In this session, we'll walk through the key steps to launching an impactful financial wellness program, including:
- Gaining Leadership Buy-In
- Understanding Employee Needs
- Setting Goals & Metrics
- Choosing the Right Partners
- Effective Communication Strategies
- Making Participation Seamless
- Measuring Success & Adapting
Transcript:
Paola Peralta (
Good afternoon everyone. My name is Paola Peralta. I'm an associate editor at EBN, and I'll be the moderator for today's session planning and launching a successful financial wellness program. A critical part of improving the state of employee financial wellness is to provide them with the tools to set them up for that success, which is exactly what we'll be talking about today. Before I go ahead and let our speakers introduce themselves, I have a few housekeeping items to share with all of you. First of all, as a reminder, this is a SHR M certified event up to 2.5 PDCs towards any SHR RM CP or S-H-M-S-C-P recertification. If you have any questions on how to obtain your credits, please refer to the website, the main page of the attendees hub, or send a message through the chat to Heather second in the resources section of the attendee hub.
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We've also added a few resources for this session. There you can find nudges guide to planning and launching a financial wellness program. Third questions throughout the panel are welcome. So if you have any questions for any one of our panelists, go ahead and submit it into the chat. We'll hold responses until the end of the session and get to as many as possible. Fourth. And finally, if you have any other questions or need help use the chat, but please don't send it anonymously. My colleague, Heather, is managing both chat and q and a and won't be able to respond without knowing who you are. Alright, without any further ado, let's hear from our panelists, Lindsay, Jeff, and Jeremy, if you'd like to briefly introduce yourselves in that order, that'd be great.
Lindsey Garito (
Hi everyone, I'm Lindsay Garrido. I'm the Assistant Vice President of Total Rewards at Montefiore, which is a large health system in New York. I have been in HR for about 20 years now, and I also serve on the board of Westchester HR Management Association.
Jeff Tulloch (
Hello everybody, Jeff Tulloch. I spent most of my career with two carriers, Unum and MetLife. Most of that was with MetLife and in that time spent a lot of time with HR and benefits and rewards professionals, all centered around employee benefits. And one of the primary jobs I had at MetLife was helping met build its financial wellness program. And then it led that team for a number of years. For the last five years I've been a consultant and advisor working with corporations and helping them with their financial wellness strategies and financial wellness vendors and carriers and financial advisory firms and private equity firms all focused on how do we establish the greatest financial wellness programs.
Jeremy Beament (
Okay. Hi everyone. I'm Jeremy and I am one of the co-founders here at Nudge and we are a financial wellbeing specialist and we help organizations that we work with run their programs in over 160 countries.
Paola Peralta (
Amazing. So we're going to kick off today's discussion with two polls. The first one is, does your company currently offer a financial wellness program? The responses are yes, no, or currently under deployment or development or review. And I'll give everyone about three to four minutes to answer. So it seems that a majority of people voted yes, which is 39%. So that's wonderful. And the second poll is going to be if you do have a program in place, which it seems that a lot of people do, which types of benefits do you offer? And you can select any that apply. So it'll be financial literacy courses, retirement planning tools, debt management resources coaching, emergency fund support, student loan assistance, employee assistant programs, or budgeting tools. And again, I'll leave it up for three to four minutes. Alright, well it seems like the most popular ones are retirement planning tools and employee assistant programs. And so that's interesting. And let's kick off the discussion with our panelists with just current events. So how has it impacted the landscape? And I'll kick it off to Lindsay first.
Lindsey Garito (
Thank you. I think that now more than ever, we're seeing employees talk about finances a little more openly. We're seeing employees asking about resources that are available to them. It's coming up a lot more in conversation. People are looking at where are they spending money, where can they save money? And we are actually running right now an event for financial literacy month. So we already had planned to do this event for financial literacy month in April, but as we got closer, it felt that it was so poignant and so much more timely now more than ever to be running this event, which we're really using as a tool to educate our employees on the different benefits and resources that we have available, but also provide them opportunities to enhance their education on a wide variety of financial topics. So not just about saving for retirement, but we have over 10 live virtual workshops running throughout the month on a variety of topics.
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Everything from setting up a budget, knowing your credit score, understanding that credit score, tackling debt, all the way to preparing for home ownership and what goes into planning for that and social security and Medicare. So the topics are really vast. And then we also combine that with onsite fares where we're bringing in those financial partners to come onsite, have face time with employees and really get in front of them to help them make sure that they understand what's available and that there's a wide variety of tools that they can leverage for what they most need at this moment in time.
Paola Peralta (
And Jeremy, what has been your experience with that?
Jeremy Beament (
Yeah, so we think that there are four key trends that are meaning that organizations are prioritizing the financial health of their people right now. So number one is the market volatility that we're experiencing. Number two is the fact that yes, the US had a big election in 2024, but there were actually 60 elections globally representing more than 50% of humanity. And what we find after times of elections is that there's a lot of legislative change that people have to navigate their way through. So that's number two. Number three, although we see the rise of AI as generally being a good thing, unfortunately a lot of malicious bad actors are using that technology to part people from their money. And last year, 2024 was the first year that there was over a trillion dollars of online scams. And that's something that we think unfortunately is going to continue to get worse. And then the fourth key trend is the fact that over 30% of people globally say their main source of financial information is TikTok and YouTube, which frankly we find quite worrying. So along with all of the stuff that people do every day, like getting married and moving home and having kids and so forth, those are the big four macro trends that are affecting us right now.
