How Brightside Helps Employees Beat Financial Stress and Boost Well-being

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[00:01:13] Hey, this is William Tencup and Ryan Leary, and you are listening and hopefully watching the Use Case Podcast. Ryan, how are you doing today?

[00:01:21] Oh, I am fantastic. How are you?

[00:01:24] I'm doing well. I'm doing well.

[00:01:26] Oh, wait. I can't hear you. What'd you say?

[00:01:31] Tom, should I just let this go the whole way? I mean, look, you give me two Philly guys in one week.

[00:01:39] I know. I know. See, this is what happens. And by the way, Tom, what's funny is we recorded a podcast yesterday where two guys that were guests were from Fort Worth.

[00:01:51] Yeah.

[00:01:51] So it evens out. It evens out. No worries. No worries.

[00:01:55] But do you guys even have a fight song?

[00:01:57] Oh, I'm not sure. No. I would assume not. Or I would assume so, and I just don't know it.

[00:02:03] I could play this all day. I could do this.

[00:02:07] I'll stop now. I promise.

[00:02:09] I'll let you say something I don't like.

[00:02:10] Yeah, yeah. No, I think that's appropriate.

[00:02:14] Tom, do us a favor. Do the audience a favor and introduce yourself.

[00:02:20] Sure. I'm Tom Spann. I'm the CEO of Brightside.

[00:02:23] My third job out of college, I was at Accenture for a long time, ran healthcare there, and left there to start a company called Accolade, which was a pioneering healthcare navigation company.

[00:02:36] Helped employers save money on healthcare by helping the people get the right care.

[00:02:41] And then about seven years ago, one of my customers, the late Sean Leavitt, who was at a Total Rewards account, gave me a million.

[00:02:53] He said, Tom, you ought to start a company like Accolade, except per financial health.

[00:02:57] Basically, he had just done a study that said poor financial health was costing that company $3,000 to $4,000 per year per employee.

[00:03:06] So not just per financially sick employee, per employee.

[00:03:10] And he said, look, that's another complex system that it's hard to do the right thing.

[00:03:15] Billions of dollars are spent every day making it easy for people to do the wrong thing with their money.

[00:03:21] Who's investing in making it easy, do the right thing with your money?

[00:03:25] Yeah. So, Tom, I know you've got questions to kick off, but financial health is sick.

[00:03:30] I haven't quite heard that term explained.

[00:03:32] I think it's obvious.

[00:03:34] But for those that can't put it together, financial health is sick.

[00:03:38] Probably my first year, I avoided going back into my healthcare roots on this language.

[00:03:43] But the Financial Health Network is the largest nonprofit focused on improving the financial health in this country.

[00:03:49] And they do a survey of the country every year.

[00:03:52] And, you know, they pretty consistently find that only 30% of the country is financially healthy.

[00:03:57] Which means, you know, actually 30% is or 70% is financially sick.

[00:04:03] And 25% is really, really, really struggling.

[00:04:12] And, you know, when Sean looked at the market and we looked at it, there were only two kinds of solutions.

[00:04:19] It was Financial Wellness Company, which are FFP driven.

[00:04:27] They reminded me of wellness on the healthcare side.

[00:04:30] The kinds of products that only people who aren't sick use, you know, like the meditation app or the gym membership.

[00:04:38] You know, you still need people.

[00:04:39] You don't want to go without treating people with broken legs, cancer, diabetes, right?

[00:04:44] Those are the sick people.

[00:04:45] And on Financial Health, you had this wellness that was how to invest their money.

[00:04:51] It makes sense.

[00:04:52] A certain part of the population needs it.

[00:04:56] But most don't need a financial plan right now.

[00:04:59] They need to know, what do I do now?

[00:05:01] What do I do next?

[00:05:02] Right?

[00:05:03] Right.

[00:05:04] And as I drew the analogy of healthcare, I said, there's no urgent care here in financial health.

[00:05:10] And that's really needed.

[00:05:11] And there's no primary care.

[00:05:13] Nobody nursing these sick people back to health.

[00:05:17] And so we created a new category, which we're calling financial care, which is, you know, encompasses financial illness.

[00:05:26] There are people who need that.

[00:05:27] But it also deals with people coming in for emergency, which depending on our employer can be anywhere from one third to two thirds of the people that come in the door every day are, you know, dealing with.

[00:05:43] I am behind in my rent.

[00:05:45] I, you know, my car's in the shop.

[00:05:47] I don't have the money to get it out and get to work.

[00:05:51] I can't afford daycare.

[00:05:52] You know, I need money right now.

[00:05:54] I'm staying up all night with my kids.

[00:05:56] Um, so I can go to my call center job in the morning because my mom stole my Uber Eats, my car that I was using for the Uber Eats money that was paying the $600 a month for daycare.

[00:06:06] Right.

