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Devin Miller On Financial Wellness And Workplace Happiness
9 Plays13 days ago
The savings rate in the United States is alarmingly low, with some studies indicating that nearly a quarter of American households have no emergency savings, and a significantly larger percentage of US families lack sufficient funds to weather a financial crisis. These statistics are scary, but this is where Devin Miller and SecureSave come in. Join Curtis and Devin as they discuss the importance of financial wellness to today's labor force and how employer-sponsored emergency savings accounts are a must-have benefit to support today’s workers and drive better business outcomes.
About Devin:
Devin Miller is an expert in workplace emergency savings. Devin is a financial technology entrepreneur who has built FinTech solutions used by tens of millions of Americans. Today, Devin serves as the CEO at SecureSave.
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Transcript
Introduction to Podcast and Guest
00:00:06
Speaker
Hey everyone, welcome back to Mustard Hub Voices Behind the Build. In these fireside chats, I sit down with people building, backing, and running better workplaces.
00:00:17
Speaker
I'm your host, Curtis Forbes. My guest today is Devin Miller. Devin's an expert in workplace emergency
Devin Miller's Personal Life and Lifestyle
00:00:25
Speaker
savings. Devin is a financial technology entrepreneur who's built fintech solutions used by tens of millions of Americans.
00:00:33
Speaker
Today, Devin serves as the CEO at SecureSave. When not working, Devin loves spending time with his wife and seven, exclamation point, children. Devin also loves the outdoors, gardening, hiking, skiing, biking, boating.
00:00:49
Speaker
Thank you so much for joining us today, Devin. Good to be here, Curtis. Glad to be on and excited to have a conversation. Before we start that conversation, i have to ask, I have four kids. It feels like a million sometimes. You have seven. How are you even upright?
00:01:07
Speaker
Yeah. I mean, they didn't come at once. So we I always joke, my only request is one healthy kid at a time. And we've been blessed with that. No twins. Every kid is healthy, happy, thriving. And we live in five acres outside of Spokane, Washington.
00:01:24
Speaker
So we live next to a big, like 600 acre nature preserve. We've got a big garden, uh, and we push the kids outside as much as we possibly can. I was going to say, and five acres is smart in that way. No one can really hear all of the fighting.
00:01:37
Speaker
Yes. well i think We moved here a few years ago and the kids were looking at like a neighborhood, like traditional suburban houses and stuff and, you know, trying to find decent sized houses for everybody. Um, it's like, we're not really neighborhood people. We grew up on acreage.
Devin's Career Path and Entrepreneurial Journey
00:01:49
Speaker
We need acreage. And, uh,
00:01:51
Speaker
And sometimes they're out in the driveway and it's just so loud. i'm like, yeah, they were right. We needed some. Yeah, you made a good decision. I think our neighbors appreciate it too. you have a really impressive career in the world of finance and fintech. And you've spent a lot of that time in C-suite.
00:02:09
Speaker
Tell me a little bit about your career path and really kind of what drew you to ah true through to the world of finance. And and and don't leave out your time.
00:02:21
Speaker
as a vehicle design? Yeah, well actually where it starts. I don't, yeah, I'm not a traditional financial services person at all. um I, yeah,
Human-Centered Financial Design
00:02:29
Speaker
I went to school and built race cars ah and was awesome. Learned, you know, very entrepreneurial background growing up. Building race cars is somewhat of an entrepreneurial experience. You got to raise money. You got to figure out how to build the thing. You got to figure out how to make money off of you know the experience of what is classically a knot of money-making endeavor. right But the short story, i was it's also a very human-centered design strategy. Everything around racing is centered around the driver. and know Anyway, long story short, graduated college, started working, and my wife started a business in the financial services space. and I ended up joining her in that company.
00:03:09
Speaker
and taken it over and we built that business out. And um I found financial services to be very interesting because you know people are the center of money. Like we don't need money unless, you know just it's it's well, we need it, ah but money is just ones and zeros. it's it's It's a very interesting concept.
00:03:29
Speaker
It's a tool. It's a tool. And um without people, that tool has no usefulness. And so people are really kind of the center of that. So it's very similar in some way. You have to put people at the center of the relationship with money and money is a very emotional thing.
00:03:42
Speaker
um And, you know, I just I find it a fascinating area to build, be creative, help people ah and have been in the financial services space for about 20 years and and still think about that concept of people being at the center of it. And how do you design for people?
00:03:58
Speaker
designed for their emotions, and designed for hopefully positive outcomes, which is also about racing. You want to win. You want to
The Mission of SecureSave
00:04:05
Speaker
have success. And you know we think about that for the people we serve. We want them to win in life. We want them to win yeah in their relationship with money.
00:04:14
Speaker
Although not spend it as quickly as some racers might race. Yeah. money Money will come out or go out just as fast as it comes in. And that's a funny thing. you know the more Especially with seven kids.
00:04:27
Speaker
Yeah. Cracks, yes, that'll also put a dent in things. So you're now your CEO at SecureSafe. I love, i really, really love what you guys are doing there. Financial wellness is something that is so important.
00:04:42
Speaker
In today's workforce, savings is a huge part of that, but a large share of Americans don't really have savings. Emergency, you know even otherwise, share a little bit more about what SecureSave is and the organization's mission, et
Impact of Financial Stress on Work and Life
00:04:59
Speaker
cetera.