Paola Peralta (
And last but certainly not least, and Jeff, if you'd like to give your take as well.
Jeff Tulloch (
Yeah, I think the market volatility is obviously top of mind for most, if not all people. And this topic of financial wellness, financial health is always present. We're always looking to manage our money the best that we can, whether it's good times or challenging times. So I think that's a good thing in terms of we need to be out there as an industry continually helping our people regardless of what's going on around the world or with the economy. But I also think there's a really great opportunity for employers to show up at this time and be really transparent about, we understand there is this market utility and that probably causes you some added stress beyond your normal stress. So I think the employers really can really show up, like I said, and appeal to their employee base and say, look, we care about you as an employer and as such, here's the things that we're doing currently and maybe additional things to put in place. So acting with that kind of sense of urgency in the very current state that we have today.
Paola Peralta (
And so obviously the first step I think for any financial wellness plan is to first identify employees' needs. And so this question is more geared towards Jeff and Lindsay. What is the strategy for that? If you'd like to kick it off, Jeff?
Jeff Tulloch (
I think the ideal situation is that the leadership and certainly the HR benefits rewards professionals, the ideal situation is that team is really closely aligned with the employee force and not just sitting in a separate room at the company, but really interacting with the people on a continual informal basis. And I think from that, what bubbles up are the common themes, common needs of the employees. So that's the ideal situation is that the HR team is really deeply involved with the employee base. Beyond that, more formally, I think most companies do some level of employee surveying, whether it's annually or quarterly or bi-annually, so they can get feedback through those surveys, but there's also a treasure trove of information that companies have access to. Just think about the retirement plan and all the data behind that in terms of what people are savings rates are or are they taking loans, all the benefits and claims information, the various vendors that companies work with collect again, a treasure trove of data and can supply that back to the companies. So that's how I think of the start is there's an informal process and then there's formally data you have access internally to identify employee needs.
Paola Peralta (
And
Lindsey Garito (
Lindsey, I couldn't agree more with Jeff. Number one, we have members of our team that are onsite in front of employees on a regular basis and they're creating safe spaces for them to share what's top of mind, ask about resources. I think a lot of times we talk about stigma with mental health, but there can be also stigma with our financial wellbeing and hesitancy of employees to reach out and say, Hey, I'm in debt and I need help, or whatever their financial concern might be. But having that relationship where team members are in front of employees and getting that real-time feedback is such a great source. We also leverage data from our solution partners, so that's really important and really important to get that data on a regular basis. So for example, we get monthly utilization reports from our employee assistance program and of course it's confidential and it's aggregated data, but we're able to see what are the top concerns, what are the top areas that employees or their household members are engaging that employee assistance program for and where they're seeking support.
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Similarly, we have an annual review with our retirement plan administrator. We also have monthly calls and reviews as well. But we were really able to see in the last year, again, what is top of mind to Jeff's point, what is the savings rate? What does that look like? Is it going up or is it going down? We were able to see that loans were really high, they were actually higher than benchmark, and that might be an area to address through also a financial wellness checkup tool that they have. For those that completed it, we were able to see that credit card debt was a top concern and something that employees were dealing with. So there's a lot of information and data coming from your own solution partners that you're already working with. And each of these different components of data can really help you inform your strategy in terms of how you want to approach financial wellness programs and what you might need to explore and add or also increase your communication on.
Paola Peralta (
Absolutely. And this next question is kind of geared to everyone again, and it may seem obvious, but what is the business use case for financial wellness programs and how do you get leadership on board? Let's start with you, Jeremy.
Jeremy Beament (
Yeah, so our view on this is that in order for an HR person to have the best chance of getting this through the business case, it's about alignment to goals and objectives within that particular organization. So if I can bring this to life, maybe one of the clients that I work with, Siemens, they have a 20 year vision to transition from being an industrial company to being a tech company. So that's what the CEO thinks about every day, but it's a highly unionized environment. And in order for them to achieve that, they've got a big cohort of people in their forties and fifties who have to retire when they and the company expect to allow that digital talent to come through. So therefore there's a very, very clear objective of their particular program, which is around how do we help engage people with their retirement plans and contribute more so that we know that they can retire when they're in the company, expect to. So that's what we're really trying to search for when we start working with organizations is why are you doing this? You're busy enough as it is already, what are the clear objectives you have that align to your company's goals so that when you take this through to the business and it lands on the CFOs or CEO's desk, they go, yeah, absolutely. Makes perfect sense.
