The mostcommon type of emergency assistance offered is an employee reliefor compassion fund, followed by part-time donations orleave-sharing. (Photo; Shutterstock)

Employers are becoming much more proactive in helping theirworkers achieve financial well-being, according to the EmployeeBenefit Research Institute Issue Brief, 2019 Employer Approaches to Financial WellbeingSolutions.

While helping workers save for retirement continues to be themost important (40 percent) topic within financial wellnessinitiatives, additional financial topics are also becoming morepopular, EBRI's survey found. The research organization polledemployers with 500 or more workers, screened to include respondentswho express at least some interest in offering financial wellnessinitiatives.

Related: Boosting financial wellness not complicated orpricey

Employers are also increasingly helping workers with the basics,not only providing financial education on budgeting and theimportance of maintaining an emergency fund, but also offeringhelplines, coaching, well-being assessments and challenge programs,as well as "financial wellness communities" where workers can sharesuccess stories.

Some employers are even more proactive, offering specificsolutions such as employer assistance with emergency funds or liquidity needs, accordingto the survey. More employers are offering payroll advances in 2019than in 2018 (17 percent and 12 percent, respectively). Thoseoffering emergency funds or employee hardship assistance in 2019are in line with 2018 at 28 percent.

The most common type of emergency assistance offered is anemployee relief or compassion fund (44 percent), followed bypart-time donations or leave-sharing (36 percent) and matchingcontributions to employees' personal accounts (35 percent). Amongthose that already offer an emergency fund, the average number ofsuch benefits offered was 2.5.

More employers are also helping workers manage student debt,with counseling or education ranked number two in prevalence at 27percent of those offering. But as with emergency assistance, someare now going beyond information sharing and are offering actualmonetary assistance. A quarter (25 percent) are helping workers paydown student loan debt either via matching 401(k) contributionstied to employees' student loan payment, and 15 percent are doinghelping workers by providing loan payment subsidies.

A third (34 percent) of the respondents are either currentlyoffering student loan debt assistance (11 percent) or planning tooffer (24 percent) such initiatives. Traditional approaches such asloans offered through the employer-sponsored retirement plan arethe most common approach to offering this benefit (39 percent).Among those offering a student loan debt assistance program, theaverage number of such benefits offered was 2.3.

Other key survey findings include:

• More than half (51 percent) of the respondents currently offerfinancial wellness initiatives to employees, another 20 percent areactively implementing and 29 percent are interested in implementingsuch initiatives. In last year's survey, 12 percent of therespondents were actively implementing and 34 percent wereinterested in implementing such initiatives.
• Just over a third (34 percent) of this year's surveyrespondents define financial well-being as having access toassistance and resources that enable good financial decisions.Slightly less define it as being comfortable or financially secureoverall, and at 21 percent say it means being equipped to achieveretirement security through planning and saving.
• The top four financial well-being initiatives continue to befairly traditional benefits such as tuition reimbursement (64percent), financial planning education (60 percent), employeeassistance programs (55 percent) and basic money management tools(49 percent). Firms offered an average of 4.2 financial wellnessbenefits.
• Why are employers offering financial wellness benefits? Topreasons are overall worker satisfaction, cited by 46percent of the respondents (vs. 54 percent in 2018); reducedfinancial stress, 42 percent (vs. 48 percent in 2018); improvedemployee retention, 35 percent (vs. 47 percent in 2018); andimproved employee use of existing benefits, 35 percent (vs. 34percent in 2018).
• Employers are measuring financial well-being success accordingto data on worker satisfaction, use of retirement benefits andmeasures of reduced stress. A majority (62 percent) examineexisting employee benefit data, 53 percent examine health-relateddata and 32 percent conduct assessments on workers' financialwellness needs.
• Only one in four (23 percent) have created a score or metric.For those that have, 56 percent are more likely to offer a holisticfinancial wellness program, compared to 38 percent of therespondents not planning on creating such a score or metric; 33percent of the metric-centric respondents are much more likely tohave a high level of concern about their employees' financialwell-being, compared to 15 percent of the non-metric respondents;and 56 percent of the metric-centric respondents are much morelikely to have six or more financial well-being offerings, comparedto 15 percent of non-metric respondents.
• Only 6 percent of the respondents say that financial well-beinginitiatives are entirely paid by the employee. Instead, financialwell-being initiatives are primarily either fully funded by theemployer (46 percent) or a shared cost between employer andemployee (48 percent).

Read more: 

• Why financial wellness programs must targetlower-wage employees
• Getting millennial employees on board withfinancial wellness programs
• Do employer-sponsored financial wellness programsactually have long-term impact?