Top employers discuss the future of financial wellness

Financial wellness can mean very different things to different people (and employers). During a recent Employee Benefit Research Institute — Milken Institute 2024 Retirement Symposium panel, Plan Sponsor View: Supporting Financial Wellness, a group of industry thought leaders discussed these differences and what they meant to employers and advisors.

Josh Jessup, GM Global Retirement and Financial Wellness, Delta Air Lines, explained that his organization looks at it in terms of having a healthy relationship with money. 

“Money should be a tool that enables you to do the things that you want to do, accomplish the things that you want to accomplish, and not be a source of frustration or stress or concern,” he said. “We have a number of different financial resources for our employees. We have a generous 401k plan. We have an emergency savings program that we’ve recently rolled out that we’ve thought more about.”

He also explained that there are a suite of life insurance and financial coaching products to help employees get the basic information that they need through education. “So we try to connect the dots, and one of the things that we’re trying to do is figure out how do to provide that connective tissue to make that process as easy for employees as possible.” 

But financial wellness is going through changes and evolving rapidly, according to Justin Roberts, Principal, Global Financial Health with Amazon. He noted that financial wellness used to mean seminars and education, which may have been conducted once or twice a year. 

“If you’re first looking at retirement, you’re working at the end of the journey,” noted Roberts. “But financial wellness is the total journey. I think whenever we look at it as a global financial wellbeing team, we start by defining what a financially healthy person looks like.”

He explained that you have to start asking your employees the questions: how do I get you there? What can I provide that will make you a financially healthy person? And with that comes very specific outcomes. 

But it’s key to start with the basics before you can think of next steps. Chantel Sheaks, VP, Retirement Policy, US Chamber of Commerce, explained that if you don’t have the basics in place, then where do you go? “I think that’s one of the things that we’re going to be working on with our small employers: how to educate beyond just getting pay roll out,” she noted. “Because that’s what we’re doing. But on the other hand, you have the in-betweens. I have my 401(k) plan, but then what’s that next step? What’s the best place to put my dollar?”

She asks her members to remember that financial wellness includes many things, rather than just a 401k plan.

Some panellists noted that with wellness offerings, people are increasingly embracing the programs that are offered to them. For example, Jessup noted that emergency savings programs have seen significant uptake. “We did a little bit to communicate it, but most of it is our people out there talking: “Are you aware of this? Have you taken advantage of this? Look at how this saved me!” said Jessup. 

At Amazon, employees have been using financial assistance programs, including having an assigned financial assistant for each employee. “The reason we decided to start there was we loved when anecdotes and data marry up at Amazon. And we saw that we had employees who had some very dynamic life scenarios that affected their ability to come to work and work stress-free. We decided to do some financial counseling and we’ve been on that journey for a couple of years now. That program is utilized at a very high rate.”

 “One thing we are looking at for many employees is maybe even using the emergency savings as that stepping stone,” Sheak noted. “Because if you’re not in the plan because you don’t have the money, then maybe this is an easier way for you to get in.” She also explained that many smaller companies wait on the sidelines to see what larger plans are doing before adding benefits programs of their own.