00:04:59
Speaker
Yeah. So in my tenure in building financial technology products, I talked to a lot of people, studied a lot of different areas. And one thing that was always interesting to me was in the US, the savings rate in the US is is constantly quite low. It's is almost historically know low now. It's pretty close to some of the historical lows, but we're also lower than most other developed countries. We also have more debt. It's like our our relationship and our interaction with money in the US is is very unique, but we have some very bad, consistently bad habits, and one of them is short term savings.
00:05:32
Speaker
And what's also unsurprising is we are very stressed. Americans are traditionally very stressed people. And we're stressed over money and we're stressed over short term money matters. And so obviously there's a link there.
00:05:44
Speaker
And you know you and I have been building companies and and leading people long enough to you know that that stress shows up at work. And ah I have always felt that, and I've seen this and in leading teams, if you could help people be more successful with their money and get less stressed over it, and that doesn't mean just paying them more, that doesn't mean you shouldn't pay them fair wages, but ah people will spend what they earn. and You have to help them really improve their relationship with money.
00:06:10
Speaker
improve their management with it. But what I've learned is that you can't just teach people about money. You have to really actually give them the tools. You have to make make it easy for them to be successful. And really the heart of that for most people is just to start saving and to start saving short term. Just have a little bit of money set aside in case something goes awry. And little things go awry all the time. Tire blows out, you get ticket, an appliance breaks,
00:06:35
Speaker
You know, your kid needs to go to the doctor and you have to skip a shift at work. That will cost you money that you didn't have. That's an emergency. and And those little situations cause a lot of stress. They impact work.
00:06:47
Speaker
And on top of that, it it leads to a really negative cascading effect of financial consequences. People take money out of their retirement fund when they shouldn't. They take payday loans. ah They carry credit card debt.
00:06:59
Speaker
It's a really that short term savings gap is really the key to reducing stress, improving productivity and and reducing stress at work and also creating this positive cascade effect in your financial life.
00:07:11
Speaker
And so emergency savings really is like this key to so many things. And with secure save, we're trying to make it easier, faster, and more rewarding for people to save.
00:07:22
Speaker
And we do that through the workplace because when you go through the workplace, it helps unlock a lot of different capabilities that make it easier, more automated, and more rewarding to save.
00:07:33
Speaker
You know, it it it's a huge part of... um of relationships too. I mean, what what happens at work often we carry with us, we bring home, right? What happens at home, we carry with us, we bring into work. yeahp um You know, it's um an enormous stressor, I think, that contributes to, you know, sort of relationship conflict. So not just at work, right? And losing productivity at work, but but also at home. And then, you know, for so many people, um those things commingle.
00:08:05
Speaker
Yeah, it is. And it goes back to why money is so emotional because it there's that kind of relationship charge that comes with it for a lot of people, right? How do I tell my spouse I had to and need to take off a shift because our kid's sick and I couldn't get coverage or... right you know um you know I need it. My mom is sick and she's you know another so country or you know another state and I need a book of flight and I know we can't afford it. But yeah then like there's there's a lot of elements that these unexpected expenses and these situations that occur, but even a dumb thing like a dishwasher, you know it may seem like a trivial thing, but I've had this in my life where the dishwasher broke and you know my wife and I were fighting about, well, who's going to do the dishes now? And you know well we can't afford to fix it until the next paycheck.
00:08:48
Speaker
but But it's backed up and we've got little kids and and it so it creates these issues and these situations that are really, really hard. Right. and And for a lot of the workforce that is hourly or on contract, when they're not working, they're not earning. So when you have these you know these problems that come up where if you're lacking those short-term savings, now you're having to choose between, you know yeah if I have to go somewhere to take care of a loved one for a short period of time, yeah having to choose between that and work, I mean, there's real there are real implications now on how
00:09:27
Speaker
you know your your work environment can contribute to you know a better life at home. Yeah, you know and I think employers are more in tune with this. i mean, I think for a long time they would offer benefits that they felt like they had to for competitive standpoints. And I think in recent years, there's definitely been the shift to what what will actually make a a positive impact on the wellbeing of our employees because employers recognize that that comes back to work in a positive
Employer Support in Modern Workplaces
00:09:51
Speaker
way.
00:09:51
Speaker
It improves retention, it improves productivity. And especially in the case of stress, And especially in financial stress, our research has shown that if people are financially stressed and they don't have emergency savings, they will miss shifts.
00:10:04
Speaker
They'll leave early, they'll so they'll show up late, or they'll just miss it entirely because they're dealing with some situation. And so employers are much more in tune of this and they're trying to figure out how to solve it. And I think over the years, you know folks in the C-suite of bigger companies who are completely disconnected from this and in a lot of effect, either never lived this reality or just haven't lived it long time,
00:10:25
Speaker
are now understanding the impact that this can have and they're investing in it. And so recently that has shown up in the in the case of what we do, workplace emergency savings. And so big companies are out there launching these programs and seeing great success.
00:10:39
Speaker
And we're excited about that. And we think this is going to be a big trend over the next five to 10 years.
00:10:45
Speaker
100%. Couldn't agree more. I mean, especially sitting in the seat that that I'm sitting in. you know i see the same I see the same things that that you see. I think it has been um you know a fairly natural evolution since the late Yeah.
