The Business of Benefits: Financial education at Alloy

Here’s this week’s edition of our Business of Benefits series, where we spotlight benefits that are driving value for HR leaders, digging into their design and ROI.

If you’re interested in talking about a workplace benefit you love for an upcoming edition, click here to get in touch. You can also reach out directly to HR Brew’s total rewards reporter, Courtney Vinopal: [email protected]

Since 2023, Alloy, an identity and fraud prevention platform, has offered financial education benefits to its employees through a partnership with Addition Wealth. Alloy’s 300-person workforce has access to resources such as seminars and one-on-one meetings with financial professionals through the offering, which is designed to complement its 401(k) and equity compensation programs. Alloy employees receive equity grants when they’re hired, and are eligible to receive additional refresh or promotion grants throughout their tenure with the company.

Part of what drew Alloy to Addition Wealth was its expertise in equity education, the company previously said in a case study. Complex questions about issues such as equity and taxes can be delegated to Addition Wealth, freeing up time for the people team to focus on other things, Alloy explained.

Kim Nguyen, Alloy’s chief people officer, shared more about the benefit.

Explain the business case for this benefit.

Every year, we take into consideration feedback from our employees, data on our existing offerings, and external benchmarks to ensure we are providing access to the best benefits for our employees and attracting top talent.

Our benefits strategy is really grounded on the themes of health (accessible medical, dental, vision) and wealth (401(k), compensation, and equity). There are a few reasons we wanted to bring on a financial wellness benefit. First, we have a population of employees who are going through major life events—getting married, buying a home, having a baby—and we wanted to support them as best we could. Second, anyone who has ever worked at a high-growth startup knows how complicated equity can be.

We really believed that bringing on Addition Wealth could be a great resource for our employees at all levels, and the executive leadership team agreed.

What level of investment does this benefit represent for your organization?

When you think about the premise of giving every single employee access to a financial professional, it sounds extremely expensive. What I’d share is that it’s probably less than you think, especially when you look at it in the context of total benefits cost. If it helps people better understand and utilize other benefits like their retirement, or if it helps candidates and employees better understand and value their equity compensation, then it’s a worthwhile investment.

At the end of the day, we look for benefits that align with our health and wealth total rewards pillars and help us retain our employees, keep them engaged, and bring in great new talent.

How are you measuring the ROI of this benefit?

Honestly, a lot of what we look at is satisfaction and engagement, and those numbers have been really strong. We’ve had 86% of employees engage on the platform, and the average rating for webinars is 9/10 for helpfulness, and the one-on-ones with financial advisors get a 9.5/10. This year, we also had 11% of our employees file their taxes through Addition Wealth.

But the real ROI is harder to put a number on. Our employees are getting real support around getting married, buying a home, having a baby, and understanding their equity. It’s hard to quantify that, but we think that when people feel supported and also don’t have to spend time figuring things out on their own, they are happier and get time back.

For my team, it’s also been a huge win to have a partner we can point employees to when those questions come up. It saves us a significant amount of time, and Addition Wealth has been a great partner throughout.