Proactive MD trusted Origin to deliver inclusive financial wellness to their employees.
Customer Profile: Udemy is the world’s largest destination for teaching and learning online. Headquartered in California, Udemy has over 900 employees globally and serves more than 40 million students and over 70,000 instructors in 180+ countries.
Locations: Bay Area, Denver, Dublin, Ankara, Singapore, Sao Paulo and New Delhi.
Employees: 900
Industry: Technology, Education
Udemy sought to expand their employee benefits programs to support employees’ personal financial needs by delivering access and solutions for all money matters from taxes, to stock compensation, life planning and more. Udemy also aimed to identify a critical partner for the People and Benefits teams to navigate employee requests for personal financial questions. Prior to selecting Origin, Udemy already offered a robust benefits program including physical and mental health benefits.
Udemy identified financial wellness support as a top request across all employee populations, including U.S. and International teams.
Additionally, personal financial guidance needs have been exacerbated by the recent global pandemic and ongoing economic impacts, with Udemy team members, like most employees across industries, regularly looking for personalized support from their People teams. Providing recommendations for employee financial planning is complicated, and often includes questions outside of the scope of expertise and appropriate engagement for the internal teams.
While personal financial challenges impact productivity, engagement, and satisfaction across all employee populations, helping in these areas has cost and time burdens for the company. It is estimated that financial stress costs employers $1,900+ per employee per year*. For Udemy’s roughly 900 employee population, this is estimated at a loss of $1,710,000 annually.
Udemy partnered with Origin, a personal financial benefit and Total Rewards platform provider on a mission to improve the financial lives of every employee, everywhere, in mid 2020. Origin engaged with Udemy to address key areas of concern for their employee and People teams, including cross team financial wellness education, personalized employee guidance and professional support for all things money and total rewards, and to reduce the risk and burden on the People team of supporting employee personal financial needs.
Origin worked with Udemy’s People and Benefits teams to understand the employee population demographics, critical personal financial concerns, and additional areas for support. Internally, Udemy has a diverse employee population with a wide range of benefits including mental health, 401k, stock options, medical benefits, remote worker programs and more.
Origin completed a streamlined discovery phase to determine opportunities for financial planning guidance for employees to optimize their use of existing benefit programs. As a part of this effort, Origin identified benefits relevant for employees’ financial plans and equipped Origin Planners to assist with addressing benefits questions in the context of both Udemy’s current benefits and each employee’s financial goals—a sophisticated approach to delivering holistic support to the complex ongoing employee requirements. Delivering cutting-edge employee financial planning and money management technology as well as access to professional Certified Financial Planners for personalized 1:1 support in the context of their total rewards and compensation is a core pillar of the Origin Benefit.
“In just the first few months, Origin is our number one most utilized new benefit.”
EMILY DUFF, BENEFITS PARTNER AT UDEMY
Udemy launched the Origin platform and programs starting with the U.S. employee team members in mid 2020 achieving immediate positive engagement and feedback. Initial participation shows over 25% U.S. employee user activation within the first 3 months since launching in July 2020.
In addition to usage, Udemy employees have continued to share positive feedback on their experiences with Origin, granting an overall satisfaction rating of 9.67/10, with a 93 NPS. As Udemy’s partner for employee Financial Wellness, Origin also delivered targeted educational programming via company-wide virtual sessions hosted by Certified Financial Planners. This included two Financial Wellness workshops on Personal Finance and End of Year Planning, as well as ongoing financial expertise to help keep employees happy, healthy and on the road to financial success.
With a focus on supporting every employee, everywhere, Origin and Udemy also engaged with an initial international employee cohort across global locations such as Ireland, Singapore and Turkey, with plans to expand international support further in 2021 and beyond.
By adding the full Origin program to the Udemy benefits suite, Udemy is supporting employees end-to-end on money matters, even during a time of unprecedented change.
Note: As of the date of publication, Udemy is a current client of Origin. No cash or non-cash compensation was provided for the testimonial.
Customer Profile: Webflow is a visual web design platform, CMS, and hosting provider used by people, businesses, and enterprise companies worldwide to launch beautiful websites and apps without requiring a single line of code.
Location: San Francisco
Employees: 380
Industry: Web design, technology
Today, the best organizations are the ones actively thinking about life outside of their HQ’s walls. Their leadership teams are focusing on building a global company culture to meet the challenging needs of employees, who work from every corner of the world.
Webflow, the no-code platform for web design, has understood this since it was founded almost a decade ago. Its mission is to empower everyone to create for the web, while leading impactful, fulfilling lives while they do it.
To support this mission, Webflow’s People Team selects employee benefits that empower employees outside of the workplace.
But coordinating an equitable benefits plan that meets the individual and unique needs of employees across the globe—during a pandemic—was a challenge.
To solve this problem, they turned to Origin.
Since receiving $72 million Series A funding in 2019, and $140 million Series B funding in early 2021, Webflow has grown to over 380 team members worldwide and is actively hiring around the world.
While Webflow’s headquarters is in San Francisco, only a fifth of its workforce is based in Silicon Valley. The majority of its workforce is remote, and 25% of Webflow employees are located outside the United States.
The fast-growing unicorn was looking for ways to attract and retain the best talent, and it knew highly sought-after voluntary benefits were key.
“A robust voluntary benefits offering saves employees money and increases productivity,” said Laura Rondanin, Webflow’s Global Benefits & Perks Manager, who is based in Italy.
