Employers know that company culture can, and should, be improved. In fact, 92% of employers surveyed said they believed improving their culture would increase the value of the company. Alarmingly, only 15% said their company culture was where it needed to be.[1]

With an award-winning holistic financial wellness platform, PayActiv aims to cultivate a thriving company culture for employers and employees alike. As the leading provider in Earned Wage Access (EWA), PayActiv is committed to enhancing company culture by partnering with employers to provide access to earned yet unpaid wages to over a million US workers. Thanks to PayActiv, users have saved $240 million by avoiding overdrafts, payday loans, and late fees.

While the features themselves are beneficial, PayActiv’s financial wellness platform is only a part of the story. The real reason behind its success is the underlying cultural shift that employers and employees undergo when invited into the PayActiv model.

Read below for three ways to shift and enhance your company culture.

1) Embrace the art—and act—of empathy.

To be an empathetic employer is to shift your perspective, to walk in your workers’ shoes, and to cultivate an atmosphere of understanding in the workplace. Empathy allows employers to gain awareness of their employees’ lives and values and to respond more fairly to work-related issues.

How important is empathy? One of every three workers said that they would switch companies for increased empathy in the organization, 40% would work longer hours, and 56% would stay with the company if they felt valued.[2]

There is a clear gap, however, between what employers think about their organization and what is communicated to their employees. While as many as 60% of CEOs believe that their organizations are empathetic, only 24% of employees agree.[3]

            PayActiv can help employers dive deeper into the art and act of empathy. For employees to feel a part of an empathetic workplace culture, they must see and hear their employers embrace and enact empathy with actionable benefits and initiatives—such as the PayActiv financial wellness platform—that let employees know they are valued.

2) Promote employee holistic wellness benefits.

Providing holistic wellness benefits matters more than you may realize: one in three workers reports being chronically stressed on the job, while fewer than half of working Americans say their organizations’ climate supports employee well-being.[4]

Some employers go through the motions, offering a catered lunch and an hour-long seminar every once in a while, but holistic wellness benefits extend beyond the workplace, encompassing the entire well-being of the employee. Along with EWA, PayActiv offers financial counseling, budgeting and savings tools, access to Uber and Amazon shopping, and prescription discounts.

Wellness programs work: 61% of employees say that they’ve made healthier lifestyle choices because of their company’s wellness program and report higher levels of job satisfaction.[5]

PayActiv’s financial wellness platform works well: over 80% of users say that they are more likely to stay in their current job because of the PayActiv benefit.

3) Reevaluate and reaffirm your company’s core values.

Your company culture should reflect the why that drives you, but over time many employers lose touch with their reason for being. To create a robust company culture, they must revisit their core values, reevaluate them, and reaffirm what makes their company special. They must also take employees’ core values into account.

            As it stands, employees may not know, believe, or agree with their employers’ core values. Gallup analytics show that just 27% of employees believe in their company’s values, and only 23% believe they can apply their organization’s values to their work every day.[6] Nearly three-quarters of employees do not believe in or align with their company’s core values at all.

In their mission to reaffirm and communicate core values, companies should demonstrate how their values act as a compass, guiding each member of the company toward the same goal. Defining that goal provides employees with a sense of purpose for the work they do, which is key to creating a robust company culture.

At PayActiv, their mission is to bring financial security, dignity, and savings to the millions experiencing financial distress. Their financial wellness platform provides users with financial security through EWA, personal dignity thanks to financial autonomy, and the readiness—and peace of mind—for whatever tomorrow brings.

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[1] “Corporate Culture Matters a Lot, Says New Study,” Susan Adams, Forbes, November 12, 2015, https://www.forbes.com/sites/susanadams/2015/11/12/corporate-culture-matters-says-new-study/#7ca1441422b4.

[2] “Rewards Multiply with Workplace Empathy,” Businessolver, Washington Post.

[3] “Rewards Multiply with Workplace Empathy.”

[4] “Workplace Well-Being Linked to Senior Leadership Support, New Survey Finds,” American Psychological Association, June 1, 2016, https://www.apa.org/news/press/releases/2016/06/workplace-well-being.

[5] “8 Benefits Trends to Watch in 2017,” Aflac, October 2016, pp. 2–3, https://www.aflac.com/docs/awr/pdf/2016-articles/art.trends_2017.ic.pdf.

[6] Nate Dvorak and Niraj Patel, “It’s Time for a Core Values Audit,” Gallup, October 5, 2018, https://www.gallup.com/workplace/243434/time-core-values-audit.aspx.