What is Earned Wage Access?

Bene-Care is thrilled to provide an all-new solution to our payroll clients: Earned Wage Access (EWA)! This innovative service allows your employees to access a portion of their earned wages before the regular payday – sparing them from late fees, overdraft fees, and the embarrassment of coming to you for advance. It also improves employee turnover, saving you precious time and money on recruiting and maintaining top talent. This feature will be integrated seamlessly with our trusted partner, ZayZoon, a financial wellness platform who specializes in everything EWA. Interested in learning a bit more about this new solution at Bene-Care? Then, check out what our experts at ZayZoon have to say!

What is Earned Wage Access?

EWA gives your employees access to funds they’ve already earned, but have not yet been paid due to the traditional pay cycle (e.g. bi-weekly or monthly).

With EWA, they’re free to access a percentage of the wages they’ve already earned whenever they want.

How does EWA benefit your employees?

It should come as no surprise to learn that many employees are living paycheck to paycheck—two in five, to be exact.

We recently surveyed 5000 employees across 8 industries for our “The state of employee financial wellness: 2024” report. 52% of respondents stated they are stressed about their finances daily or multiple times per day.

Employees today are struggling to make ends meet and often taking out high-interest loans or getting dinged with everything from bank fees to late fees. It’s taking a toll and impacting their ability to do their best work. For the same report, we surveyed 500 HR professionals and 63% said employees who struggle financially perform worse at work.

This is where Earned Wage Access comes in.

Earned Wage Access represents another lever your business can pull to remain competitive in today’s market and improve your employee’s financial wellness.

Acquire talent and improve employee retention

Employers who provide on-demand access to earned wages experience up to 2x more job applicants.

80% of employees would prefer to take a job with an employer that provides EWA over one that does not.

You want to take care of your employees by helping them be empowered at work and in their financial journey. And, when workers know you’ve got their back, they’ll give you their best.

EWA employer benefits across industries

Decrease employee financial stress

EWA gives employees much-needed flexibility. With early access to their earned wages before payday, they can meet unexpected expenses and employees have the flexibility to handle unexpected expenses.

Employees who use ZayZoon’s EWA report a 74% improvement in financial stress and 78% increase in motivation to perform at work.

Financial wellness and education

In addition to EWA, ZayZoon also provides employees access to tools like financial educational resources, budgeting tools, debt management resources, and retirement planning. These resources can reduce employee stress and turnover.

This also financially empowers employees to become more financially literate, reduce financial stress, and achieve their financial goals.

Reduce hiring costs

ZayZoon businesses offering loan programs to employees have saved up to $8,000/year by providing access to earned wages instead.

Through research conducted by ZayZoon, employers who offer access to earned wages, see a 5% reduction in hiring costs, representing savings of about $19,000/year for a business of 200 FTE on average.

No more pay advances

Employees often look to their employer for help when they are struggling with their finances in the form of pay advances. As people operations teams usually have to process pay advances on their own, it can be very time consuming and expensive to do.

Many employees also feel shame and embarrassment when asking for a pay advance as they have to disclose why they need an advance. With EWA, employees can access their wages on-demand without notifying their employer. This way, employees can get the funds they need and get back to work without a worry.

Incentivize moving from paper checks

Paper checks are going the way of the dinosaur. And, for very good reason: paper checks are 10x more expensive than making payments digitally.

One way savvy business pros are getting their workforce off paper checks is by offering EWA. It incentivizes the transition while giving employees the option to get paid whenever and however, they want.

This is an effective strategy to get the employees who do have a bank account to choose direct deposit to receive their paychecks.

Earned Wage Access for small-to-midsize businesses

Giving employees Earned Wage Access doesn’t just promote better financial health—it can also make your business a better place to work. While EWA is still a relatively new benefit, market awareness is growing and employees are coming to expect it.

Curious to learn more about EWA or find out how to activate this benefit through Bene-Care and ZayZoon? Get in touch with one of our experts to learn more today.