Paola Peralta (
And Jeff, if you'd like to chime in,
Jeff Tulloch (
Yeah, I couldn't agree with Jeremy's comment more there, if a company has three or four or five core goals for the year or maybe for a three year plan, making sure that you're thinking about financial health in that light because if it can support any of those goals, then it aligns with what the senior most leadership is thinking about every day. But I'll go back to what Lindsay and I were just talking about a little bit a minute ago too, in terms of the business plan. You have so much data inside of the company. So I was meeting with a large global company fairly recently, and as we were talking about financial health, it just became so apparent that the retirement plan was the most important thing on their mind right now. And specifically loans and withdrawals that people were taking and the benefits professionals were so passionate about trying to fix this and make sure people were saving money at the right and keeping it there, not borrowing it, not taking loans, loans against it.
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So digging into that information and seeing what it tells you and if it's not ideal, okay, if we really focus on that with a financial wellbeing program, what could that do to change this dynamic and how is that good for us in terms of people getting on the right retirement? So to Jeremy's point, people retire at the right age, and that's another important stat for just about every company in terms of getting people to retire so you can advance the next level of a talent. So digging into that information, the claims information that you and the providers have access to specifically around stress, and if you can reduce the stress in terms of helping people become more financially literate, how that's going to benefit not only the medical plan, but also the workforce in terms of productivity, sick days, employee retention, how long people stay.
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So there's all this data that you can dig into as you start thinking about putting numbers on paper in the business plan. And then the last thing I would recommend is the providers that you do business with today, or you're thinking about doing business with should be partners for you in this, right? They have a very strong vested interest in keeping the program or putting their program in play with you, and they typically have opinions and model, and the best of them certainly will work consultatively with you to help you develop a plan in as strongest fashion so you can get the approval that you're searching for.
Paola Peralta (
And Lindsay, do you have any closing remarks on this?
Lindsey Garito (
I would just say coming from the seat of the HR professional that benefits our total rewards leader who's going to be presenting solutions for leadership review and approval, that data is going to be a key part of your business case to leverage why we may need to make an investment or take some budget to bring in this potential new solution and why this is important. What problem is it solving? How is implementing and investing in this new solution going to solve a problem that's affecting our workforce? We're not just implementing this because it's a nice to have or because our colleagues and other organizations are implementing this, we're implementing it for a reason and it's because we know the needs of our employees right now. And to Jeff's point, it's all holistic. And I think when you approach it that way, it's not just about offering another financial wellness benefit, it's about supporting the overall health and wellbeing of your people. And it's never just about finance. We see it time and time again. There's components of our physical health, our mental health that are involved. And while you may not know why, perhaps anxiety is up and there could be a lot of different reasons why that is, there likely is a connection to stress and anxiety and other forms of our health being impacted related to the financial stresses that we're dealing with.
Jeff Tulloch (
Well, I think you also asked about leadership. And the one thing I would suggest is ultimately you're going to have to get signed off by somebody at some level, whether it's A-C-E-O-C-H-R-O-C-F-O, maybe all the above, but ringing leadership along for the ride in the early days, it's so important. So it's not just something that you pop to them on one day and they've never thought about this before. So in your reviews with leadership in your informal messaging with leadership in town halls where they're involved and you're interacting with employees anywhere you can bring up and have the employees weigh in regarding what their needs are and what they're looking for and just ultimately bringing the leadership along for the ride as opposed to dropping this on one day is just such a better route to go in terms of getting their support.
Paola Peralta (
And it's interesting, Jeff, that you mentioned them being your partners earlier in the conversation, because this next question is a good financial wellness programs also means having good partnerships. And so walk me through the process of building those.
Jeff Tulloch (
Yeah, really this is the real key component. I'd love to hear Jeremy and Lindsay's thoughts of this afterwards, but I think it starts internally before you even think about good partners. And by internally I mean doing your own review in terms of understanding your employee needs. Is it everyone's concerned about today or is it everyone's concerned about retirement savings or is it maximizing the benefits that we offer? So understanding your workforce I think is the starting point in terms of what is the focus areas or what are the focus areas for us? And maybe there's multiple. And then from there, what are we trying to achieve from that? Are we trying to get people to contribute more to the retirement plan? Are we trying to get people to take advantage of this benefit in an increased fashion?
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So I think that's one starting point. I think the other starting point for me is having some internal dialogue about what is our financial wellness program? Interesting. It was interesting to me the number of the percentage of people who said they have a financial wellness program. I would argue if you have a retirement plan and a benefits program, you have a financial wellness program, it may be pretty basic, but you can kind of build from there. So really kind of questioning yourself about what is our financial wellness program, what do we offer that provides financial assistance and helps people with their financial health? So I think those are really two key components From there, when you think about partners, I think all the partners need to collectively understand what your strategy is and what you're trying to achieve. And they all need to show up in support of that and in support of each other. They're not competitors in this space. They need to recognize that you are the client and they all need to understand what you're trying to achieve and come there in support of you.
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And then finally, the best partners need to show up in a consultative fashion. They need to ask you a lot of questions as opposed to just telling them, here's our product, buy it. They need to really understand, get underneath the covers, if you will, in terms of what you're trying to accomplish through a consultative approach. And they need to bring their evidence of their experience and their data and their ability to drive impact, which is about behavior change for the people. So I think the best partners, that's the end state for me is they really need to be group partners and you need to get comfortable that they're showing up in that consultative approach and really part of your broader team.