[00:06:07] What that person needed, you know, some transportation ASAP.

[00:06:12] Right.

[00:06:12] Cause now they're taking, they don't have their car.

[00:06:14] They're taking Uber to work at the call center.

[00:06:17] Um, so we solved that problem.

[00:06:19] And we're trying to benefit to subsidize 75% of her daycare bill.

[00:06:22] Cut her daycare bill from 600 bucks a month to 150 for two preschool kids.

[00:06:27] But, you know, she just didn't know it was out there.

[00:06:29] Right.

[00:06:30] There's a lot of that kind of money out there.

[00:06:33] And then, you know, the other kind of notion of us having real solutions is, um, we're tied to the paycheck because we work for the employer.

[00:06:41] So we've got this, the ability to have paycheck link products.

[00:06:45] And if you're a lender or another financial solution and you're, you know, being paid out of the paycheck before it goes in the person's bank account, you underwrite that very differently.

[00:06:55] So we've got people that would otherwise be getting payday loans, getting loans at credit card interest rates, or people who, you know, have racked up some credit cards, be able to refinance some of that at lower interest rates.

[00:07:06] Um, and that's also where we tie our, you know, savings account to and all those things.

[00:07:10] So it's easy opening a couple of clicks set and forget it.

[00:07:14] So, you know, there's a lot of good point solutions out there for the financially sick.

[00:07:20] You know, there's earned wage access.

[00:07:22] There's these paychecks link loans.

[00:07:24] There's, um, food and loan solutions, but they got two big problems.

[00:07:28] One is the people selling them depend on people to keep needing them, right?

[00:07:32] I charge four bucks for earned wage access to get a hundred bucks and there's no business incentive to get them to financial hell.

[00:07:41] You know, and the right answer for your student loans may be very different if you got 30 grand of credit card debt than if you don't.

[00:07:46] And so, uh, you know, we try to put all these solutions on our platform, work with a lot of these other companies.

[00:07:53] You know, we're not a bank or not a lender.

[00:07:55] We don't, we make zero money off of any product.

[00:07:59] That's core to our proposition, right?

[00:08:01] So we are a hundred percent on the side of these employees that we served and their families.

[00:08:06] But, you know, the platform products can offer us good deals because we've got some scale now.

[00:08:11] Um, we're reducing their cost of acquiring customers.

[00:08:15] And, you know, we've got technology that makes it work a lot easier for people.

[00:08:21] So it's the place now where it's kind of a new front door to financial services for these people, right?

[00:08:27] Because why wouldn't you come to somebody if they were going to save you time, cure it, a few good options for you.

[00:08:32] You knew you could trust them.

[00:08:33] You knew they weren't making money off of any of your choices.

[00:08:38] Right.

[00:08:39] I think trust is a huge thing to, for us to explore during the call.

[00:08:43] Two things real quick.

[00:08:44] Give us a, the array of products, uh, if you can.

[00:08:49] And then also talk about financial literacy.

[00:08:52] Cause I think that plays into the 30, 70.

[00:08:57] Sure.

[00:08:58] Uh, you know, cause we're not taught in high school or not taught in grade school.

[00:09:02] So take us through the products first though.

[00:09:04] So we get a really good feel for those.

[00:09:07] You know, if you look just to sit at our product is slightly higher level.

[00:09:11] We've got, um, you know, humans are core to our, our user experience, right?

[00:09:17] We've got this role called a financial system.

[00:09:19] Some percentage of those people are certified financial planners.

[00:09:22] Um, but mostly they're just great at relationships and problem solving.

[00:09:26] And then we've got this set of products and it's, you know, it, the, the, the products we build into our systems that support our financial systems are the whole universe of products.

[00:09:36] Right.

[00:09:36] Because if your spouse works for a company that has a credit union, has a good auto loan, we've got to be getting the person there.

[00:09:43] Right.

[00:09:43] We want to curate them to the best possible options for them.

[00:09:46] It includes all the employer's benefits are on the platform.

[00:09:49] Right.

[00:09:49] We load all those in our system.

[00:09:51] We can talk about how those get leveraged.

[00:09:54] Um, and then we've got, you know, these additional partners who will help with everything from, as I said, coming up with cash and an emergency in various ways.

[00:10:02] Um, and you know, 50% of people come in from, uh, who come in probably the majority of people come into like, Oh, these guys have loans.

[00:10:12] I, you know, right.

[00:10:13] The 50% leave with something free, some benefits, some subsidy for their rent, something that didn't cost them interest, which is pretty cool.

[00:10:23] So, you know, all the, all the community resources, public benefits, all those things are in our, you know, built into our platform.

[00:10:32] And then, um, uh, you know, things like debt management, we've got to get a prop, you know, partnership with a nonprofit, uh, debt management company and help people, you know, create a plan, negotiate interest and come out on the backend with paying a lot less interest and better credit score.

