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Thriving companies across every industry all have something in common: They’re able to attract and retain quality employees. Salary goes a long way toward finding and keeping good people on a team, but benefits are arguably equally important.
Many employees have come to expect not only a retirement plan and affordable health coverage, but also benefits or perks like wellness plans or working remotely. The best benefits packages in 2024 come with more options for workers, such as workplace emergency savings programs.
Not every benefit is going to have an equal effect on employee well-being, job satisfaction, and company loyalty. When choosing which benefits to include, it’s critical to be able to measure how different benefits directly impact different employees. Here’s an overview of how to measure the effectiveness of a workplace emergency savings plan.
In some ways, it can be easier to measure physical well-being than financial well-being. Physicians can consider bloodwork and biometrics in addition to the amount and quality of sleep a person is getting, for example.
Financial health metrics encompass variables like income and debt, but to get a true sense of current employee financial health, it’s wise to consider many other factors. Some examples of financial health metrics include:
Money is the biggest area of stress for most employees in 2024, and understanding all the contributors to that stress can give employers deeper insight into how to help alleviate it. According to PricewaterhouseCoopers, financially stressed employees are twice as likely to be job-hunting and are less engaged at work. That survey also found that 73% of financially stressed employees would be attracted to an employer that cares more about their financial well-being.
One of the biggest non-income measures of financial well-being is the ability to pay for sudden, unexpected expenses. Most adults say they wouldn’t pay for a financial emergency using a savings account; instead, they’d use credit cards, borrow money, or a personal loan.
A workplace emergency savings account (ESA) can be an attractive benefit because it helps employees overcome the hurdle of starting a new savings account, and they can designate a certain dollar amount to add to the account for each pay period. The money comes directly from their paycheck, making it easy to continue to save over time. Employers can also offer matches or milestone bonuses to encourage continued savings.
Many workers are used to allocating some of their regular pay to long-term savings accounts, such as a 401(k) retirement plan. A workplace ESA can be even simpler to set up, and offering one can help employees protect their long-term savings and avoid using credit cards by providing an alternative when they need to pay for an unexpected medical expense, car repair, or another large bill.
A quantifiable metric is one that can be directly measured or calculated. These metrics are often the first that come to mind when attempting to measure financial well-being and stress levels, and they’re extremely useful when assessing the effectiveness of a workplace emergency savings plan.
As the provider of the workplace emergency savings program, employers can examine the average and median balances in those emergency savings accounts. This can give employers a sense of which participating employees are well-prepared to tackle emergency expenses and whether there’s room for improvement.
The savings rate is the percentage of individual income that employees are saving from each paycheck. This rate varies depending on the size of the worker’s salary, the local cost of living, and many other factors. To increase the savings rate, employers can offer to provide a matching program, as well as setting milestone bonuses or incentives for reaching a savings goal.
Surveys are a reliable way to measure levels of financial stress and its effect on their employees. Asking if finances are a source of stress (a “yes/no” survey question) can help employers understand what percentage of their workers are feeling some kind of economic pressure. Asking survey respondents to rate their levels of stress around finances (for example, from 1 to 5 or from 1 to 10) can give employers even more insight.
Tracking retention rates can help organizations understand which positions have the highest turnover (or the best retention). This is a form of aggregated data that isn’t collected directly from employees but is rather collated and examined at a company-wide level.
It;s also possible to track engagement among employees by asking questions about whether they feel energized and focused at work, whether they’d recommend their workplace to friends or family, and how much job pride and satisfaction they feel. To ensure honesty and transparency in these surveys, ensure anonymity for respondents.
There are other metrics that can’t be easily measured with numbers or values. These are known as qualitative metrics, and they’re also important to consider when assessing the value and impact of workplace financial wellness measures, including emergency savings plans.
While they can’t be boiled down to a single number, qualitative metrics can give deep context and information around why employees might be feeling financially stressed and how supported they feel by their employer.
A focus group involves a range of employees (from different departments and at different career levels) assembled in relatively small clusters at a specific time and place, where they will be directed to answer a number of questions by a group moderator. A quality moderator will ensure that each group member is heard, and the dynamics of a group discussion can help elicit anecdotes and extract feedback.
Focus group moderators should also be able to create reports for employers that illuminate the highlights of the discussions, common variables among different groups, and action points the employer might consider. For example, a focus group moderator could ask employees to explore why they do (or do not) currently use the workplace emergency savings plan, which can help employers find ways to maximize participation.
Testimonials from workers who have used the workplace emergency savings plan can help employers understand where the plans are working well, and where there might be some room for improvement.
When an employee withdraws money from their workplace ESA, it’s a good idea to send them a quick survey asking them a few basic questions: whether they were able to fully meet their emergency financial need, how easy or difficult it was to access the money when they needed it, and an open-ended invitation to share their experience. Analyzing those open-ended responses can help employers track components of the emergency savings experience that might not be covered by the survey — and assess how useful the program is overall for their workers.
Managers often have the most insight into the effectiveness of workplace financial wellness programs because they are in nearly constant contact with their direct reports. They can see for themselves whether stress exists, how acute it is, and how much it might be affecting their staff.
Giving those middle managers the ability to share open-ended reports about how their team is doing can help organizations evaluate the level of stress that exists and determine the best way to combat that stress.
Measuring financial stress and well-being once is well worth doing, but it gives employers just a handful of data points to examine and analyze. A better idea is to plan ongoing measurements, both qualitative and quantitative, in order to track the long-term impact of workplace emergency savings programs.
Measuring financial stress before implementing a new benefit gives employers an idea of the vastness of the problem, and continuing to measure financial stress over time should provide insight into how specific benefits and programs are actively helping to lower that stress, and whether the program is generating quality outcomes.
Understanding the efficacy of different benefits programs isn’t necessarily simple, but to create a culture of financial support, it’s absolutely necessary.
Assessing and blending both quantitative and qualitative financial health metrics can give organizations well-rounded insights into which of their benefits are providing practical and immediate advantages for their employees and whether it’s worth their investment to continue offering a particular program. By showing this level of care and attention to employee benefits and experiences, companies can ensure they are providing the most effective services for their most important resource — their people.
Many employees have come to expect not only a retirement plan and affordable health coverage, but also benefits or perks like wellness plans or working remotely. The best benefits packages 2024 come with even more options for workers, such as workplace emergency savings programs.
Not every benefit is going to have an equal effect on employee well-being, job satisfaction, and company loyalty. When choosing which benefits to include, it’s critical to be able to measure how different benefits directly impact different employees. But what exactly are you supposed to measure, and how?
We’ve put together a guide to financial health metrics for workplace emergency savings plans. Check it out, and let us know if we missed anything!
The best benefits packages 2024 come with even more options for workers. But how do you measure their effectiveness? Read on for answers.