Use the FinHealth Score^Ⓡ to segment your employees into three tiers – Healthy, Coping, and Vulnerable – then see which areas of financial health each group is struggling with most. Targeting the needs of your employees who are Financially Coping and Vulnerable will ensure that your investments are reaching those who stand to reap the greatest benefit.

Some of the financial health challenges you uncover have immediate implications, while others have longer-term impacts. For example, employees who can’t pay all of their bills on time risk damaging their credit scores, having their utilities shut off, or even being evicted. They will also have a harder time saving for retirement and may not take advantage of the company match. While providing your employees with support for retirement savings or other long-term needs is also critical, your efforts may fall short unless you address immediate challenges first.

Benefits programs are often designed based on the principle of equality – providing the same benefits to all employees.Yet even if benefits are available to all employees, it is important to consider which employees are currently using them. Could gaps in utilization among demographic groups or types of workers indicate some groups are less aware of certain benefits than others? Or that barriers or biases prevent certain employees from taking advantage? Answering these questions can point the way toward potential solutions to increase uptake.

Beyond equal access and utilization, an effective financial health strategy must embrace equity as a guiding principle. This means driving toward equal outcomes for all employees.

For example, equity-based approaches could include:

• Offering benefits specifically targeted at groups of employees with greater financial health challenges, such as childcare subsidies or transportation assistance for frontline workers.
• Implementing a tiered benefits structure, in which lower-wage employees pay a lower proportion of healthcare premiums or earn more generous incentives for participating in wellness programs.
• Adjusting benefits design features to make benefits easier to use, such as facilitating direct payments from a flexible spending account rather than requiring employees to submit for reimbursement, which can pose a challenge for employees who don’t have a financial cushion.