[00:10:50] Um, so, you know, we're possibly looking for new, new partners, but I'd say the bank accounts, uh, the ability to access cash.

[00:11:01] And now some of these, um, things that the other partner we've got is, uh, savvy is really good at helping people navigate student loan payments, right?

[00:11:10] They can save them a lot of money and just make it easier to cut through the bureaucracy of the student loan process.

[00:11:15] Really is what it's about to lower your payments or get forgiveness when you need it.

[00:11:19] Right. So, so Tom, part, part of the problem that you're trying to solve is the financial stress on the employees and helping them to, to do things better.

[00:11:32] How, how does that, how is the financial stress on the employees hurting the actual business?

[00:11:39] So for somebody who, a company that's listening to this now, what are the signs that they need to understand or see that their employees are showing that we should drive them to reach out to somebody?

[00:11:53] Yeah. Um, so, so the benefits are, um, they're significant, right?

[00:11:59] So we're seeing 40 plus percent reductions in turnover of people use us versus people who don't use us pretty consistently across our customer base higher.

[00:12:09] If they've got a paycheck like product, um, you know, PricewaterhouseCoopers said people who are financially sick turn over 2.2 times the rate of financially healthy.

[00:12:20] So some of this isn't surprising. Um, there's a great book called poverty in the midst of healthcare reform that makes a great case that, um,

[00:12:30] 30% of healthcare costs in this country are driven by poor financial health, right?

[00:12:36] That, you know, it's the biggest. Sure.

[00:12:40] To interrupt, uh, when you say, uh, financially sick, just for the audience is edification.

[00:12:46] That's 70%. Is that based on social class or economic status?

[00:12:53] Like, uh, it's, it's, it's correlated to income.

[00:12:58] Um, but it's not the same, right?

[00:13:01] You can have somebody make it $150,000 who bought too big a house for themselves and got stressed out. Right.

[00:13:07] And they've, they're going to have these same problems, right?

[00:13:09] They are going to, you know, the reason drive self-care costs is it's the biggest cause of the stress and stress affects every system in your body.

[00:13:16] Seven of the top 10 drivers are for stress and it makes you sick. Right.

[00:13:20] Right.

[00:13:21] And then it's the biggest social determinative health. Right.

[00:13:24] What I learned at Accolade is the reason people don't do what they're supposed to, if it gets some non-clinical reason, right?

[00:13:31] It's like, I'm too busy, uh, too busy and to don't have enough money or don't think I can afford it.

[00:13:37] Or maybe I can do without this drug. Right.

[00:13:40] 44% of people skip a doctor visit every year because of money. Right.

[00:13:44] Uh, 25 deferred scheduled procedure.

[00:13:47] Those people want to be more expensive for the employer because they're going to the hospital.

[00:13:50] Right. We've got an employer that's measured 10% reduction in safety on it.

[00:13:54] That's because of the stress, this distraction, right?

[00:13:57] 10% reduction. Um, more hours work out of an hourly workforce, significant amount.

[00:14:03] You know, any one of these things pays for us.

[00:14:05] That's why we built this company to drive that ROI you're asking about.

[00:14:10] Why is for those, those reasons like people are showing up to work.

[00:14:14] They're showing up better. Um, they're turning over last and they're costing you less on your help.

[00:14:21] You know, that's a, this is so fundamental, right?

[00:14:25] This is where people get food and shelter. They should be stressed when they're, you know,

[00:14:29] it makes sense that there's hierarchy of needs.

[00:14:32] Exactly.

[00:14:33] Exactly. So Tom, what is it that you're doing to help the actual employee get past this?

[00:14:40] What, what, what tools are you providing them and how are they leveraging your system?

[00:14:43] Oh yeah. So, you know, having this platform of products, um, everything from the ability to get a hundred bucks for free out of your next paycheck to,

[00:14:53] you know, having loans and, uh, up to $30,000, you need to know what rates you can get them or,

[00:15:00] you know, save them. These, these things, uh, get people in the door for different needs, right?

[00:15:06] I've got a lot of credit card debt. I heard you guys can help with that. I, you know,

[00:15:10] I'm worried about being able to pay my rent this week or, um, you know, we had a case where a, um,

[00:15:20] mom called us cause she was looking for shelter for that night because she came home from the hospital with a third kid under five to find yourself evicted.

[00:15:28] Right. Um, we found shelter, but we also tapped into that employer's legal benefit.

[00:15:35] Cause the, I feel like that doesn't sound right. And then the free lawyer she got access to, um, you know, said, yeah, it's all right.

[00:15:44] She now owns that house. We got $150,000 paying in suffering on top of her costs. Uh, so she owns the home she was evicted from, uh, you know, six months earlier.

[00:15:54] But, but the journey starts with people coming in because they understand we have this and, and we can be trusted.

