at anything around wellness, we do tend to look at a return on value. ROI is so hard. There's so many things going on externally that we can't control, that it's too hard to tie back. But to Bill's earlier comment about when we ask people, I do believe you'll start to see it in their answers. We've watched it shift over time. If I asked a question about how are you doing 10 or 20 years ago, I don't know that it would've been about financial. I think it would've been about physical, maybe mental or emotional, but I don't know that it would've been about financial. And I think asking them, I think there are other ways you can see it.
(34:29):
I mean, post-pandemic or around the pandemic, we knew there was a problem because the government, the IRS changed the rules around withdrawals and it blew up. People were just taking money like crazy. Well, that told us there was a problem. So I think as you start to see your employees level out, maybe you might see some leveling there if you identified an issue before. But I don't know that it's enough to really calculate an ROI,
Paula Sanders (35:01):
But yeah. I agree that VOI is the value on investment. I think it's really, really important. I think the great thing is employers are gotten so smart about identifying that they know. They can see it in their employees when that financial stress is reduced. They can feel it in the culture. They're actively engaging in other benefits. They're not as distracted. They're more productive. Employers know that, but I do think there's some accountability to financial wellness programs that they need to be providing some ROI data. I think that's important. I think companies should ask for that. If a financial wellness program can show that more people are contributing to the 401k or there's less turnover, I think that's really valuable. I know it's not always a straight line. It's hard to show, but I think it's a good thing to ask and a good thing to bring up.
(35:47):
But I think culture and all that is also just a great benefit that comes out of having a financial wellness benefit.
Alyssa Place (35:57):
So obviously the new year is a time to set some new goals and I'd love to hear what you're all planning for 2026. What are those programs and initiatives that you have in store for your employees this year?
William J.T. Strahan (36:11):
Well, one of the ones that we're, and it's kind of a perennial, but it is becoming a focus for us for 26 is investment markets are just kind of so volatile right now. It's been a good stock year, but maybe that means it won't be next year. Making sure that people are making the best decisions around the money that they do have in the 401k and providing the right kind of resources either to kind of turn it over to somebody who can be a fiduciary for them to actually make those decisions or a little bit of a lesser program where they can buy in and get personalized advice on their portfolio and sort of stick to a good investment model. We always run the risk. I think this is almost every big company. You run the risk that not that people take too much risk in their 401k that they don't take enough or they don't take maybe the right kind.
(37:00):
They want to hold onto it. So just making sure that folks are making really solid investment decisions. And then we have a wonderful employee stock purchase plan and selling that pretty hard and kind of the, hey, this is both 401k and it is free money, free money. Yeah.
Kate Fisher (37:18):
What
William J.T. Strahan (37:18):
More do I need to tell you? So that's going to be a big one for 26.
Kate Fisher (37:22):
Yeah, we did that this year. Thi past year we've really, really pushed our employee stock program and done a lot of education. I think that's been really valuable. I also think that in the coming year, we have a financial wellness education platform and we're looking at actually replacing it with a more interactive global platform. So we're in the process of doing that. We're also looking at our retirement plan in the US to say, retirement plans sort of languish sometimes. And so there have been some changes recently in the IRS that might allow us to have some flexibility and to determine if there are maybe more options for flexibility in our retirement program so that different people can have different needs met. Meaning
William J.T. Strahan (38:08):
On the investment side?
Kate Fisher (38:09):
No, no. Just in the actual 401k, the flex plan that came under SecurePoint 2.0. And there are some options if you get a private letter ruling where you can change your plan so that you can have some choice and flexibility. So for instance, in your 401k plan, you might be able to, instead of, you might put 6% in, you might have the option of putting that towards student loans, we have a pension, I might divert some into my pension. I was a little hesitant at first, but we have such a varied population that I'm sort of changing my mind on it now because I do believe that for us, choice is really important when you have such a wide variety, a wide demographic.
William J.T. Strahan (38:58):
We added the student loan portion this year under SecurePoint too. I just wasn't quite sure what you were pointing to. It was one of the most popular things we've ever done. And it was interesting because it was sort of this multi-generational thing. People, let's say in their 30s who were sort of in the midst of being burdened by this debt, they loved it, but the older generation who see it in their kids or maybe who had to live through paying off college loans in the past, they kind of recognized what it meant for young people to be able to get that loan behind them quicker. It was super popular and really kind of easy to do.
Kate Fisher (39:32):
Yeah. And really looking at segmentation too, the way our plans are today, does it work for both our exempt and non-exempt population? And do we need to make changes to it to meet the different needs of those groups of people? So that's what our focus will be in 2026 is really our plan design.
Paula Sanders (39:53):
Yeah. 2026, I think I've probably hinted at a few of them, but for sure working alongside our clients to really make sure we're deepening that personalization through AI and other means, really make sure we're targeting and talking to the different segments of their population, some that are more remote, some that are not easily accessible to having a desktop kind of situation. So doing that. And of course, I think finding ways to integrate seamlessly with other benefits. So we pride ourselves on really trying to work with other benefits that any company might have, right? Whether it's your EAP or whether it's a wellness platform, we want to make sure we're working alongside our clients in that way and making it easier for them to get the information to their employees and for their employees to access it. And then I would say finally would be the reporting.
(40:38):
I think we're putting a big focus on figuring out how we can be better at partnering with our clients to help them actually get that reporting that they need to show maybe to their leaders that it's working and that their employees are making changes and just being able to have that conversation at all levels. So yeah, those are kind of the three big things we're looking at.
William J.T. Strahan (40:58):
Both of those last two, the integration of the report are really valuable, I think, and really important to us as employers. I applaud you doing that. Yeah.
Alyssa Place (41:07):
Well, it sounds like you have very full to- do lists on top of all the other things that you do. I mean, financial wellness is just one piece of a very big pie that you're all balancing. So I really appreciate you taking the time today to speak about this and thank you again for joining.
Kate Fisher (41:21):
Thank you for having us.
Paula Sanders (41:22):
Thank you for having us. Thank you.