Paola Peralta (
And Jeremy, I wanted to give you space to answer or give some insight as well because I know you're coming from this issue from the other side. And so if you had any thoughts on what Jeff said that could be nice.
Jeremy Beament (
Yeah, I completely agree with Jeff around having that coherent employee experience is going to be very important. So what you don't want is all of the vendors trying to message people in different ways. So making sure that the way that we approach it with clients is to have a calendar that aligns with the days that might be happening. For example, international Women's Day or World Mental Health Day, making sure that all of the vendors know exactly what's going on, what the objectives are, and that we're working together. So for example, our piece of the jigsaw is that we're a financial education provider. So if someone's learning about the personal finances of having a child, what a brilliant opportunity for us to reveal the family friendly benefits that the company offers. Or if someone's learning about debt, what a brilliant opportunity to reveal the employer assistance program or the mental health resources. So it's about it all just working together in that very, very coherent way.
Paola Peralta (
And then Lindsay, as kind of the HR person perspective, is there anything that you'd like to add?
Lindsey Garito (
Yeah, I would say that that's actually a big focus area for us in the next year is bringing all of our partners together, all of our benefits together and having it being more of a continuous conversation and seamless experience. We're not just talking about one solution or just the one thing that an employee may have inquired about, that there are a whole lot of other resources and benefits that directly tie in to what might be in question in that moment. I would also say for us, partnerships internally are really important and we're working hard at that and continuing to develop that. And what I mean by that is, for example, not only educating employees, but educating our HR business partners and managers. So getting in front of them, having dedicated time with them to educate them about our different programs and benefits that are available, having actually that solution partner present and spend 30 to 45 minutes sharing about the benefit and getting in front of them to make sure that they're equipped with, okay, here's what we have available within the benefits. And then when they are getting that frontline question, whether it's as the HR business partner or the manager of the employee, they can be empowered to have the information resources to help that employee in real time. So it's not just about having to come to HR or total rewards for information and resources managers, HR business partners and others are equipped with information to step in and really amplify what we're doing with our financial wellness program.
Paola Peralta (
And obviously these programs mean nothing if employees aren't using it, but getting employees to participate is often the hardest part. And so Jeff and Lindsay, what are some strategies to not only communicate a wellness program but get employees to use it? And Jeff, I'll kick it off with you.
Jeff Tulloch (
Yeah, Lindsay, I love your concept of bringing in other leaders, managers, other areas to make sure they're aware of it so they can communicate out. So I think that is a very practical best practice. So if I'm in a company, maybe I connect with the CEO at a all team town hall event, but the more regular is I'm connecting with my boss in a smaller town hall and having that person talk to me directly is more direct than hearing from my CEO, if you will. So I think that is a great concept that Lindsay just mentioned. I would also suggest advertising the success of the program, and obviously you're going to do this in anonymized way and not disclose specific people, but you can communicate whether it's a prepaid legal plan or whether it's a financial education program or whatever else, you can build stories in terms of part of your communication strategy that helps people go, that kind of sounds like me. Maybe that's something I can look at it. And just the strength of storytelling. So those would just be two things that I'd mentioned. Lindsay, I don't know if you want to add onto that,
Lindsey Garito (
And I would say don't underestimate employees as being ambassadors too. We've seen that firsthand with our Financial Literacy month event where an employee is coming to the onsite fair, they're getting some help from the tables, and then they say, I'm going to go back to my team and let my colleague know and have them come stop by. And so even just that conversation and interaction among employees themselves can really help make connections for people and help amplify them. Taking advantage of resources, we are going to focus a lot as well in the coming months on storytelling. How can we pull in testimonials and really share real life stories that employees are taking advantage of benefits and it's supported and helped them in some way? And then sharing that through our different vehicles of communication. We make it a constant conversation that's really important is to always make sure it's not just a one-time thing.
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Yes, we might be doing something right now for financial literacy month, but we are always sharing resources. We're leveraging a monthly newsletter, we're leveraging Veeva Engage. We're leveraging our digital wellbeing platform. So these different forms of communication to always be talking about and sharing resources, our live workshops that we're sharing every month, and we also tie it into our digital wellbeing platform. So we have attending a financial wellness workshop, for example, as part of one of the activities for them to complete. So there's also ways that you can connect it to other things that you're doing and other things that you're focusing on to actually get them to engage with the different resources and benefits that you have.
Paola Peralta (
And Jeremy, as a follow-up on your end, how do you measure the success of these programs and then how do you maximize their findings?
Jeremy Beament (
Yeah, yeah. Perfect. So if you don't mind me just adding to what Lindsay and Jeff said just for a moment, just to bring in a few client case studies of some innovative things that we've seen our clients do that I think work very well. So by way of example, GSK and AXA actually persuaded their CEO to be the face of their programs. And I think that that's a great way because there's someone in the organization who can cut through because people are so busy and that can help generate that participation. And then to give you another example, PepsiCo did something very innovative where they worked out that it actually wasn't necessarily the employee who was looking after the finances of their family, and so it was potentially their partner. So what they actually introduced was access to the program for family members as well, which I thought was pretty innovative and helped spread that good news out into the wider community.