[00:16:00] You know, 35% of people come to our, say they heard about us from colleagues. A lot of word of mouth.

[00:16:06] Um, and often, you know, and again, it depends on the employer and the level of income of the person.

[00:16:11] Uh, it's a financial emergency. Sometimes it's just somebody who's 24 years old saying like, my finances are upside down.

[00:16:17] I don't even know. Like, I just don't feel like I got a handle on it. I'm distressed about it, but I don't even know what's going on.

[00:16:24] Um, and we can, you know, do the assessment, help that person. But a lot of times it's okay. What do we do right now to, uh, deal with this emergency?

[00:16:33] And so, you know, our financial assistants can ask a lot of questions, get to the right options for them, given their zip code and their employer and all those things kind of personalize this.

[00:16:44] And then we're using behavioral science to, to influence better. The core IP of our business is how do you influence somebody to do the right thing for their finances? Right.

[00:16:54] And so there's, but there's principles, right? If we help somebody in a pinch, then we say, Hey, why don't you do us a favor and start saving, you know, out of every paycheck.

[00:17:05] Right. So only 10% we serve these people when they come on board and we ask them, you know, do you have enough money left over to save?

[00:17:12] Do you have just enough money to pay your bills or you can't even pay your bills?

[00:17:15] And only 10% say they have money left over to save. Right.

[00:17:19] But 50% walk out the door saying they can save or save it.

[00:17:23] Right. Right. Right.

[00:17:25] So you get this situation where, uh, you know, people come in not believing, but, you know, there's a lot of science around hope and how do you build hope and how do you show that there's a path and how do you get them to believe?

[00:17:38] And then you start to build on that hope and that momentum.

[00:17:41] Um, I said, okay, now let's work on your credit score. Right. Now let's save to the next goal. And it's no judgment. We don't care if you're saving or, you know, another emergency or for your kids college or for a tattoo.

[00:17:55] Right.

[00:17:56] If just, if you, your, your money is there to optimize your life. And so it's this very safe environment to figure out how to improve.

[00:18:05] So do, so do the benefits folks look at you as a, a kind of a new, new way of looking at an EAP, a financial kind of, you know what I'm saying? Like, cause it's services.

[00:18:21] Yeah. I hope they look at us, um, as a very different benefit from anything else. We think we've got a whole new category. If you look at EAP, they just don't go deep in any one area. Right.

[00:18:33] And we're deep in finance. Right. We've got all these partners. We're in this financial ecosystem. We've got all this data on where to get money, you know? Um, and you know, we're learning how to influence, right? We're, you know, using AI now to really understand what's going on in these conversations and where we can help even more. And it's just, it's an exciting, exciting place to be.

[00:18:58] We've seen some movement in mental health and this is, this is tangential to mental health, right? One, one might even lead to the, to, to the other. Uh, some could probably argue, but how do you, my question is how do you drive it? Help you help the company drive adoption?

[00:19:18] Cause you know, um, um, I wouldn't say famous. I've said this phrase of a Julian times and it's a benefit.

[00:19:25] Isn't a benefit unless people use it. So you can call it a benefit.

[00:19:31] You know, our, our problem is a little bit the, uh, you know, it depends on your perspective, right? I, I, I'm looking at a world of 70% financially unhealthy and all, you know, these people are costing employer money and I'd love to get to 70%.

[00:19:45] We've got, we've not done that. We've had customers that easily get us to 40%, you know, 40 plus percent. Um, we've got more customers who are sort of like, you know, we're pretty young companies still at fair, but they're like, you know what? I think I can afford is like 15% engagement. Can you get me only 15? And we can, right? We know how to tune it.

[00:20:05] Right. And we get the 15, you know, we tend to get the sickest there and we'll take the cream off the, you know, top there, but it's, you know, this is, uh, something you need to offer to all your employees because what, what employers find is when they limit us in some way to who's eligible, you don't get the right people, right?

[00:20:26] Like the way you tune in is not by limiting the eligible. You tune it by targeting your communications to the right people or with the right messages who need us.

[00:20:36] So now something completely different. There's a vulnerability here. Like when we talk about, you know, uh, psychology, mental health, things like that, there's taboo. How do you, how does the company help break through that? And you break through that so that they can be vulnerable and trust you.

[00:20:56] And cause you're creating a relationship with, with you that's separate from the company. Cause they don't want the company. They're damn sure. Don't want HR to know about their financial stress.

[00:21:08] Absolutely. They're, they're almost going to be afraid of that. And some of that, I guess that the, generational, but coming up from when we, I mean, we, we, I went through a number of financial checks going into for applying for jobs.

[00:21:24] And I hated that regardless of how young I was at the time, it just wasn't comfortable. My employer knowing where I'm at.

[00:21:34] Yeah. Well, first of all, we, we certainly make it clear that we're never going to say anything to employer. We, we have discussions, but you know, tell me, tell us this about who you're serving. No, we can't tell.