00:11:01
Speaker
I think coming out of that world into sort of this market culture of the eighties and ladder climbing, which sort of led us into this nineties, you know, world of where we started to hear a lot about things like work life balance, um, right. That sort of spilled over into the, um,
00:11:19
Speaker
you know, and into the, into the two thousands, right. a lot about wellness, you know, a lot of a about workplace culture and then the, and then, and then COVID happened and then the great resignation happened. Right. And so it's, it's been this, I think, slow burn for about 25 years. And then it started, you know, picking up a lot of pace, you know, until really this new generation of workers that is, I think, motivated, highly motivated people.
00:11:45
Speaker
far more by, i think, more of an experiential factor at work yeah than I think our parents. Yeah. Well, I think they look to their employer to help them more than our parents did, right? That's a good point. Yeah, that's true.
00:11:58
Speaker
And I think that there's a trend line there and especially the younger generation, they're looking for more help and support. But what's interesting, you know there's still this trend that people don't want to talk about money at work. They don't want to talk to their ah HR people or their boss about their money situation. They don't want them to see it.
00:12:12
Speaker
and And I've had this. i remember You know, one time the last company was at ah was helping run this business. You know, we had a really good diverse workforce all over the world. And one of our sales people, very highly compensated, very good at what she did.
00:12:25
Speaker
You know, she's probably 40 years old. She came to us what and she needed $3,000 before her next paycheck. and um And you could tell she was just mortified to have this conversation with us, but she had nowhere else to go. And what happened was she was in abusive relationship.
00:12:43
Speaker
And no one knew it. And the night before it had gone too far and she moved out and she slept in her car with her kid the night before that. And she needed to get first and last month's rent to get a new safe place to be.
00:12:55
Speaker
And myself and and one of the other executives are sitting there with the HR leader listening to this. Like, you holy cow. And we helped through the situation. We tried to support it.
00:13:06
Speaker
But it was one of those things like how many times does something like this happen and they don't come to us because of just how incredibly humbling, humiliating and difficult it was for this woman to do it and how bad things must have gotten for that situation.
00:13:21
Speaker
And, you know, the reality is most people, they don't come to their boss on those. that's right They just, they don't they grin and bear it. How's it work? How's it home? Great. Everything's fine. Back to work. Leave me alone.
Stories of Financial Hardship and Stigma
00:13:31
Speaker
Yeah. That's how most people get through their day. And, and I, there's, that's something that I hope that with an emergency savings program,
00:13:39
Speaker
It's a way that employers can provide that support without having to have those awkward conversations that people don't want to have, that they know that the employer is there to support them in those situations. um But it's it's kind of, you know, the support is there, but you're you take care of what you need to and no need to come to me for for permission or approval.
00:13:59
Speaker
So we we talk a lot about solving people problems here here at Mustard Hub. If you could distill for you know maybe some listeners, what kind of people problems does SecureSave solve?
00:14:13
Speaker
Yeah, so a few different things. and And it depends on what's important to the employer, and we can really kind of focus with them. In no particular order, one of the areas that really has been driving emergency savings as a workplace benefit is actually retirement.
00:14:25
Speaker
um You know, there's there's also a retirement readiness problem in this country. but So long term savings as well. And a lot of workers are just not on pace to retire. And since the pandemic, especially, they're taking out more loans, more hardship withdrawals, and they're struggling to to contribute and participate into the retirement programs.
00:14:45
Speaker
And when the workplace retirement is your number one form of becoming retirement ready, that's a problem. And so there's very clear data that shows workers that have emergency savings are less likely to take out loans and hardship withdrawals.
00:14:59
Speaker
They're more likely to contribute and they're more likely to increase their participation. That extrapolated over your career is going to lead to a way more retirement ready worker. And so that's actually where emergency savings as a concept came from is through research on retirement.
00:15:14
Speaker
But a few other areas that we've highlighted, and people that are less stressed over their finances and that's tied to having more emergency savings miss less work.
00:15:25
Speaker
And so for a lot of employers, that's good enough. that Like the retirement stuff, put it aside. if my If I can get people to save more money in an emergency savings account, and that's proven that they will show up and leave early less, they'll show up more and leave early less, like that's a fantastic ah ROI.
00:15:41
Speaker
Combined with a great outcome. But a lot of it just comes down to it's a very popular benefit that gets incredibly high adoption and it's sticky. And so for some employers, they're just looking for something that's high impact, high utilization, good retention.
00:15:55
Speaker
That's a feel good benefit that works for their employees. So it really just kind of depends on what the employer is looking to address. I love that. What, what, talking about these employers, what kind of organizations do you work with? Tell me more about who SecureSave is for and why do they choose, choose you know, SecureSave versus other options?
00:16:16
Speaker
Yeah. So a few things. We work with employers of all sizes. So we work with companies that have, you know, a handful of employees to several hundred thousand employees. yeah Okay. And it's kind of like health savings accounts. Health savings accounts are meant for organizations of all sizes.
00:16:31
Speaker
um Say with a 401k, they can kind of be structured differently and have different components. But you know the biggest company in the world to the smallest company can both have HSAs or 401ks and workplace emergency savings is the same.
00:16:42
Speaker
But some of the common attributes are they have a majority of their workforce is low to moderate income. um And moderate income can still reach well into the six figures. And a lot of it depends on where they're located But these are healthcare companies, manufacturing services businesses.
00:16:57
Speaker
um We work more and more with schools and folks like that. And so these are organizations, again, that lots of low to moderate income workforces ah and they,
00:17:09
Speaker
have a lot of the problems we've talked about. They're keyed into financial wellbeing, retirement readiness. They're also looking at what will actually resonate with my staff and my team and what will actually potentially have a positive ah ROI and not just another benefit that I feel like I have to offer, but what's something that's going to drive a positive
Collaborations and Partnerships in Finance
00:17:27
Speaker
outcome.
