For employers, the research is clear, offering your employees an ESA improves retention and productivity, resulting in a substantial economic benefit. Here’s what you need to know before you get started:
Adoption rate assumption
An adoption rate is applied to company size to estimate the SecureSave participant base. Actual adoption of SecureSave customers ranges between 20% and 80%. This calculator assumes a 40% adoption rate, which increases as program design amounts increase. As of December 2023, average adoption rate among SecureSave's direct customers was 62%. All results are estimates and not utilized verbatim in budgeting exercises.
Employee contribution assumption
When enrolled in SecureSave, employees contribute to their emergency savings automatically from each paycheck. The contribution is configured by the employee. Employer has the ability to set a default to encourage savings behavior. This calculator assumes a $25 biweekly paycheck employee contribution that increases marginally as average salary is increased.
Employer contribution (annual and first-year) result
This is the total annual amount an employer can expect to contribute to their employees’ savings. It takes into account biweekly paycheck matches and sign-up bonuses that would be paid out to all employees participating in the SecureSave program. This takes the adoption rate assumption into consideration. There are different costs for first-year (assuming a sign-up bonus) and subsequent years.
Employee financial wellness results
This is the total amount potentially saved for emergencies by your employees. It includes the assumed employee contribution amount as well as the employer contribution (paycheck match and sign-up bonus) you select while designing the program. This takes the adoption rate assumption into consideration.
Industry research consistently proves that finances cause stress, which negatively impacts work performance. This idea is what drives the long-term return on investment results in this calculator. By alleviating financial stress for your employees, you can see an improvement to retention, reductions in distraction, and increased productivity.
1 Financially-stressed employees are 2.2 times more likely to seek employment elsewhere. - Benefits Pro
2 Nearly half of workers who are distracted by financial concerns spend three hours or more each week thinking about or dealing with personal financial concerns. - WellRight
3 Cash strapped employees are 5.8 times more likely to miss deadlines and 4.9 times more likely to produce lower quality work. - PWC
What makes an effective program
SecureSave programs achieve high rates of adoption in comparison to other employee benefits. A main reason for this is simplicity and ease of use. We encourage employers to keep their programs simple as well. We recommend selecting round, whole dollar amounts that are easy to communicate to the employee base. For example, “set aside $25 from each paycheck and we’ll give you $5.
Biweekly paycheck match
This is the fixed dollar amount that you will pay each participating employee every payroll period. This calculator assumes a biweekly payroll cycle, but SecureSave is configurable to any payroll schedule. In a live SecureSave deployment, employees must save a specified minimum (e.g. $5.00/paycheck) to qualify for the paycheck match.
Sign-up Bonus
This is a one-time bonus you contribute to your employees’ emergency savings balance when they enroll in your program. This is typically offered to boost initial adoption. Higher biweekly paycheck match and signup bonus amounts often lead to higher adoption. Additional program design options are available in SecureSave. They have been left out of this calculator for simplicity.
Get in touch with our team and we'll be happy to dive into the details with you.