[00:21:44] Like, you know, we can tell you how many, and we can tell you how many cases we can't tell you that Ryan wanted to work on his credit score. Right.

[00:21:54] Let alone Ryan one, you know what, you know, the things underlying this, the life context is super important. Right.

[00:22:01] I've got a gambling problem. I've got this, you know, I've got this girlfriend I'm supporting. Who knows what, you know, these are real life, the worries that we run into.

[00:22:10] Yeah. They don't want their employer to know. So you've got to build the trust that it's confidential and you got to build a trust that is non-good.

[00:22:18] There's so much shame associated with not being financially healthy. It's not, it's different than physical health in many parts of physical and mental health.

[00:22:26] I mean, you do get areas there that loves abuse and other areas and even mental health has been historically a lot of shame, but there's, there's a lot, there's a lot here because the, the common wisdom is people are just knucklehead doing stupid stuff.

[00:22:44] And I learned it accurately. That's not the case. That was my belief in healthcare too.

[00:22:50] Like when your clients are United Healthcare Anatomy, you're like, oh, these people are just stupid. They deserve what they get, but that's not the case.

[00:22:56] It's not a financial literacy question.

[00:22:59] Like people know I should spend less and save more.

[00:23:03] Like the core fundamentals of financial literacy, people know and they, you know, they get it.

[00:23:11] And, but it's hard. Life is hard.

[00:23:14] Like 60% of the country has a financial shock every year.

[00:23:19] And, you know, in 70% of the time it sets them back on the bills for three or more months.

[00:23:24] Right. That's where this, and you see, so our communications try to normalize it, right?

[00:23:28] We don't go out to the holidays and say, oh, you need to have a budget for every person because you're basically just telling people they're doing it wrong.

[00:23:34] Right. And that's what happens with a lot of wellness services.

[00:23:38] Thanks. Yeah.

[00:23:39] Yeah.

[00:23:40] There's never, there's never a hand holding you through that process.

[00:23:44] Right.

[00:23:44] Is kind of what I'm feeling.

[00:23:46] I mean, it's, it's, I know how to save.

[00:23:48] I know how to put money in the bank.

[00:23:50] I know I shouldn't go by this, but I do.

[00:23:53] But where's the hand holding you through that process?

[00:23:56] And that's kind of where.

[00:23:57] Yeah.

[00:23:57] That's what I'm talking about.

[00:23:58] So, Tom, question I have is, what are we looking at in terms of companies?

[00:24:01] Part of it is size of companies.

[00:24:02] Just to add something there.

[00:24:03] I'm sorry.

[00:24:03] Just to add something there.

[00:24:04] You know, this notion that, you know, life is hard and people are stupid.

[00:24:10] What behavioral economists do believe is that if you make something easier to do, they'll do it.

[00:24:15] It's like what really, if you've got motivating factors and you've got inhibiting factors, getting rid of the inhibiting factors.

[00:24:22] Like, why aren't you doing it?

[00:24:23] Because it's too hard.

[00:24:24] I don't want to say that.

[00:24:25] You know, I'm creating all this friction.

[00:24:27] And if I can make it easy and, you know, some of that's a hand holding that support.

[00:24:33] And, you know, going back to the mental health question, I mean, this is obviously core to mental health.

[00:24:38] I had the CEO of Jefferson here.

[00:24:40] The former CEO, Steve Clasco, said to me once, you know, Tom, everybody's trying to expand the supply of behavioral health resources.

[00:24:47] You're trying to reduce the demand.

[00:24:49] Like you're getting the underlying cause of why people are stressed and anxious.

[00:24:53] Because that's why we think it has the self-care cost.

[00:24:55] I'm sorry, Ryan.

[00:24:57] Yeah.

[00:24:57] I was asking about company size.

[00:25:00] So what are we looking at here in terms of companies that should be using Brightside?

[00:25:05] Are we talking enterprise companies, small companies?

[00:25:08] Is there a mix in between?

[00:25:10] We're talking mostly enterprise companies.

[00:25:12] Companies with some significant frontline workforces.

[00:25:15] But we're serving, you know, home remodeling companies with 5,000 employees and, you know, insurance companies, property casualty insurance companies, a big white collar frontline workforces.

[00:25:32] Basically, if you've got a significant population in the thousands of people that are making under 100, 150 a year, then you probably have a lot of financials in your population.

[00:25:48] And so that's where the money is for the employer.

[00:25:51] And that's what we want to be driving.

[00:25:53] So favorite customer story.

[00:25:55] You don't have to say their name, of course, but just someone that you maybe even was maybe they weren't on board or they kind of didn't believe at first.

[00:26:06] I love those types of people.

[00:26:08] They're kind of like, I don't know if it's going to work with our people.