00:17:27
Speaker
And that's where we're really having good success. We also sell through banks and record keepers. So we work with folks like Voya, Transamerica, Truist, HSA Bank, and we help them provide emergency savings programs to the employers that they support.
00:17:42
Speaker
Oh, really? Okay. So something interesting, right, to to note, SecureSave has a very deep bench when it comes to financial expertise, and you have a very public and and highly regarded personal finance expert on board, right? Susie Orman. She's a co-founder of SecureSave, right?
00:18:04
Speaker
She is. What is it like working with a personal finance celebrity? Yeah, Susie's interesting. So if you if you know anything about Susie, you'll know that she's been beating the drum of the importance of emergency savings for years. But she also, this concept of talking to people about money in emotional terms and kind of appealing to their emotions was something that she really kind of helped pioneer to great effect.
00:18:25
Speaker
you know when When money books and and you know books around investing and stuff were all written by older financial services men kind of speaking to the ones and zeros, she really came out and spoke to the emotions. She spoke to women.
00:18:38
Speaker
And she she really had a very different take. And she's talked in black and white and had an edge. And she has an edge. That's who she is. But she's also at a point in her career where she's looking to make an impact. She's written a lot of books. She's had her own TV show.
00:18:51
Speaker
She's got a very successful podcast. um She's done very well for herself. She's looking to make an impact. And she saw SecureSave when she got introduced to myself and our other co-founder, Bassam.
00:19:04
Speaker
loved the vision, loved the brand, loved the focus and the mission that we were trying to do and was basically sold immediately. And I had never met Susie, had no interaction with her.
00:19:15
Speaker
Her and I and our other co-founder of Bassam were very different, but she's been a blast to work with. she She's very good at keeping us focused, staying on mission. She's got a great innate sense of people and people are around their money. She's been really helpful with just doing anything that we can think of around, whether it's a webinar or podcasts or ah you know just content that we deliver, as well as product and and kind of strategic insights
Influencers and Financial Literacy
00:19:43
Speaker
and thinking to the business. And so she's been involved since before we launched and still very involved today in very much the same way.
00:19:49
Speaker
I love that. So who who else do you admire in the space? you know For those who are working on building up their personal finance literacy, who should they be reading, watching, et cetera? You know, that's a good question. i am I mean, I'll plug Susie's books big time.
00:20:05
Speaker
I don't know people like names. I'm terrible at names. You know, they're there's some really interesting new ah podcasters that are out there that I think are speaking well to the younger generation. I wish I could name some of these people because I want to do them justice, but I can't.
00:20:21
Speaker
Off the top. Yeah. So sorry, whoever you are out there. but which you know there are There are some folks out there that are I think are doing well by breaking down what how people actually spend. Like I have this with my 17 year old. you know She said the other day, like oh i really I really want to have like lake house when I'm older.
00:20:38
Speaker
ah Do you have any concept of how astronomically expensive some things in life really are like, let's start with what a car costs and insurance and let's go from there.
00:20:48
Speaker
I just don't think people have any clue what other people make, what they spend, what their financial situation is. And so, you know, I give a big kudos to folks that are out there that are kind of telling these personal stories. Like this is what the world costs and how hard it is. And, and, you know, don't be, don't be disappointed if if you're just trying to get by and you're living a basic life. That's fine. That's what most people do.
00:21:12
Speaker
Yeah. um And I think that's what social media has been good for. It kind of, it does better to expose some of those things. You know, in a way, in fact, I was going to mention that, you know, this, it, it It goes to show how important I think financial literacy is starting young from from a young age to understand a lot of these things.
00:21:32
Speaker
And social media can certainly help. I mean, social media also can not help. I mean, there's plenty of things out there that showcase individuals doing things that cost astronomical amounts of money, right? um But...
00:21:46
Speaker
you know, but it really can, it really can help. And there are a lot of, a lot of ways for young people to get educated, to do things that they need to be doing in order to avoid or to afford that, that lake house. I'll tell you one thing I don't like is like, to that effect, you know, these, um, TikTokers and stuff that'll go and like find rich people and like, what did you do to make
Hidden Costs of Success and Digital Distractions
00:22:06
Speaker
your first million? And how much money did you make in a day?
00:22:08
Speaker
Those people are very, very rare. And they've also made trade-offs in life. And I think that that's an unfair character. Like, ask them what they gave up. How many divorces have you had? Have you ever declared bankruptcy?
00:22:20
Speaker
so That's the reality of the world is is that, again, money is just a tool. It's not the yeah goal of what you're trying to achieve. that's ah that would be a That's a pretty amazing... If anybody takes something away from this chat, or this is very true and something that definitely gets overlooked a lot. right Success can often come...
00:22:40
Speaker
at a price and, um, and it can be an expensive price, right? And maybe not necessarily one tied to money, but to a lot of other things. Right. Um, but back to some of these people problems. So,
00:22:54
Speaker
A workforce facing, you know, economic insecurity, ah you know, is obviously one, but what are other pressing people problems maybe that you see sort of in business, you know, sort I'm interested maybe like, you know, around focus, work-life balance, you know, context and prioritization, you know, I'm curious.
00:23:14
Speaker
Yeah, I mean, at a general level, I think um just the digital world we live in and stuff and, you know, the big push to return to office. I saw a survey the other day it was very very exhaustive that basically showed, especially in like tech and and a lot of jobs where you don't physically have to be there. They're still working like almost three days a week from home. yeah and And I think that there is an element of you're always on.
