According to Tate Hackert, President and Founder of ZayZoon, it’s really possible to balance your business’s bottom line while addressing employee financial wellness initiatives. In this episode of Transform Your Workplace, you’ll learn how business owners can retain employees during these trying times by providing Earned Wage Access, a solution for the cash flow crunch between paydays.
GUEST AT A GLANCE
Tate Hackert is the President and Founder of ZayZoon, an innovative FinTech company created to end predatory lending by offering Earned Wage Access to businesses of all sizes.
A QUICK GLIMPSE INTO OUR PODCAST
🔊 Podcast: Transform Your Workplace, sponsored by Xenium HR
🎙️ Host: Brandon Laws
📋 In his own words: “The Transform Your Workplace podcast is your go-to source for the latest workplace trends, big ideas, and time-tested methods straight from the mouths of industry experts and respected thought-leaders.”
TRYING TIMES
Times are tough. Inflation is soaring, and wages aren’t keeping up fast enough. People are struggling to make ends meet, especially when an unexpected expense arises. That’s where Earned Wage Access, now growing in popularity, comes in and gives employees flexibility between pay periods.
Guest Tate Hackert explained, “Say you’re paid semi-monthly… You might have a bill that pops up. When you have something unexpected come up, you can fall into a short cash flow crunch. […] Earned Wage Access is a beautiful solution that an employer can provide whereby an employee can access the pay that they’ve already earned but have not yet actually been paid.”
It’s about giving employees a choice, because “that’s really what they want.” And with ZayZoon, employees have various options to access their pay instantly; 1) Debit Card, 2) Instant Gift Card typically with a bonus amount of up to 25%, 3) or in a ZayZoon-branded Visa debit card.
PODCAST EPISODE HIGHLIGHTS
Striking a Balance
“As a […] business, you’re trying to look out for your bottom line, but you want to balance the financial well-being of your employees, right? And so, certainly, I think businesses need to do more when it comes to pay raises and everything else. I think there’s also a play, though, where it isn’t always just an income issue, but it’s a cash flow issue. And so that’s something at ZayZoon that we tackle specifically.”
In the Blink of an Eye
“But as this inflation takes hold and your bills go up, they go up across the board. They’re not just going up in aggregate, but it’s actually occurring at various points in time. And so as someone who might not be great with budgeting to begin with, all of a sudden, your bill on the fifth is 10% higher than it used to be. Your bill on the seventh is 10% higher than it used to be. Maybe you go grocery shopping and groceries are probably even more than the 8% posted inflation in some cases. And by the time your pay hits on the 15th, you might not have any money left or even be in the hole. And so I think there’s absolutely an income issue, but there’s also just that budgeting issue that is exacerbated by the inflationary effects.”
Keeping Your People
“Someone that’s financially stressed is less productive. They’re less happy in their workplace, and they’re more susceptible to changing jobs. It’s a pretty simple formula. So if an employer can help increase that financial wherewithal for an employee, and again, that can be through a raise, keeping up with inflation, or it can also be through better education. It can be through different financial perks. It can be through various ways that they can make their money go further.”
Getting Creative
“On the topic of making your money go further, one of the products ZayZoon has is a mechanism where an employee can take their wages early, but they can take it in the form of a gift card, […] and we have over 250 retailers where they can use it.
A really good example is CVS. CVS sort of always has this bonus attached to it, but an employee can come into ZayZoon, and they can take their wages early in the form of a CVS gift card. That gift card actually comes with an additional 7% to spend.”
Making Money and Helping People
“Now, historically, payroll has really been a relationship between the employer and the payroll company, and the employee is sort of just this end product that receives payments every two weeks. More and more, I believe the employer and the payroll company and the companies that service them, like ourselves, see the value in that and the consumer, right? And so I think that sort of confluence of events has really been why Earned Wage Access has risen as it has. […] There’s a really strong social mission behind this. And in my opinion, when you can have a business with a double bottom line, one that’s making money and making money for shareholders, but at the same time providing a really amazing product for a consumer, it’s a win-win.”
Lifting the Burden
“Employers are wanting a solution like this, right? It’s, again, in part why the industry has taken off as it has. What’s interesting is, in many cases, Earned Wage Access is simply a task that an employer was already doing. For any small business owners that are listening to this podcast, […] think to yourself how many times you’ve given an advance on an employee’s paycheck. I know for us, it’s something that when we chat with the employers that we partner with, it’s actually more often than you would think, right? And of course, that creates a big administrative burden. It creates this awkward relationship between the employer and employee.”
LEARN MORE
To take a look at ZayZoon’s Buyer’s Guide and see how you can offer Earned Wage Access for your employees, click here.