[00:26:10] And then all of a sudden you turn around two years later and you're like, I can't work at a company that doesn't have this.

[00:26:16] Like, change has happened.

[00:26:18] Tell us a great customer story.

[00:26:21] Are you talking about an individual user or a whole employer?

[00:26:24] Oh, I like both.

[00:26:26] I like both.

[00:26:27] Yeah, give us one of each.

[00:26:28] So, you know, our most public employer right now is Amazon.

[00:26:32] So they're out in public talking about us.

[00:26:36] And they came to us not really ready to roll out, but they sort of said, how fast can you come up?

[00:26:43] We just had tornadoes in 10 states at the end of 2021.

[00:26:48] And by March 1st, 2022, we had somehow figured out a contract to do a pilot in those nine states and eventually moved it to 12.

[00:26:58] And they, you know, and then they're a very quantitative organization, right?

[00:27:03] We don't see the ROI.

[00:27:04] We're not doing it.

[00:27:05] Like, they care.

[00:27:06] They really are trying to be the world's greatest employer.

[00:27:09] And they do care about their employees, you know.

[00:27:12] But they believe in doing that.

[00:27:13] It's for some business reason for their shareholders.

[00:27:16] Right.

[00:27:17] And that makes total sense.

[00:27:19] And that's, you know, that's our target customer.

[00:27:21] So they ran their economists and said, you know, am I getting all the ROI I want in these areas?

[00:27:27] And they got it.

[00:27:29] And we're a week away from being national.

[00:27:33] We're, I think we got three more states left to roll out there next week.

[00:27:39] And, you know, we're super excited about our future with them because they're continuing to see these results.

[00:27:46] And, you know, every work week we give them just two amazing stories about, you know, their employees who are being helped.

[00:27:56] And, you know, it's now including, you know, different levels of pay, different, you know, different kinds of stories.

[00:28:05] It's just, it's fun to be serving them.

[00:28:09] But it's, you know, also fun to work, you know, with the, McCastan's also been public.

[00:28:14] They implemented us as part of their social determinants of health initiatives.

[00:28:17] And they've been pretty public around that.

[00:28:19] And they've also decided to roll us out to the rest of their fulfillment workers.

[00:28:24] And it's just, you know, it's fun to be viewed from those different perspectives.

[00:28:30] And they were, they really helped us up our game and making sure we were reaching people who are speaking Spanish.

[00:28:37] And, you know, and it's one of those benefits that actually gets more engagement from people of color and women than from white men.

[00:28:45] Partly because of the financial health disparities that exist there.

[00:28:48] But it's an interesting, it's a very pragmatic thing you can do for everybody without discriminating that has an advantage.

[00:28:57] Like I, I wrote an article less than a year ago on, you know, are your benefits promoting systemic racism, financial benefits.

[00:29:06] Because they got retirements and they got financial planner.

[00:29:09] It's just not relevant to the financial system, right?

[00:29:12] Which are disproportionately black, Latino, and female.

[00:29:16] Right?

[00:29:17] And if you do that, what we see, like our first client, to give you a client, so our first client we served at this customer was on us from work.

[00:29:29] A lawyer had taken his last dollars out of his bank account because he was fighting the tax bill.

[00:29:35] So he couldn't go back to the hotel.

[00:29:37] He couldn't, he was already behind, no pay in the hotel he was staying at.

[00:29:43] So, you know, it's a series of, and he doesn't have an ID.

[00:29:46] So like, he can't get a loan, he can't get a, he can't get a community benefit.

[00:29:50] Like, do you even live in this county?

[00:29:52] Right?

[00:29:54] And two years later, that guy's making twice as much money.

[00:30:02] He's been promoted multiple times.

[00:30:04] He's got his own apartment.

[00:30:05] He saved for a deposit.

[00:30:06] You know, it's just this life check.

[00:30:09] Right?

[00:30:10] And that, you know, you pay a lot of attention to the first person who comes in the door at a big employer.

[00:30:16] And it's just been great to see, you know, but that's happening over and over and over again.

[00:30:21] And it's, you know, it's not only about the benefits of the employer from a retention.

[00:30:25] These people are advancing.

[00:30:27] Right?

[00:30:28] They show up better.

[00:30:30] They show up more often.

[00:30:31] But I, I look back at my time as CEO of Accolade.

[00:30:34] You know, we had 800 health assistants.

[00:30:38] And I, we probably fired a lot because they weren't showing up consistently.

[00:30:45] They weren't showing up well.

[00:30:47] And I look back.

[00:30:48] It's like, I wish I had the benefit like Brightside.

[00:30:52] The offer and there were a bit more understanding of the financial situation could have flushed out.

[00:30:56] It's hard for some times for people to tell their employer.

[00:30:58] But it's like, you know what I'm saying?

[00:31:00] I got to go, you know, do this thing or that thing because I don't have money to know.