00:23:36
Speaker
And, you know, when I was growing up as a professional, went to the office every day, you were there at eight, you left at five or six. And it was just, that was it. And like, you kind of knew how to work.
00:23:47
Speaker
But now i like I don't think younger people know how to work. I don't think they know how to do this. and they I do think there's an element of bringing them in person that's that's helpful that they're missing, and but they're not getting it. i don't know if they're going to get it And so and just I don't know if we know how to teach people to work anymore and in a weird way.
00:24:04
Speaker
This is really interesting too. And it might sort of reflect how a lot of these these people problems are Culture problems in a way, right? Boiling down to some misalignment between, I think, what these organizations think their people want to need versus what they they actually want to need versus, you know, what the people, you know, what they're surrounded by, what they know, what they've been brought up experiencing, you know? And so those three things are, you know, there's probably some Venn diagram, you know, where they all intersect, but employers don't know necessarily know where that is.
Building and Maintaining Workplace Culture
00:24:41
Speaker
Yeah. And I think it's hard. I still, so intentionality for me is a really important thing about culture, uh, intentionality and focus. You have to be very intentional about how you do things and how you run the business and how you communicate and, and, and what you're working on and why you're working on it. And that I think will help you stay focused, focused on how you communicate, how you work, how you set expectations, how you lead people, how you communicate to them and and how you pick and choose what you're going to work on. Cause,
00:25:09
Speaker
You can't do everything and you can't be great at more than just one thing, potentially. and I think it's hard in today's world. i mean they and Things change so fast. i mean even just you know um I saw a stat on like mobile phone usage that a decade ago, we might use our phone ah an hour a day. And now it's like, if you're using it less than three or four hours a day, you're doing good.
00:25:31
Speaker
um and And I think that's just the amount of distractions and and you know lack of focus that we have. and And I think there's just things have changed and we're all kind of that frog in the boiling water, right? Like we don't realize how much the water is boiling around us versus what it was.
00:25:47
Speaker
before. And I think that that's our culture and how we work and how we live and how we interact. And and especially again, post pandemic, we've never really kind of figured out what the new world is supposed to look like. i think as a leader of any organization, that is really hard. Like, how do you be intentional about your organization? How do you keep them focused? How do you help them prioritized? And um and the generations are super different these days.
00:26:10
Speaker
ah There's, you know, every organization, well, maybe not every organization, but, you know, most organizations have some kind of values, right? Some some as part of their mission or their core DNA of who they are. And a lot of these values...
00:26:26
Speaker
And culture, are often an obstacle, right? The misalignment between these values and the culture, right, ah often can be a real obstacle, I think, to success and yeah to growth. you know Is that something you see in a lot of areas within organizations, you know whether it's with um you know the other benefits they provide, operations, tech, sales, et cetera? I mean, do you see that really getting in the way?
00:26:48
Speaker
um don't know. it's So we we have a very intentional kind of mission vision principles in our company, and we try and lead to that. I push it. But the key is that you have to be exceptionally consistent and just like it's a drumbeat. You have to keep at it and you have to really push it out to the people and let and tell them and let them run with it.
00:27:08
Speaker
And I always say that culture really comes from the middle. Like, you know, doesn't, it at some level it comes from the top, but it really percolates through an organization through the middle because that's the group that's connected to the top that can hear it and and understand what what they want you to do.
00:27:23
Speaker
But it's the middle that pushes it to the bottom and maintains it. And so it's our job as leaders to, i think, continue to kind of make sure that that middle is driving it. And that's, you know, you can see that in an organization. If you, know, like one of our biggest clients, for example, you know, the the contact that we work with,
00:27:41
Speaker
Um, you can tell that that organization does a good job of what I'm describing. Like the, the senior leadership has a very defined culture. It's a very defined product and they push it to that middle management and they say, run with it and and give them the freedom, give them the dollars, give them the time and the resources and the flexibility, and they push it out to the rest of the organization.
00:28:01
Speaker
And it's really cool to see when that works. But then you see it the opposite where you have like, you know for example, return to office will come from the top. We need to do return to office. And then that middle layer fights it. Middle layer is like, well, I'm going to protect my people over here because I can't get my job done. And you can see that tension in organizations at times. and And I think it shows up when you pay attention to the middle.
00:28:22
Speaker
Do you feel like SecureSave is maybe one of these these tools, you know, these tools of financial wellness that can really help, I think, create more of that alignment and consensus between the top and the middle, you know, and the bottom, that that sort of cultural alignment to try and you know help I mean, generally speaking, a lot of these values are, you know, about, you know, have some sort of collaborative effect to them and support, you know, and and so forth.
00:28:51
Speaker
Yeah. As a tool, right, and and being able to close this short-term savings gap, right, that can help increase productivity and all of these other things that, you know, you've talked about, seems like something that can really, you know, be almost instructive, right? Yeah. And so some of the organizations that we work with, you know, we can see that where that middle layer, you know, is empowered and has been given that capability to really run with something because they're closer to that group at the bottom.
00:29:21
Speaker
you know, however you want to think about it, right? don't like the top to bottom necessarily analogy, but you know, if you're the C-suite in a very large company, you you don't have the financial problems that necessarily we're talking to. Maybe you have in the past, but just you're in a very different world in situation set and problem set. Right.
