Attracting and retaining good employees and keeping them engaged are heavy lifts for businesses — particularly when it comes to hourly workers. And these challenges are only getting harder due to the financial struggles created by the pandemic.
So what’s the secret to improving employee retention and engagement these days? It’s simple: Provide employees a financial advantage they’ll appreciate.
Hancock Whitney offers companies a way to do that with a financial wellness solution from Payactiv that gives employees access to their earned wages — before payday — plus other benefits that promote employee loyalty.
Earned Wage Access
The core offering of the Payactiv solution is earned wage access (EWA), an economical alternative to costly payday loans.
Workers often have cash needs that can’t wait until payday. Rather than seek an advance from their employer or cash from family or friends — or bear the traditionally sky-high interest rates of payday loans — they can now turn to EWA through Payactiv.
Employees who register for the Payactiv financial wellness solution can access half of their earned wages, typically up to $500, at any time. Employees use an app on their smartphone, view how much pay they’ve earned but have yet to collect, select an amount, and transfer it to their bank account or a debit or prepaid card.
Employees may register to participate in the Payactiv program for no charge. While some services are available for free, employees will incur a small program fee of no more than a few dollars per pay period to access certain other services, including EWA. Employers only pay a fee if they choose to subsidize all or any portion of the program fee.
Financial Wellness
The Payactiv app has links to financial wellness services that go well beyond on-demand access to pay and can be used by employees whether or not they have bank accounts or credit cards.
The many services offered through Payactiv once employees are registered include financial consulting, financial literacy training (including sessions that may be hosted by Hancock Whitney), budgeting and savings tools, bill pay, prescription discounts, and convenient links to fund Amazon purchases and Uber rides.
Payactiv’s evolving suite of services is designed to reduce employee stress over finances, which supports engagement at work. Just as one example, consider an employee whose car dies en route to work. If he doesn’t have a credit card, he can use the Payactiv app to access earned wages to pay for an Uber to the office. If he doesn’t have cash on hand for a repair, he can tap into earned wages to pay for one and soon be driving again.
An Important Endorsement
Payactiv is the only vendor with an EWA program with an Approval Order by the federal government’s Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, and so we’re excited to introduce this financial wellness solution to our business clients.
Hancock Whitney has a reseller agreement with Payactiv. We introduce the solution to business clients and they offer it to their employees. Payactiv provides all customer support.
Right for Your Business?
The Payactiv solution can be effective for companies of all types with at least 100 employees. Adopters typically have hourly workers and challenges with recruitment, retention and engagement. Many are in healthcare, retail or logistics, or own restaurants or call centers.
One of our first clients to adopt the Payactiv platform was Baton Rouge General Medical Center, a full-service hospital with 3,000 employees. Within the first six months, two-thirds of enrolled employees used the service to access their earned wages and saved by avoiding late fees, overdraft penalties and payday loan costs, Payactiv reports. More than 9 out of 10 of the hospital’s employees surveyed said they were happy it was offering the benefit.
A Payactiv study of customer usage indicates its financial wellness solution significantly reduces employee turnover. To learn more, contact your Treasury Management or Merchant Services representative.
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