[00:31:05] What do you think drives the engagement?

[00:31:08] So when an employer has this as a benefit, what's driving the actual employee to say, yeah, I want to, I want to take advantage or I want to reach out?

[00:31:21] Yeah.

[00:31:21] I'd probably put it in three categories.

[00:31:23] One is there's some normal benefits communications to build awareness and it varies by employer what works.

[00:31:29] Some employers are putting us, you know, at the point where people do things like schedule hours and shifts, right?

[00:31:35] Because that's a financial decision.

[00:31:38] But some people are just doing normal benefits communications.

[00:31:41] And that's being in the employee journey.

[00:31:44] Like why wouldn't every new hire get a checkup and deal with it?

[00:31:49] You know, a lot of times these front line jobs, these people have been unemployed for a few weeks or more.

[00:31:55] They're probably in a tough situation.

[00:31:58] Let's deal with that before it gets worse.

[00:31:59] Why not?

[00:31:59] When somebody goes on disability, they lose a third of their pay.

[00:32:03] They're no, you know, that's a time when they need it.

[00:32:08] You know, life events that employers see we're not in so much.

[00:32:12] But we're also tied in some employers to the 401k process, right?

[00:32:17] You want to get a 401k hardship withdrawal or loan, go to Brightside first, right?

[00:32:22] We just become the default in the journey.

[00:32:25] And if a 401k loan is the right thing, that's okay.

[00:32:28] But a lot of times there's a better answer for that person if you didn't spend the time to get to know that.

[00:32:33] So there's choke points where you can be put into it.

[00:32:37] So we could be...

[00:32:39] And there's also referrals from other benefits, right?

[00:32:43] I mean, the employee service center can call it, you know, here's people that are upset about why their hours were...

[00:32:49] Why their paycheck is smaller than they thought it was.

[00:32:52] You know, whatever.

[00:32:53] All those kinds of things.

[00:32:55] EAP often refers to us because they don't go that deep on finance, right?

[00:33:00] They're a good starting point, you know.

[00:33:02] Same thing with healthcare.

[00:33:03] We saw a lot of times where we had customers who were both Accolade and Brightside were in place.

[00:33:10] And it looks like the same person.

[00:33:12] But sometimes they present as, help me with my health.

[00:33:16] I'm on disability.

[00:33:17] And sometimes they present to us like, hey, I can't afford what's going on because I'm on disability.

[00:33:22] And, you know, both are needed.

[00:33:24] But sometimes they...

[00:33:26] I think employers need to take a bit of a no wrong door approach, you know.

[00:33:30] But I think this benefit is as fundamental as healthcare.

[00:33:34] That's why I don't...

[00:33:35] I don't want it to be in EAP or in, you know, a lot of these areas.

[00:33:38] It's like this is the fundamental itself.

[00:33:42] William, this is where...

[00:33:43] Yeah, go ahead.

[00:33:44] This is where I ask the question I probably shouldn't ask.

[00:33:48] Oh, no, that's perfect.

[00:33:50] So I'm going to ask it anyway, right?

[00:33:51] So I think, Tom, although you're close, you're far enough away from me.

[00:33:55] You can't hit me.

[00:33:57] So I'm going to ask this.

[00:33:57] I'll give you his address.

[00:33:59] You're good.

[00:34:01] Historically, I've had trouble, and this is just me, with believing that employers care a lot about employees

[00:34:12] other than if it's going to affect their bottom line, which I think is true of a lot of employees, right?

[00:34:19] Like, they don't go in and think my employer's going to love me so much that I'm going to be here for life.

[00:34:25] When you're talking to an employer who is considering something like Brightside, I think, in my mind, I'm seeing two paths.

[00:34:37] One is, what can we offer our employees?

[00:34:42] What can we offer the employees?

[00:34:48] Because I care.

[00:34:49] I care about the employees.

[00:34:51] But is the sale, is the actual pitch to the company?

[00:34:56] Your employees are going to be happier for this, but if you want to get the most out of them, if you want to increase your bottom line, if you want them to show up in their best self, you need to do this.

[00:35:07] Not because you care about them, but because it's going to benefit you.

[00:35:12] What's the actual sell to the company?

[00:35:14] Maybe not from your side, but from the company side.

[00:35:17] When they hear you and talking to you, are you getting the sense it is, this is going to be better for the company?

[00:35:23] Or is it going to be better for the employee when it was the company?

[00:35:27] I think companies are a little different.

[00:35:29] So like our clients are different, we have to personalize.

[00:35:32] I think there's a little bit of that.

[00:35:34] We built a company to drive ROI.

[00:35:35] So let's just start that.

[00:35:37] I'm kind of with you, Ryan.

[00:35:41] I'm a big believer if you create a great culture and you have great people, you're going to drive better returns for your shareholders, your investors.

