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Groundbreaking new research illustrates that participating in an emergency savings program (ESA) is associated with improved work performance. I’ve worked in the financial wellness space for the last 10 years and being able to truly quantify the employer’s return on investment of a wellbeing program has been like searching for the holy grail. I’m thrilled to say that we are one step closer based on the study that Dr. Carrie Leana and her colleagues at the University of Pittsburgh have recently published called “The effects of an emergency savings program on employee savings and work performance: A two-year field intervention.” Their findings show real ROI to employers who implement emergency savings programs.
Dr. Leana and her team embarked on a 2-year field intervention with the goal of addressing financial precarity within a medium-sized transportation company (~1,500 drivers) by offering an employer-sponsored emergency savings program. The employees in the study are short-haul truck drivers (i.e. no overnight stays required) with an average household income of approximately $65,000 per year - putting them in the middle-income quintile in the U.S. The research team conducted surveys before the ESA program launched and found that many drivers were persistently worried about their finances. Based on the responses, they were categorized as having low, moderate, or high financial precarity.
With support of the research team, the company implemented an emergency savings program where those who chose to participate contributed $19 a week - automatically deducted from their paycheck - into a personal credit union account. If participants continued to contribute each week and did not make any withdrawals from the account, they could receive a 12% match from the employer at the end of 6 and 12 months. This means that after one year a driver could accumulate approximately $1,100 in an emergency savings account (= $988 employee contributions + 12% match of ~$118).
Finally, data was collected on all participants’ driving safety citations received for the 12 months prior to the start of the ESA program and for 12 months afterwards. This was identified as a key indicator of driving safety and of critical importance to the company in assessing driver performance.
Not surprising, those enrolled in the ESA program saw higher levels of emergency savings accrued 6 months later. Of the population that was employed throughout the 2-year study, 468 of the 772 participated in the ESA program – which equates to a 60% adoption rate. The success of this program deployment tracks very close to our experience at SecureSave and reiterates the key features of an employer-sponsored ESA benefit:
However, the resulting improvement in work performance in this study was by far the most impactful takeaway! For those drivers who were more worried about their financial situations (i.e., more financially precarious) before the program was initiated, their participation in the program resulted in an 87% decrease in driving citations over the year following enrollment in the program.
Showing the relationship between implementing a financial wellness program and improved employee productivity and performance using conventional statistical analysis has been quite elusive to date. This research demonstrates that link: Helping reduce employees’ financial worry and cognitive load through an emergency savings benefit resulted in higher performing, more focused employees at work, which translated into real dollars-and-cents savings for the employer.
The research team also points out that this potential impact begs the question as to why more employers are not offering emergency savings as part of their total rewards package. According to the report, “Our results suggest that these costs are more than outweighed by the benefits in terms of measurable employee performance and that once initiated, such programs can be relatively easy to administer…” While budget and resources are always key considerations for HR teams, the ESA program in this study was quite manual to administer and there are several providers like SecureSave that enable a more automated process. Nonetheless, the cost of the program to the trucking company was ~$100,000 per year including incentives, but the average cost of just one commercial truck accident that includes an injured person is over $148,000. If a fatality occurs, the costs range upwards of $7 million.
An employer in a related industry should be able to estimate the financial impact of such an improvement in workplace safety and performance. Such a significant decrease in employee accidents could be a substantial savings. For example, take a manufacturing company with several factories across the country – they could potentially experience millions of dollars in losses due to mistakes and accidents in the workplace. If that total loss amounts to $5 million annually due to financially stressed employees, then implementing an ESA program could potentially result in an annual savings of $4.3 million for the company!
The team at SecureSave is very thankful that Dr. Leana and her colleagues decided to address financial precarity in the workplace and identified an employer-sponsored emergency savings program as the most impactful benefit to improve employee work performance. The rigor of this two-year research study, which statistically matched program participants and non-participants, along with its focus on the ideal target profile—middle-income employees—and the collection of data both before and after the program, makes it a groundbreaking, first-of-its-kind initiative. We look forward to working with Dr. Leana and her team to support additional research that proves the positive impact that workplace emergency savings programs have on both the employee’s financial wellness as well as the employer’s return on investment (ROI).
Study Cited:
Leana, C., Yang, X., Berkowitz, D. & Kamran-Morley, D., (2025). The effects of an emergency savings program on employee savings and work performance: A two-year field intervention. Industrial and Labor Relations Review, in press.