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And then to back up what Lindsay said about employees being involved as well, one of our clients, Accenture, what they do is use their networks that exist to spread the good word and create champions, be that the veterans group, the family group, or whatever it might be. So there's existing channels are really good. I do think though that if you have a good program, partner usage really should be a given. What we are more interested in is actually how do we move the dial on things like are people contributing more to their retirement plans? Are people more likely to be part of the company stock plan? Are people more likely to be participating in the open enrollment window? And all of those kinds of things. Which leads us back to the beginning, which is what are the objectives of the program? Be really, really, really clear about what the why is point the program at those things and then measure them coming out
Paola Peralta (
And we'd be remiss to not talk about technology and how it's kind of disrupted the space. And so is it positive, is it negative? Jeremy, I'll kick it back to you.
Jeremy Beament (
Well, I'm definitely going to say it's positive, but interested to have a debate with Jeff and Lindsay if they disagree. I think what tech allows you to do it allows you to scale, which is great. It's successful 24 hours a day, seven days a week. And particularly when you go onto global creating workshops for a huge organization in 60 countries, that's really, really difficult. And so technology enables you to scale, enables you to deliver that personalization. It's accessible 24 hours a day, seven days a week, 365 days a year. So in my opinion, I think it's all positive.
Paola Peralta (
And Jeff, if you'd like to kind of add first.
Jeff Tulloch (
Yeah, I think to Jeremy's point allows you to get to everybody. It's always on. I'd also add that you can develop a layer personalization through the technology so that I'm getting something different than Jeremy as compared to Lindsay because we all have kind of three different things that we're focused on. So I think the personalization is another potential, assuming that the provider has that ability. The only thing I would mention from a con perspective is at the core of us being getting better financially is largely about behavior change. And look, if we're looking to lose weight, if we're looking to exercise more, if we're looking to stop smoking, whatever the thing is, it's about changing behavior. A lot of times that's just really, really hard. So the technology can kind of prod us, but can the technology ultimately cause us to go immediately in and save more money? I think some of the times the answer is yes, but some of the times it's important to not lose sight of that. And the point that Jerry made, Jerry made earlier is provider needs to be able to show that to you and say, we have evidence that we are changing behaviors, we have evidence of impact. So I would just challenge your providers along those lines relative to technology as Okay, and what's the evidence that you are changing behavior?
Paola Peralta (
And then Lindsay, I'm curious if you have any takes on this as the bird's eye view. I feel like on how technology has changed the space,
Lindsey Garito (
It allows us to number one, create access, pull all of our benefits together, make it accessible all hours of the day, wherever someone is, especially for others like myself who might be in an industry where mostly workers are frontline and not sitting at a desk all day and don't have sort of that immediate access to certain resources. Making it accessible for them via mobile apps and other applications is super important and so that they can engage with it when they have the time, but also making it an easier experience for them and making those resources easy to find. I would also say too that the tools that we have currently, we're able to see some of that happening to some of what's just being discussed. So for example, there is a financial wellness tool that we have through our retirement plan administrator and then we have data that over 30% of those who complete that financial wellness tool wind up increasing their contribution and engaging more with all of the different other resources and planning services that are available to them.
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So I think that's a great example of where the technology is helping. I would also say sort of what can be tricky is not to lose that human touch and that human interaction. And one scenario that we've just recently seen was an employee was facing some financial distress and they were in a spot where they were actually contemplating resigning from their position and withdrawing their retirement plan account. And they had indicated that they knew the resources that were available, but it wasn't really until we were able to dig in a little bit deeper with that HR business partner, understand the challenges and what was going on and really encourage and connect them to our partner who could have a one-on-one conversation with them. It was really only until then that we were able to, or they were able to make progress and get to a better place where they felt supported and where they were able to start having an action plan put in place and understand other options that were available to them. So I just think that that example is a good one of where the human touch is really important.
Paola Peralta (
And this final question, again, I'll go down the line and ask you all of your insights, but one of the biggest questions and most important questions is how do we pay for these programs? Where do we find the funds for them? And Lindsay, I'll throw it back to you because I know that you have recently seen and had experience in this.
Lindsey Garito (
Yeah, anytime I go to an organization, I always start with what do we have available today? That to me is the starting point. What do you already have? What perhaps is not really being utilized or really shared? Are employees even aware of what's available? Are there benefits within your existing benefits and resources that you can pull out and make more prominent and really share and make sure that people are understanding? Then from there, through that employee feedback through your data, identify where you have gaps. What is something that we may need to consider adding and vetting a new solution for? And if there's a cost involved, how are we going to cover that expense? And I think a lot of times it's important to look at our benefits and our budgets holistically. We might be at one point in time focusing on a particular benefit.