[00:35:49] I believe it about Brightside.

[00:35:51] I want to do that.

[00:35:54] Maybe not everybody's there and maybe they won't pick us, but we often have to do both.

[00:36:02] And, you know, I think even the companies that care a lot about their employees, you know, we just signed a kind of family-owned grocery store, 50,000, 60,000 employees.

[00:36:16] They care a ton about their employees.

[00:36:18] That was very important to them to hear the stories about how we were going to help.

[00:36:21] And, you know, I'm not sure if that's as big a reason as the ROI.

[00:36:25] You know, they're just, that's the way they are.

[00:36:29] But most, you know, even if the total rewards person, the CHRO cares about the employees, they're going to need the other story from the CFO.

[00:36:38] That's right.

[00:36:39] They kind of need proper.

[00:36:40] Right.

[00:36:41] It's got to solve both.

[00:36:44] I mean, people that make a soft argument, and again, this could be about mental health or financial wellness or even health.

[00:36:52] If they make it, this is just the right thing to do.

[00:36:54] It's moral.

[00:36:55] It's ethical.

[00:36:56] It's the right thing to do.

[00:36:58] You're going to get, you're going to attract some people, like what we've seen in diversity, DEI in particular.

[00:37:05] You're going to get people with it's the right thing to do.

[00:37:08] But, Ryan, you and I did a podcast last week where our guest said, you know what?

[00:37:15] It is the right thing to do.

[00:37:17] We're talking specifically about DEI.

[00:37:18] But she goes, we're not going to talk about that.

[00:37:20] We're going to talk about the best qualified candidate because we're going to get there because there's no counter argument to the best qualified applicant.

[00:37:33] And they will be diverse and inclusive and all those things.

[00:37:37] So we're going to reach the goal.

[00:37:39] We're just not going to talk about it explicitly as this.

[00:37:42] So I see this kind of playing out the same way depending on the audience.

[00:37:46] But as you said before, a layer of personalization, you're talking to the CHRO.

[00:37:53] So you've got to both give them a business case for finance and operations and the rest of their peer group on the C-suite.

[00:38:01] But you've also got to give them the other side, the softer side that says, yeah, this is in line with how you want to be a people first company.

[00:38:09] So this actually scratches that off, you know, too.

[00:38:14] But when asked by all your other peers that maybe are a bit more ROI sensitive, great.

[00:38:22] Yeah.

[00:38:23] You know, it's also there's a lot of data that it's, you know, it overlaps, right?

[00:38:29] It's hard to tell which it is.

[00:38:30] Like, you know, we're sitting here with an NPS score near 90, right?

[00:38:34] Is that good for the employees or is that good that the employers are offering a benefit that they love that much?

[00:38:40] And it's kind of this kitchen table benefit, right?

[00:38:42] We're putting a thousand bucks, over a thousand bucks in the pockets of the average person we serve.

[00:38:48] Right?

[00:38:48] A thousand bucks.

[00:38:49] You know?

[00:38:50] And so, you know, I don't think anybody's not giving out pay raises because of that.

[00:38:57] But people, that's valuable to the company if they're offering for free benefits.

[00:39:03] It's putting money in people's pockets, right?

[00:39:06] And so, I just think there's a lot of synergy between doing the right things for your employees and, you know, all the kinds of things we've talked about in terms of healthcare costs.

[00:39:17] And, you know, we didn't even talk about the team lead that's financially stressed.

[00:39:21] It shows up as a jerk every day.

[00:39:23] You know, or the employee that shows up with their colleagues because they're just stressed, right?

[00:39:28] You know, and they're making life miserable.

[00:39:29] It was for other people and they're quitting.

[00:39:31] You know?

[00:39:32] Well, it's, but I think more and more employers are, particularly large employers are past the point where they think they're going to have a lousy employer brand.

[00:39:46] Right?

[00:39:46] Yeah.

[00:39:48] And some companies worry about it a lot, right?

[00:39:53] But at some point, it affects your customers.

[00:39:55] Like, I'm not buying for this company because they're a lousy place to work.

[00:39:59] I heard they didn't treat their employees well.

[00:40:02] Right?

[00:40:03] And so...

[00:40:04] Well, Tom, I have to tell you, this has been...

[00:40:06] I think more and more people are seeing this for you.

[00:40:08] Yeah.

[00:40:08] I think this has been one of my favorite shows.

[00:40:11] So, I love what you're doing.

[00:40:13] I know Ryan does as well because you're actually helping people while at the same time scratching the itch of it's good for the company.

[00:40:22] So, really, there's no counter argument to taking you on as a service.

[00:40:29] So, thanks for coming on the show.

[00:40:31] Thanks for telling us your story and getting people to understand kind of what can be.

[00:40:38] So, we appreciate you.

[00:40:51] A-T-L-E-S Eagles!