Boosting Wellness—For Clients and Employees

Boost Health Insurance strives to be the best at what they do—which is to ensure affordable health insurance is available to those who need it. 

To achieve the level of excellence the agency endeavors to reach, they need to find and retain talented employees. Not only that, but they need to make sure their employees are happy, productive and taken care of.

Jonathan Wilks, the agency’s human resources (HR) director, noticed that many employees were leaving within their first 90 days. Employees would come to Wilks to ask if they could access a portion of their checks early, but the agency didn’t have a policy in place to allow it.

Financial wellness looms large for employees and their employers. Recent research shows that 45% of employees have dipped into their savings and 41% have dipped into their retirement savings because of inflation.

Empowering Financial Wellness

Through isolved, Wilks discovered ZayZoon, a financial empowerment platform and isolved Marketplace partner that provides on-demand pay solutions that allow employees to gain instant access to their already-earned wages ahead of payday. Wilks was thrilled at the prospect.

“Earned-wage access is a brilliant idea and is perfect for our employees who need pay flexibility. We were having individuals going to payday loans and they were taking on exorbitant interest. It’s much cheaper to go through ZayZoon to access money during the middle of pay periods. Earned-wage access gives employees a little more opportunity to get their dollars before they need them or when they need them. From my perspective, ZayZoon is integrated with isolved which makes everything still accounted for in one system” says Wilks.

Boosting Talent Acquisition and Retention

Wilks believes that HR is ultimately there to serve employees—and to boost their well-being. After a simple integration through isolved Payroll, Wilks began introducing new hires to ZayZoon during the onboarding process. “Offering earned-wage access is the perfect way to make a great impression. New hires know immediately that we care about their financial well-being and will offer the resources they need.”

On-demand pay has been a boon to the agency’s employee experience (EX) and retention. 

“We’ve noticed that employees are happier and seem less stressed about their financial well-being. A lot of people are making it through the first year now. Earned-wage access through isolved and its partner has 100% made for a better employee experience.”

In terms of retention, Wilks says “For a while, we would have people leave within the first three months of employment. Since we started offering earned-wage access with isolved, we really don’t have that issue anymore. A lot of people are making it through the first year now. It’s 100% made for a better employee experience and showed the positive influence HR can have on a business.”

Making a Difference

Wilks reflected on a success story for the HR department that wouldn’t have been possible without isolved. “We have one employee who splits her time between two states to care for her elderly grandmother. Sometimes she needed money to travel before payday. isolved introducing us to earned-wage access has allowed her to travel without stressing about bills or taking out high interest loans and spend more quality time. That wouldn’t have been possible before.”