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In this case we might be looking at a financial wellness benefit, but what's going on with our other benefits? Are there other benefits in place that are being underutilized? Are we investing in something that really isn't that popular, but yet we have another need that employees are actually asking about and looking for and perhaps we sunset that benefit and use that spend to cover this? There's other options that might exist where you might have maybe a wellness credit through your medical plan carrier. Are you using that? Can that help fund and cover some of the expense of something that might come in? Are there other areas of benefits where you can look at minimizing that spend to help offset costs of other benefits that you ultimately need to add to your portfolio?
Paola Peralta (
Jeff, any thoughts?
Jeff Tulloch (
I would say one is just don't think about your own specific world. So there's others around you that may have access to budget dollars. Maybe those are employee resource groups. I don't know, maybe the CFO's office has a bit of an extra fund. So think about other ways that you can pull in people who will benefit and want to participate in this. And so that would be just one thought. And the other would go back to the business case is it's just so important to think about that business case so that when you are asking for dollars that you have that evidence. And obviously that's pretty obvious. And then the only other thing I was thinking about was what was the final part? That might come back to me, but Jeremy, maybe you have a comment as I think about what the third aspect was.
Jeremy Beament (
Yeah, sure. So I mean, I'm very respectful of the fact that a lot of organizations are trying to do something on a tight budget and doing something for your people. I really commend it. One consideration that I would ask the audience to have though is the fact that if something is free or nearly free, then you have to accept the fact that your employees have basically become a sales funnel for funds under management or product distribution or whatever it might be, that that's just the way it is and you'll have to get comfortable with that. The other extreme is that it's a pure fee based model, in which case the employer pays and there is no product distribution funds under management. So you just need to go into it with your eyes open and decide how you feel comfortable.
Paola Peralta (
Jeff, did you find that last thought or did it?
Jeff Tulloch (
Yeah, the other thing I was just going to mention is in Jeremy's situation where they're calling global programs, you may say, okay, I can't afford the world right now, but I can afford starting in these two countries. Or Lindsay in your world, maybe it's one location or some subgroup. And from there, as long as you're doing the right job and the provider's doing the right job, it's going to work or it should work. And then from there you can expand accordingly.
Paola Peralta (
Well, the good news is we have a lot of really great questions from the audience. And so before we go closing remarks, we can touch on some of these. First question is, there's a push for us to financially educate our employees via our 401k vendor. The vendor already has ongoing programming available to employees, and I'd love to bring in other programming. How do we help leadership think beyond retirement? Let's start with Jeremy, since I saw you nodding along.
Jeremy Beament (
Yeah, I think it's a brilliant question and I think that when we first set up this company 11 years ago, when we talked to people about financial wellness or financial wellbeing, they assumed we meant retirement. And I think that retirement is an incredibly important component, and particularly on that return on investment angle. If the employer is making a big investment in contributions, of course they want an outcome from that and some kind of return on investment. What I would say is though that our view is that financial health should be a lot more holistic. So we divide the world of finance into 30 areas. So everything from avoiding scams through the vehicles, and there's some cool stuff in there that maybe hadn't considered part of one of these programs like new to the country, your people who've maybe come from India to the us, how do they assimilate into the environment? Or how do we help people who literally have never budgeted for the first time all the way through to your people who are more sophisticated and maybe they need some help on inheritance planning. So I think that the more holistic the program, the more likely there is to be something for everyone. The more likely you'll drive higher engagement, the more likely people will take action, the better the outcomes will be, the better the return on investment.
Paola Peralta (
And Lindsay, do you have any thoughts?
Lindsey Garito (
Yeah, it reminds me of what we're doing right now in terms of really amplifying the workshops that we're offering and the webinars. We have a fiduciary responsibility when we have a retirement plan. There is a fiduciary responsibility to educate employees and make sure that education is continuously happening. And while our retirement plan administrator does offer ongoing webinars and workshops, we have other solution partners that offer them as well. Our employee assistance program is one, our other banking partner is one. So we're making sure that they are all in the rotation, that they're all offering workshops across a variety of topics and that we're utilizing those resources that are available. The EAP, it's part of our contract. They were going underutilized. So before when I mentioned what resources do you have available that might be collecting dust, we had these credits to run live workshops, so we should be using them and we should be making that a regular schedule of events. And then our banking partner also offers free webinars and workshops across topics. We get to pick the topics so we make sure that we're covering all those different areas of finance and going beyond just retirement savings.
Paola Peralta (
And Jeff, is there anything you'd like to add?
Jeff Tulloch (
Nope, I'm good for now.
Paola Peralta (
Okay. The second question is what is a good method to gauge employee needs on an ongoing basis and how often should a company survey their employees about their current needs and their level of financial stress? Jeff, would you like to kick this one off?
Jeff Tulloch (
Yeah, I think we may have touched on this one a little bit earlier, but I think of it informally and formally again. So the formal part is the surveying that most companies do, and I think there's a way maybe to build off of current surveying, to ask additional questions to get some feedback. But equally important is this an informal piece. And it's not just Lindsay, it broader than Lindsay in her organization, connecting with people and really having some of those in moment conversations about what's on your mind, how can we show up as the best employer? So I think of it two sides that barbell, if you will. One is just the formal approach and the other is the anecdotal informal approach.
