Secure Heroes Do Heroic Work

Volatile. Uncertain.

These two words aptly describe today’s pandemic-shaken business climate. Indeed, constant economic flux keeps business leadership scrambling to ensure their companies stay afloat. Of particular concern is retaining their hourly workers, the unsung, frontline heroes of many operations.  

HR leaders are right to be worried for their workers. Even before the pandemic, 58 percent of workers said that they were stressed about their finances. Of those workers, 50 percent said that stress about their finances distracted them at work.[1]

Today, hourly workers will likely bear even greater financial stress as the coronavirus spreads.[2] More likely to be laid off and furloughed, and least likely to have money saved to help them through emergencies, hourly workers face an increasingly unpredictable and insecure future, during and after the pandemic.

As an HR manager, you want to help, but your tied hands leave you unable to promise security to your hourly workers. Fortunately, you can offer predictability through PayActiv, a financial wellness benefit that helps users cultivate greater stability in their financial lives.  

With PayActiv, hourly workers always know how much money they’ve earned and always have immediate access to those earned wages.Their cashflow is predictable: for every day they give their labor, they immediately get something in return: their wages. PayActiv users also have access to bill-pay features, automatic savings plans, budgeting tools, discounts on prescriptions, and, perhaps most importantly at this time, free financial counseling. 

Benefits like these give hourly workers greater control of their finances NOW, however insecure their jobs, and honor their contributions to the company.

Offering predictability to your workers also pins a hero’s cape on your shoulders by allowing you to offer high quality benefits and boost retention and recruitment even at a time when you can’t offer raises, high pay, and security.

PayActiv lets you offer a unique benefit by providing existing hourly workers and prospective employees alike a chance to build their financial wellness.By adding PayActiv to your list of benefits, you can demonstrate your investment in your employees even when the budget is tight, because it costs you nothing.  

Workers get a bargain, too. They can access PayActiv for free or for a very low fee, depending on the plan and options they choose.

Millennial and Gen-X employees say that job security would most help them achieve their financial goals.[3] If you can’t offer them that right now, please consider offering them predictability and the chance to build as much security as they can. To do so helps all involved be the heroes that they are.

[1] PwC’s 9th Annual Employee Financial Wellness Survey: 2020 COVID-19 Update, PwC, May 2020, https://www.pwc.com/us/en/industries/private-company-services/images/pwc-9th-annual-employee-financial-wellness-survey-2020.pdf.  

[2] Stephen Miller, “Hourly Workers Lose Pay Due to Coronavirus,” SHRM, March 10, 2020, https://www.shrm.org/resourcesandtools/hr-topics/compensation/pages/hourly-workers-could-see-pay-losses-due-to-coronavirus.aspx.

[3] PwC’s 8th Annual Employee Financial Wellness Survey, PwC, January 2019.