Rondanin is methodical when it comes to creating employee benefits packages. Each year, Rondanin and her team do a deep dive on each of Webflow’s employee offerings and evaluate:
“Financial health and wellness benefits were top of mind for our workforce. This year, 80% of employees said they would take advantage of financial wellness and financial assistance programs offered by their employer, compared to 69% in 2020.”
Rondanin wanted to leverage a financial wellness program to:
There was an additional layer of challenge: With team members in 23 countries, Rondanin wanted to rely on a centralized platform that could offer consistent high-quality services.
After researching financial wellness programs, Rondanin identified Origin as the leading solution to solve her problem.
Webflow partnered with Origin, a holistic financial wellness and Total Rewards provider, in January 2020 (right before the U.S. tax season!).
During a kickoff meeting, Origin and Webflow worked together to identify key areas of support. Origin put together an action plan to address priorities, which included:
After launch, the adoption of Origin was immediate.
Webflow was astounded to see that month over month, more than 40% of its U.S. and international employees engaged with Origin.
With ongoing employee engagement campaigns and continual support, Webflow reached 52% engagement with U.S. employees and 40% with international employees in June 2021.
Additionally, employees met 1-on-1 with a financial planner, received a personalized financial roadmap, and engaged with educational lessons focused on their unique needs. In response to employees’ questions about equity, Origin delivered targeted educational programming to help employees strategize around their stock options.
As a result of Origin, Webflow has data-driven insights to determine how to help its employees.
The most common questions Webflow employees had are around taxes, analyzing current financial situations, and understanding equity. Planning for life goals, like purchasing a home or saving for a baby, was also high on employees’ list of priorities. These insights could influence Webflow’s other benefit offerings.
As Webflow continues to rapidly grow, and face new challenges, Origin is there to help its global team on their financial wellness journey. Together, they help their global employees feel supported and live impactful, fulfilling lives.
Customer Profile: Proactive MD is a national leader in advanced primary care, offering companies a comprehensive health management solution for their employees that extend beyond the clinic walls
Location: Greenville, South Carolina
Employees: 280
Industry: Health care
As the war for talent heats up, employers are becoming more and more critical of their employee benefits package to attract and retain top talent.
Proactive MD is a healthcare provider committed to bringing holistic, primary care centered around patients and their needs. Employers use Proactive MD to give their employees personalized support from a doctor, whether mentally, emotionally, or physically.
John Rhodes, the Director of People Operations at Proactive MD, takes the same holistic approach when designing a benefits package for his nearly 300 colleagues.
As he was researching must-have employee benefits, a holistic financial wellness solution to address the financial needs of every employee topped the list.
Proactive MD is expanding—they currently have 280 employees located in 15 different states. With the company’s rapid growth, Rhodes’ focus is on recruiting and retaining talent.
“We’re in the war for talent, so we have to think of ways to offer benefits that aren’t offered by other employers or that are outside of the traditional health, dental, vision package,” Rhodes said.
He is also careful to select benefits that can serve all employees, no matter their life stage or income level.
“We have to be cognizant of the fact that we are dealing with people across the board, and there is no ‘standard’ employee we are dealing with,” Rhodes said.
Rhodes was looking for a financial wellness program that had:
Origin and Proactive MD worked together to identify key areas of support and strategic value drivers to ensure the success of the benefit. Origin put together an action plan to address priorities, which included:
Since Origin planners are fiduciaries, meaning they don’t make commissions or are incentivized to sell certain products, Origin also emphasized the value of the unlimited 1-on-1 financial planning sessions with Certified Financial Planners™ offered as a core aspect of the Origin benefit.
After Proactive MD introduced Origin, Rhodes was pleased to see an employee engagement rate of 24% and well-attended webinars.
In September 2021, right before Open Enrollment, Origin hosted a webinar about Health Savings Accounts and Flexible Spending Accounts. With Origin, Rhodes saved on the cost of hiring outside financial consultants to speak to employees about financial literacy, and ensured custom content was provided to the Proactive MD teams.
Following the financial wellness webinar, Rhodes noticed an increase in the number of employees interested in accessing their 401(k) retirement plan, a non-Origin benefit, to edit their contribution amounts and update investment allocations.
Every month, Origin provides Proactive MD data-driven insights to determine how to help its employees. Proactive MD employees’ most common questions are around analyzing current financial situations, understanding equity, managing expenses, optimizing investments, and planning for retirement. Planning for life goals, like purchasing a home or saving for a wedding, was also high on their list of priorities.
Proactive MD also includes Origin in its offer letters as a company differentiator.
“We start preaching we have Origin from the very beginning of the conversation because it is such a fight for top talent right now.”
As Rhodes is onboarding new employees, he said the ease of onboarding is one of the best parts of Origin.
“We have so many employees in so many different places. It’s just one link to send out, and they’re in Origin within 10 minutes.”
An important component of Origin’s relationship with Proactive MD is to continue ongoing wellness programs. As Proactive MD’s partner in financial wellness, Origin is creating courses and customized group sessions delivered by Origin’s lead CFP.
In the coming months, Proactive MD will be an early user of Origin’s Benefits Center. Employees can see a personalized view of their benefits plan to see how much their total compensation is worth easily.
“Origin is useful to every employee at every stage,” Rhodes said. “It’s not just the certified financial planning benefit; it’s way more comprehensive overall, providing a holistic view of your benefits.”
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