Paola Peralta (
And then St. Jeremy, do either of you want to build off of that?
Lindsey Garito (
Just say we always have to be mindful of survey fatigue, and that's always how do you balance it and how do you determine what that right number of surveys is? It's hard to do that. And I think where you can get a few questions in, and maybe it's coming in from the actual benefits that you're utilizing, it's a really light touchpoint, it's a really light way to get that feedback from employees without a large survey that might be taking time. And I would also say that if you're running an event or if you're running a workshop, try to find ways to engage with the employee and just ask, what did you think of this? Was this insightful? Was it helpful? Are there any other topics that you'd like to see us cover? And having that rapport, again with your other teams, your other leaders, your other managers, HR business partners, whoever it might be, that can be a source of information as well. Hey, what are you hearing? What are employees talking about? We're running something on this topic, but if you're maybe hearing more of a focus on something else, we can start targeting some efforts for that. So I think you'll get different pieces of information from different sources, and it's important to have that. And Jeremy?
Jeremy Beament (
Yeah, so the way that we manage this is that as people use the program all anonymized and aggregated, we then play back the analytics management information to our clients so that for example, they can see their people's financial health or their interests or their aspirations by country, by region, by age band, by salary band, to enable that evidence-based decision making. And I think for a benefits practitioner, understanding some of this stuff is incredibly interesting and useful to guide scheme design decisions and also how you present the benefits that you offer. So if there's a spike of interest in debt in a particular cohort, then you can point your EAP program at them in a more targeted fashion. So rather than surveying people, it happens more naturally through people just using the program and then the analytics coming out and therefore understanding what the pulse of people is.
Paola Peralta (
And this next question, do any of your programs lean into healthcare claims? And if so, did you run into any issues with HIPAA or other privacy concerns? Lindsay, I'll hand this one off to you first.
Lindsey Garito (
We don't have anything connected at this point in time. So the claims and data is all distinct from one another. So we look at it individually and any data that we are looking at is anonymous, it's aggregated. We're not looking at by person or even by smaller groups. Jeff,
Jeff Tulloch (
Same thing. Everything I've seen, as long as everything's anonmized and it's not personal.
Jeremy Beament (
And Jeremy, I interpreted the question slightly differently. So forgive me if this is my misunderstanding. I thought where the question was going was, can the program impact healthcare claims and therefore reduce costs? So I maybe got that slightly wrong, but if I pretend for a moment that that was where the question was going, that's kind of the holy grail. I think we're going, we're all aiming for, particularly in the US where healthcare costs are the biggest in the world and getting more and more every year. If we're able to evidence that as a consequence of people having better financial health, that they have reduced stress, they have reduced depression, all of these things, which we can kind of evidence, but then how that then feeds into claims, I think that's the bit, and Jeff and I actually know someone that's probably not appropriate for me to mention their name at the moment, a global benefits leader who did this at her old company, a totally groundbreaking bit of research. I think you know who I'm talking about, Jeff, and maybe we can request her permission to put this in the show notes afterwards, the work that she did. But yeah, that's the holy grail we're all after is can we evidence that if you put in place a financial health program that your healthcare costs decrease over time
Paola Peralta (
And the next person wants to know what resources or COIs would you guys recommend for establishing financial wellness programs for employers that have under a thousand employees? Is there anyone who wants to raise their hand on that first?
Lindsey Garito (
I can jump in and start. I think when you're a smaller organization, an easy program to look at as your employee assistance program likely have one. And so does it include financial coaching? Number one, are there financial related resources? And I know we keep saying financial, but legal is a big part of finance as well, and that can be a component of where employees are facing concern or needs support. So are there resources within your employee assistance program that support financial coaching, different financial and legal resources? And also, how can you optimize your employee assistance program? So again, it's already something you likely have and are already spending on, but are there ways to enhance it? We have a number of sessions per occurrence, not per year, but per occurrence. So what that means is that if an employee or one of their household family members engages in the employee assistance program for a financial need, but then six months down the road needs it for something else, they have that ability and that resource to take advantage of the benefit for more than one thing.
(
We have legal resources within our employee assistance program. Again, we're not paying extra for these. It's all part of the program. So how are we extracting that out, putting it out there, another benefit that we offer that doesn't cost us anything, we're really just responsible for communicating it and making sure that it's readily available for employees to access is a purchasing power program, and that benefit allows employees to pay for certain household items and larger items that they might need but might not be able to pay for either in cash or on a credit card. So there's no credit check, and it allows them to get that item and pay for it over time. So I think that's a really great benefit that doesn't really cost us money, but provides an opportunity for employees to have financial assistance for things that they need. Jeremy,
Paola Peralta (
Any thoughts?