00:29:37
Speaker
But the people in the middle are not necessarily, if you're running ah HR for even a, you know, Fortune 500 company, you're probably not too well disconnected from that life. You might still be living it yourself. You likely are actually. But you're definitely one walk down the hallway or one walk down into the factory and you're dealing with those problems.
00:29:54
Speaker
And so those organizations with the C-suite is saying, hey, head benefits or our retirement leader or total rewards leader or even just the HR business partner that's given capability to make recommendations.
00:30:07
Speaker
trusting them that they are close and they know what's best for the people and don't fight it. right um Give them the power, the authority, and the capability, and then listen to them. and We see those organizations all the time and they have phenomenal success, not just with our program, but we see that across the board. They're usually leading you know within their industries, they're leading in innovators and benefits and and you know human capital management capabilities. like they It's really, again, empowering and leading from the middle that I think is important. But that that does start from the top. That culture is set by the top. so and Right.
00:30:42
Speaker
And that's a key thing. you have to it's It's one thing to kind of give lip service to like, we're going to empower our people. You really actually have to do it and it it, especially in a digital remote world and stuff where you're not all in one office. And it's it feels odd, I think, to a lot of people. It's one thing i wanted to bring up because I 100% agree that it really, you know, does that culture does happen and does get developed, does get, you know, um you built, I guess, to some degree, you know, by
00:31:13
Speaker
the middle, but at the end of the day, a lot of the the misalignment, these some of these people problems can be, probably are to some extent, a leadership problem because at the end of the day, the leaders are the one that builds those conduits, right? That helps empower that middle management to be able to do the things you know that leaders want them to do in order to to build that culture. You know you you talked about you talked about empowering them, right? And creating this, these, these mechanisms, right. Or this um way for them to be able to just run with it. And lot of leaders don't do that.
00:31:48
Speaker
Right. So, I mean, that, that's still a critical piece there to make sure that the leaders are giving their teams the things that they need to do. Right. In order to, you know, support it the way it needs to be supported.
00:32:03
Speaker
Yeah. Agreed. Yeah. Tell me some of the common traits that you see stand out in leaders when those that really, truly get it right with their people.
00:32:15
Speaker
I go back to the present company included. You can actually use own your own examples. i think it goes back to intentional and focus. and You know, just started with there, like that they are intentional about what they do, what they say, how they communicate, and they're focused on what they're working Like, you know, they're not all over the map. They're not trying to,
00:32:35
Speaker
solve every problem that the organization has and they're good at prioritizing. But in order to do that, you know, with, it goes without saying, we have to be a great communicator, great listener. But I think that's, it's a little bit different in my experience than, than what I always expected that to mean.
00:32:51
Speaker
you know, I thought great communicator was like, I have to be, have these inspiring messages and I have to be, you know, very clear and concise and stand on a stage, but actually really what it means is being consistent.
00:33:02
Speaker
and and using normal language and consistency in the sense of, I'm going to say the same thing over and over and over again. I'm going to say the same message and give the same, um, show the same slide. I'm going to give the same one liner. i'm going to tell the same story.
00:33:19
Speaker
And when the team starts making fun of me for saying it so much, I know that I'm starting to actually say enough. It sounds odd, but like you see this in Paul and some of the most successful politicians or some of the most successful athletes, like they're wildly consistent in how they communicate and what they're focused on and and how they behave and and the patterns that they have.
00:33:40
Speaker
And that's because people are so wicked distracted right now. yeah And there's it's so hard to grab their attention back to the comments of, you know, people are on their phones way more hours a day than they used to be. And so think as a community is a communicator, it's it's one of those things where, um again, you have to really careful I you have to study it, I guess is the way I would put it. Like, don't think about like the classic, again, I have to give a great speech or write the perfect email. Like, no, really study what makes a great communicator historically and what they did and how they did it.
00:34:14
Speaker
And a lot of it comes down to consistency and clarity. Yeah, I would agree a hundred percent. It's also some of the things that make the best teachers. yeah There's a ah very famous...
00:34:25
Speaker
old saying by Aristotle that was a teacher's job is to, um you know, basically explain the same thing over and over and over and over and over again until the student figures it out for themself.
00:34:40
Speaker
Yeah, i remember. The reality is is that when you do say it so much and you are that consistent, you know what i mean? I think that who you're talking to, right? All of your the employees, your team members, everybody starts to understand that that message, right? And they start to live those things and then they can make then and then they can make fun of you for it. Yeah, one as an example, I had a high school, two quick stories, a high school teacher who would say on Friday afternoons, have fun, stay safe, come back to school with smile on your face.
00:35:08
Speaker
I don't remember what he taught. I don't remember his name. ah good and I kind of remember the classroom a little bit, but I remember verbatim what he said every Friday. And it stuck with us over the weekend.
00:35:19
Speaker
and We had another college professor and was building race cars. you know He'd love to be us and hang around in the shop, which is what you know engineers do sometimes. But eventually he would stand up and he would say, well, i'm going to go out to the lab and do something, even if it's wrong.
00:35:32
Speaker
And he would say that over and over and over again. But it was, you know, both of those were the permission and reminder, you know, have fun, be safe, but I need you to come back. Like, stay safe is the important part.
00:35:43
Speaker
With my professor in school, it was, it's okay to make mistakes. We have to go do something. Like, some at some point, go do something. And even if it's wrong, that's okay. But those two people would say those same things over and over and over again. And we would make fun of them about it, but it was out of love and in admiration, but we remembered them was the key thing. good And we absorbed it.
