通过工人财务健康提高股权：雇主的框架

To address financial health gaps across demographic groups in your workplace, you will first need to diagnose the disparities using data to identify gaps. Next, you will design and deploy solutions targeted at those gaps.

Using Data to Identify Financial Health Disparities

为了确定适合您的员工的最佳解决方案，您必须首先measure their financial health needsand identify where gaps and inequities exist. HR leaders have access to a wealth of data through their payroll and benefits systems that can shed light on not only the financial health of a workforce, but also on the current utilization of benefits across that workforce. Employee surveys can be a rich source of additional insight into financial health needs and vulnerabilities. By disaggregating the data by race, ethnicity, gender, income, job level, and other demographic or job characteristics, HR teams can begin to see where there may be differences in financial health outcomes for different groups.

Of course, gathering and analyzing these data can sometimes be challenging. Many employers are required by the EEOC to collect and report limited employee demographic data. Key data are often stored in various systems internally or externally with third-party vendors, which can complicate efforts to assess benefits utilization by demographic segments. Some firms are hesitant to gather and analyze their data by demographics, particularly by race and ethnicity, due to the perceived legal risk of conducting such analyses.

尽管面临挑战，但我们采访了几个大型雇主，这些雇主最近开始通过人口统计和工作特征分析其福利数据。有些人正在用总奖励优化调查和其他员工调查中的自我报告数据来补充福利数据，以更好地了解特定需求的普遍性，例如残疾儿童或老年父母的员工。许多人力资源领导人还积极与组织的员工资源小组合作，以发现特定领域面临的特定挑战。

Designing Equity-Based Approaches to Employee Financial Health

Once HR leaders have identified gaps in financial health outcomesfor different segments of their workforce, they can begin to consider opportunities to address those disparities through the design and delivery of benefits and total rewards practices.

Through our early research, we’ve identified several strategies for designing programs and benefits that promote equal financial health outcomes for employees.

Broaden Access to Benefits That Support Financial Health

在薪酬，退休和医疗保健福利等领域中审查并刷新您现有的人力资源和人才政策，以优先考虑财务健康。例如：

• • Ensure that all employees are earning wages and benefits that support their financial healthwith tools such asMIT’s Living Wage Calculatoror诸如贝宝（Paypal）的净支付收入概念之类的较新指标。This should include workers who indirectly support operations through contracted firms or temporary staffing agencies.
  • 扩大提供弹性和建立财富机会的好处，例如医疗保健和退休计划，以及包括兼职员工在内的更广泛的员工。
  • 减少或消除新员工的等待期为了获得福利，认识到金融不稳定会导致更高的营业额，尤其是对于一线工人。

Use Targeted Strategies to Improve Financial Health for Specific Segments

Historically, the prevailing ethos in most HR departments has been the principle of “fairness” – the idea that the same programs and benefits need to be equally available to all employees. HR leaders tend to design benefits for theaverageemployee, often resulting in suboptimal results for employee segments who do not fit that profile.

A growing number of HR leaders recognize that they need more targeted approaches to close gaps in financial health outcomes among employees.

Our early research reveals that these approaches take three main forms:

1.使财务困难的员工更容易获得福利。除了扩大更多员工获得关键福利的机会外，公司还可以实施分层的费用结构或修改后的交付方法来满足一系列需求，包括：

• • Varying the cost of benefits.调整员工捐款，以便低薪员工为福利支付较少的费用或获得更大的激励措施。这是健康保险福利中日益普遍的做法。According to a 2019 estimate, a quarter of large employers varied their contributions to healthcare premiums based on employee pay levels. Several employers we interviewed offer similarly tiered structures for other benefits, including long-term disability insurance, life insurance, 401(k) matches, child care assistance, HSA account contributions, and wellness incentives.
  • Redesigning tuition assistance programs.Ensure tuition assistance is accessible to lower-income employees by paying for tuition upfront rather than requiring reimbursement, and design scheduling policies to provide greater stability and predictability for hourly employees.

The employers we interviewed are also taking a hard look at programs like family leave and fertility benefits to ensure they are designed to meet the needs of LGBTQ+ employees. Several are proactively talking to vendors (such as Employee Assistance Programs, behavioral health, and fertility navigation services) to make sure that the professionals who are providing services reflect the demographics of their employee populations and can provide culturally relevant support.

2.提供有针对性的福利，以满足财务健康较低的群体的特定需求。Similar to smoking cessation or diabetes management programs, these benefits are technically available to all employees, but are really designed for financial health challenges that only some employees experience. For example:

• • 获得工资访问is designed to help employees who may need access to funds between paychecks to cover an unexpected expense.
  • Student loan repayment benefitssupport employees who carry student loan debt.
  • 资源导航员或投资平台可以针对特定的人口统计数据，例如女性或LGBTQ+员工。

3.Designing targeted communications to promote benefits utilization among financially vulnerable employees.人力资源领导人还专注于策略来达到employee segments who may not be utilizing programs and benefits in ways that lead to the best possible financial health outcomes. This might be because some employees are less aware that a program or benefit is available to them, or they may feel the benefit is “not for them.”Examples of this type of strategy include:

• • “遇到比赛”广告系列。These strategies are targeted at employees who are not currently saving enough in their 401(k) to earn the full employer match.
  • Partnering with employee resource groups (ERGs).Several employers we interviewed are partnering with ERGs to better understand the specific barriers to engagement for those employees and to provide benefits education that is tailored to the needs of that group. One is taking a test-and-learn approach to testing benefits messaging with different business units to see what resonates based on the demographic composition of each business unit’s workforce.