Jeremy Beament (
Yeah, I do. And it's more of kind of general benefits point. So I first started working in benefits 25 years ago, and when I joined the industry, benefits were really centered around choice. That was kind of the big macro thing. And now I think what we've seen is the transition to benefits being about wellbeing. And so for organizations who are maybe smaller and building out their benefits capabilities, one of the things that I would suggest is as you introduce new benefits, think about how this is helping your people bring their best self to work. And I think that if we can center your benefits strategy around that holistic wellbeing piece, you won't go far wrong.
Paola Peralta (
And Jeff?
Jeff Tulloch (
Yeah, I would just say that when I started in this industry 15 years ago, you could count the number of providers on one hand, probably that's not the case. Now, there are providers that focus geographically, certain areas exclusively or industries, there's various price points. So dig in a little further regarding the various providers, and there might be somebody that specializes just in your industry or that might be a good fit for you.
Paola Peralta (
And this will likely be our last question since we're already five minutes out. But what are your positions on a carte approaches to offer employees to fund access to specific benefit programs that are relevant to them? And I'll start with Jeffson on my screen.
Jeff Tulloch (
Yeah, there could be an absolute spot for a car. It depends on going back to what we talked about earlier, really digging in and understanding your population. So I think challenge yourself to say, okay, is our workforce, everyone's between 30 and 40 years old and they tell us they all have this one situation, whether it's retirement savings, saving for college, getting out of debt, increasing credit, and then you can maybe zero in on something that is a la carte. The foundation though, for me, and this has been in my mind for forever, we are not raised to understand our money. We rely on families and friends, and you can argue if that's the best approach. So we have to get more comfortable with money, we have to become more financially literate, educate ourselves more. So I think that's an absolute core of every financial wellness program. And you have to help people read more about money, see videos, get more confident in their different approaches. And then the other parts, the Alec Clark parts, I think inspire out of that.
Jeremy Beament (
Jeremy? Yes. So here's the start that I love. The average American spends 15 minutes a year thinking about their benefits, and yet the average American company spends 25% of payroll on providing those benefits. So there's a huge value gap between what organizations are paying for benefits and the value that the employee places on them. And I think before you get into the whole kind of flexible benefits, a la carte benefits, cafeteria benefits and so forth, my view would be around making sure that your people are really aware of the benefits that they already have and driving maximum bang for your buck.
Paola Peralta (
And Lindsay
Lindsey Garito (
Just pay attention too to the administration of it all. Of course, we would love to offer all the benefits to meet all the needs of our people, and there are so many great options out there, and there are so many individualized options that focus on a niche area. I think it's just tough to administer it all. It's tough to bring that on our plates. And so just be mindful, do you have the internal resources and infrastructure to administer a la carte benefits so that you're not just implementing something and then it's set it and forget it and you're not really going back to it at all? Because I'm sure we all know that if you build it, they don't necessarily come. And it takes effort and it takes ongoing effort to continue to communicate on benefits. It can't just be that one time rollout. And so just make sure that you have the capacity and the time and the resources to be able to continuously engage and educate employees on all of the different benefits that you're offering and why.
Paola Peralta (
Amazing. Well, we only have about two minutes left, so I wanted to take these last two minutes to just ask a general question. To close this out is what would be, having talked about everything we talked about today and the nature of the questions that we've seen, do any of you have any kind of last advice for any employer that is looking to start their financial wellness program or revamp it with everything that's going on?
Jeff Tulloch (
I would say one, be curious. Be a student of this industry. Gain knowledge, talk to people inside the company, talk to colleagues outside of the companies. That would be one. Two would be scrutinize. The providers that you speak with really go 2, 3, 4, 5, 6 layers, layers deep, challenging them to make sure it's the right fit, but ultimately, don't give up the fight on this. This is too important for your people and too important for the company ultimately, in terms of a great place to work. So those would be three things I would recommend.
Paola Peralta (
And Jeremy?
Jeremy Beament (
Yeah, well said. Jeff, firstly, and Lindsay and Jeff, it's been a real pleasure and thank you, Paola, for looking after us today. I think that if it makes sense for your organization, this is because money touches every part of our lives. These programs are really important and there are a lot of fun to work on. So I wish everyone well, who's listening in
Paola Peralta (
Our final remark, Lindsay, if you'd like to go ahead right before we close out.
Lindsey Garito (
Thank you. I would say start with taking an inventory of every financial benefit and resource you have available today. And if you're not entirely sure, or even if you think you are, go to every benefit provider that you're currently working with. Ask them about financial wellness benefits. What do they have? What do they offer? Is there anything embedded in the current offerings that can be part of this space, even if it's not necessarily a financial wellness benefits solution? I remember in a previous organization, it was through our disability carrier that we had this extra benefit available of free financial coaching. No one knew about it, none of the team even knew it existed. So go to all of your current vendors and partners, talk about it, make it a topic of conversation, really pull it out, look at your contracts, look at what's in there and start there. So take that inventory and have direct one-on-one conversations with all of your existing partners.
Paola Peralta (
Amazing. Well, Jeremy, Lindsay, Jeff, thank you so, so much for a wonderful conversation. And thank you everyone who joined us today for today's session. I hope you guys enjoy the rest of the day.