00:36:05
Speaker
It is. And it's, it's that, that, that last, I mean, well, both of them really, I mean, that's a powerful, powerful message to anybody, to your, to your, not just to your team, but, uh, and not just to students, but to your kids, right? Go do, even if it's it's okay to fail, it's okay to be wrong because that's how you're going to grow.
Tech Solutions for Productivity
00:36:25
Speaker
Yeah, but they need to hear it a lot. They can't just hear it a lot. They do need to hear it a lot. It's a matter of, well, my my my oldest child needs to hear it a lot. My youngest child... I think she already knows that.
00:36:37
Speaker
she seemed it from their themselves Some of them seem to figure it out before they're ever told. yeah um So there are a ton there's a ton of tech solutions in the ah HR space you know that can be really, i think they're really impactful for organizations when it comes to recruiting, retaining talent, fostering culture, reinforcing core values, et cetera.
00:36:58
Speaker
Tell me some other tools and platforms that you have your ah that you have your eye on, right? yeah Including any products being used off-label as a tool to support culture beyond SecureSave.
00:37:11
Speaker
Yeah. You know, one is ah just anything around productivity. Like, um ah it's hard to... There's a concept in engineering, and like factories, you know work in progress, like what's going on. And in a factory, you can walk around the factory and you can see what's going on, what stopped, what's going.
00:37:28
Speaker
and But there's an extra level of detail, like what's moving faster than it should, what's moving slower, what's not optimized. And you know one thing, anything where I can find, and i don't have great tools for it, think part is you have to build patterns to kind of surface work in progress.
00:37:44
Speaker
And so we're constantly looking at tools that help us That was just a kind of classic project management tools, communication tools, yeah um you know data sharing tools that just allow you to see, especially in an information worker setting, like what are they doing? What's going on Where do I have slows and stops? Where do I have efficiencies and inefficiencies? And yeah you know to be able to call them out positive or negative and correct them.
00:38:09
Speaker
It's very hard in today's world. and It's really hard. I don't think there's enough being built. I don't want to go build that, by the way, but like i think I don't think there's enough there. um But it's heavy handed, right? like It's a little bit, there's a cultural element too. People don't want to feel like they're being watched or overseen. And getting back to everything we talked about, it he kind of comes from the top of like, this is important to us, we're going to do it.
00:38:32
Speaker
And then working with the middle to do it. you know Our culture is very written. and' So we we write things down and we try and have a lot of, written artifacts of what we do. And I find that to be a really great way to do it.
00:38:45
Speaker
You know, the AI tools is one thing. We were shocked at our last offsite, just how much AI tools have just propagated throughout the organization without us god doing anything. And I think that's another area where, um and I might have a bit of a counterpoint to how people might think about this. It's not just like you should use AI and HR.
00:39:02
Speaker
You should learn how your team is already using AI in in your organization. And I think one of the jobs that HR could have is HR in a general sense, but you know like what are these tools that are being used? How are they being used? Are we okay with it? Should we support it? Should we pull back on it?
00:39:20
Speaker
And you know it's kind of like in the heyday of software as a service, a lot of information technology teams were kind of taken aback by how much SaaS tools are just showing up in their organization being used.
00:39:31
Speaker
And I think right now it's kind of the same thing with AI. And I think you need to figure out who's using it. What are they using? How are they using it? And how do i get in the middle of that? And even just to understand it.
00:39:45
Speaker
It's interesting. um Considering how nascent we are, right? And how many tools, just the vast, right? Like breadth of how many tools actually even exist now. Yeah. um and And it's only been a it's only been a couple of years, right? Yeah. um Until there's some, you know,
00:40:06
Speaker
industry shakeout, right, where you see a lot of the major players sort of taking over, that would be really powerful to be able to surface, you know, that kind of information from your team. If you work with large teams, right, what's everybody using?
00:40:21
Speaker
What are they using it for? And how effective is it? But to your point about work in progress, this is something we've thought a lot about, too. Also something I don't want to build. um So if anybody's listening to this, yeah um being able to surface those kinds of insights about work in progress, you can just kind of understand, you you know, you made a good comment about people don't want to feel like they're being watched. At the same time, if the team understands where the team is at all times, I mean, that's really powerful, really powerful information that I don't think anybody has really nailed yet.
00:40:55
Speaker
No, not at all. And part of it is everything's moving so fast. or Work patterns continue to change so much that as soon as you built such a tool, would have to rapidly evolve. so um But yeah, I think that that visibility into what's happening, especially just at the pace of change in organizations, not all organizations are going to change that rapidly, but I think a lot of them will and and people will be surprised by it.
00:41:19
Speaker
um And all of a sudden something will break or something will radically improve and you won't know why. Yeah. and And I think if I'm in that middle layer, like I'm kind of afraid of that, of, you know, like if I'm in the C-suite, definitely afraid if something breaks and I don't know why. But I always tell people that work for me, I hate surprises. Don't ever surprise me. That's like one easy thing.
00:41:40
Speaker
But I think it's very easy to be surprised these days based on the speed and complexity of organizations.
Success Stories and Impact of SecureSave
00:41:46
Speaker
And that's, I think, something that, again, worth worth being attentive to. So tying back to SecureSave, I want to hear about a story, team, a client, an experience um you know that experienced a a turning point of some kind, right? good or Good or bad, with a change in their financial wellness benefit offerings.
