Keeping employees motivated and productive in the current environment is a difficult task on its own, but when you factor in employees who are struggling financially, it’s a whole other ball game.
As an employer, you want to help provide solutions by offering desirable benefits like pet insurance, flexible time off, early wage access and financial wellness resources. We know these programs are proven to increase employee retention, loyalty, and productivity — it’s the ultimate employee benefits package that will help you attract talent and keep your existing employees.
As great as your benefits package might be, unless you make a concerted effort to create awareness and make the information easily accessible, your employees will probably never utilize your offerings. According to a Gallup Workplace poll, 85% of large companies offer a wellness program yet nearly half of their employees aren’t even aware they have access to the resources. If your employees don’t know your benefits exist, you may as well stop paying the premium to offer the services.
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One organization who has done an excellent job with the planning, rollout and ongoing awareness of their employee financial wellness program is Advance Auto Parts. The benefit offered through FinFit was introduced to their workforce of 68,000 employees at the beginning of 2021. To date, 35% of their workforce utilizes the program, with more than 57,000 logins to the platform.
Advance Auto Parts has recognized the importance of being innovative when determining the most effective tactics to reach and engage their employees, from their annual virtual benefits fair to multiple access points to the FinFit application.
Their management team was provided with live and recorded training opportunities to ensure they understood the program and could effectively communicate it to their teams. Employees are sent multilingual materials to over 5,500 locations, promoting the benefit throughout their team member portal, and offering rewards and incentives for participation.
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“We knew the FinFit program was a benefit our employees would be interested in, but successfully introducing new benefits is difficult,” said Anne Monte, director of benefits and wellness at Advance Auto Parts. “We worked with the FinFit team to ensure we had a solid strategy, a dedicated team supporting the launch, and now we have an employee base that is utilizing the resources and truly benefiting from the services.”
Here are some simple best practices you can employ to ensure your organization facilitates a successful rollout with ongoing employee engagement:
1. Work closely with your benefit provider to create a thoughtful rollout plan. Ensure the team executing the launch of the platform is not only aware of the plan, but comfortable with the launch elements and the role they play within the organization.
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2. Determine how benefit materials that meet the language requirements of your workforce will be placed in hand for all employees — onsite and remote. Provide both training and materials to the leadership and management teams so they know the program inside and out. A knowledgeable team that supports the program and can answer employee questions will give the entire team confidence in the solution.
3. In your launch communication, include all programmatic offerings available to ensure participants are aware of the holistic offering. Identify all channels of communication, including postings in the breakroom, team meetings, employee portals, email, SMS and social media.
4. To increase engagement and perceived value, share the good news in person or via teleconference. If an organization doesn’t put forth energy into the rollout beyond a corporate email, why should their employees get excited? Re-engagement communications may feature specific action-based educational experiences, like a financial health assessment, a follow-up with the participant’s financial coach, bill payment reminders, progress towards financial goals, or encouragement to complete educational courses.
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5. Provide employees with personalized recommendations and direct them to the solutions that best fit their needs. A benefit that uniquely supports each employee’s journey and helps them move the needle in a positive direction will prove their time investment is worth it. Reward and motivate positive behavioral change through incentives, loyalty programs and co-worker referrals.
The successful rollout of a new employee benefits program requires an intentional plan and a motivated team to execute the launch and administer ongoing awareness and engagement. The reward is recognized in increased retention, productivity and improved well-being of the organization’s workforce and demonstrates your sincere commitment to the overall well-being of your employees.
