2020 Signature Award Winners - Financial Wellness

Financial wellness programs work to address employees’ total financial circumstances, rather than focusing solely on retirement. These programs can help employees with cash management, debt reduction strategies, saving for college, home buying and other financial life events that people face throughout their careers. This category seeks to highlight financial wellness programs offered by specific plan sponsors that achieved significant results.

1st Place – Ascend Performance Materials with Transamerica
Ascend Performance Materials, headquartered in Houston Texas, is the world’s largest integrated producer of PA66 resin and is a global premium provider of high-quality plastics, fibers, and chemicals with nine global locations and 2,386 employees.

Ascend wanted to deliver an annual holistic well-being benefit with information relevant to where participants are in their financial journey. They also wanted to provide opportunity for employees who work multiple shifts seven days a week to meet individually with a Transamerica consultant. The outcome was a financial wellness program based on age and financial situation using educational challenges to address employees’ concerns. Three learning paths were offered: Money Management Basics, Financial Planning 101, and Get Ready to Retire. Wellness points were awarded. The campaign materials included a flyer, pop-socket gift, emails posters, HR and supervisor engagement, and contests among peers. The program received a 4.4 out of 5 rating. Of 2,386 employees, 221 completed an entire learning path, 732 individual courses were completed, 98 percent of available one-on-one appointments were booked, resulting in 148 sessions with 46 percent of employees taking action. This campaign won because it was targeted, offered many avenues to get information and counseling and it made good use of a comprehension test. The education offered was simple, relatable, to the point and incorporated educational challenges to increase engagement and generated good results.

2nd Place – Dawn Food Products, Inc. with Prudential Retirement
Dawn Foods, a family-owned company, is a global manufacturer of bakery ingredients headquartered in Jackson, Michigan, with 2,600 U.S. employees and 5,000 globally. 

Dawn Foods wanted to improve the financial wellbeing of its employees by promoting the use of after-tax sources in the 401(k) plan for emergency savings and raise awareness of new tools on the website, including one for easing student loan debt. The company promoted the campaign using benefit fairs held throughout the year, print, email, e-newsletters, direct mail, on-demand learning, website tools, a video, and a manager’s toolkit for HR. The emergency savings campaign resulted in 60 users during the year, and the email engagement garnered 23-25 percent open rates and a 2.5 percent click rate. Twenty-two percent of employees visited the financial wellness program and 37 employees used the student loan tool. This campaign won because the company provided innovative solutions for emergency savings and student loan debt and created programs that addressed the specific financial challenges of the employees.

3rd Place – Hy-Vee, Inc. with Principal®
Hy-Vee is an employee-owned supermarket chain with more than 300 stores across the Midwest, with a total of 82,250 employees, a quarter of whom were targeted in this campaign.

The company’s goal was to support retirement readiness using educational content from Principal® by adding financial wellness to their existing wellness program. They held webinars on financial topics and one-on-one meetings with Principal® representatives, promoting the program with direct mail, intranet messaging, and monetary credits for completing tasks. More than 7,000 employees and 800 spouses viewed a webinar or attended a meeting – 32 percent of the targeted audience. They are a winner because they wove financial wellness with overall wellbeing, rewarded participation, and created a program that resonated with the targeted audience.