00:42:09
Speaker
How did that impact the organization's culture? Was it measured in some way? Yeah. Yeah. We're actually putting together story right now with a a franchise in Montana. They run a bunch of like quick service, little change locations.
00:42:26
Speaker
but So you can imagine kind of who's working there. It's bunch of younger, mostly young men, ah some women, but very young, right? Like, you know, these are people in their late teens, twenty s thirty s um very high turnover, not great pay, okay benefits, um and an ownership group that you know is trying to stand out.
00:42:47
Speaker
ah They're trying to um you know put together compelling offer for for people in their community, and they're trying to retain them for a longer period of time. yeah And they launched with us a couple years ago, actually. So there's not a new client.
00:43:01
Speaker
And they came to us with the expressed interest of like improving retention. And they designed a program with us that was really optimizing for retention. And they hit my radar back to being surprised. Like it was a positive one.
00:43:15
Speaker
The team came to me and it was kind of a small surprise, but it was a good one. You say, hey, we just heard from this client and they called us out of the blue and they want to ah relaunch the program and add more incentive.
00:43:27
Speaker
Like, well, that's great news. What happened? It's very successful. They're having a great run with retention. And so they want to add more money into the program and invest more into it. And so they were pull back on some other programs that we're doing that just weren't utilized. It's not that we're going to cancel stuff. They just they weren't as appealing to this working group.
00:43:47
Speaker
And so I was a great testament to an employer that was, you know, two years ago, this was a concept, even just how fast things change, workplace emergency savings. I think they stumbled upon it. We're like, never heard of this. It sounds interesting.
00:43:59
Speaker
Took a, you know, took a risk on something new to see if it would work, invested into it. It worked effectively and they're doubling down on that. And, you know, um I think that's not an uncommon story that we hear ah from our customers, but that one's very unique.
00:44:14
Speaker
That's a really good one. And really, really telling considering the the industry and the type of shop is not, you know, historically not one that is invested in that way um in those type of, you know, hourly workers, for example. So, you know, that's a, that's a testament to how powerful, you know, secure scape can be yeah um or investing in these, in these kind of, you know, short-term short-term savings. So when you, when you think about the future,
00:44:42
Speaker
you know what would you say to business leaders? What should they be thinking about when it comes to financial wellness for their workforce? A lot of it is you got get people to take action and stick with it. And I think that's been somewhat the trend that we've had over the last decade, which is is that it was about teaching people about financial literacy, helping coach them through situations and yeah and engage with them.
00:45:01
Speaker
And you know back to the conversation we had a few minutes ago, people don't want to talk about their finances at work. They don't want to talk to a coach. Not at Not to say there's no value for those. We work with great coaching platforms. and But really, the starting point is you have to get people to take action.
00:45:14
Speaker
And that action has to be something that's going to be.
00:45:18
Speaker
It has to be something that is clearly going to be a positive. um There are definitely financial products out there that are. They're going to take action on. Are they really going to be helpful for those employees?
00:45:30
Speaker
um And with the case of emergency savings, there's no doubt. The research is clear. This is a net positive through and through for your employee. And it's a net positive for the employer. But more importantly, they're going to take action and they're going to stick with it.
00:45:44
Speaker
Then what we have found is that these other solutions can kind of come after that, right? If you actually help someone start saving, you're going to reduce that stress. You're going to build their financial momentum. You're going to create a pause.
00:45:56
Speaker
Immediately. Then they're going much more receptive, right? yeah Great. I'll talk to a coach. Great. I'll take this class. Great. I'll ah improve, increase my participation, my 401k.
00:46:06
Speaker
It's really a gateway to much more positive set of situations. it's a weathered emergency way benefit It's a great way but Whether it's emergency savings or something else, you you need stuff that people are going to use and stick with. And I think that's the trouble these days.
00:46:21
Speaker
We talk to so many benefits and rewards leaders are like, hey, we We've got this thing and that other thing people just aren't using them. We thought they were, and they sound really compelling, but people don't use them.
00:46:32
Speaker
yeah And I think that's going to be the biggest litmus test to find that stuff that's just not getting used and and not being retained by employees. Cause there's some stuff that sounds great and then it just diminishes. And we hear that often as well.
Data-Driven Leadership and Decision-Making
00:46:45
Speaker
um And you're not going to improve financial wellbeing unless they adopt it and stick with it. that's right
00:46:52
Speaker
Last question. you know or topic really that I kind of wanted to you know just touch on. You have an opportunity to chat with a business leader. They come to you with advice on how to you know get it right when it comes to growing and retaining their team or taking care of their people.
00:47:10
Speaker
you know You have just a a second, right, before they turn around and walk out the door. What's that one one last thing that you would tell them about getting it right before you never saw them again?
00:47:21
Speaker
Yeah. ah Get good data. Get good data. Yeah. Understand what is going on with your people. What do they really care about, want, need? Don't make assumptions.
00:47:32
Speaker
don't Don't listen to outsiders. you know So I wouldn't pitch them. got Just another data point. So get good data. And the employers that we work with that um I think are having great outcomes, again, not just with us, but we see it in other solutions,
00:47:47
Speaker
and other things they're doing. They have low you know low turnover, happy employees, they're succeeding in the markets, you know they're they're growing, they're successful. They have good data and they they went through the hard work to get that data.
00:47:59
Speaker
And they, you know again, and back to a lot of what we talked about, like they have leaders that that told them, go get good data, go understand it, go study it. And um you know And they're empowered to do that and to do the work, the hard work to gather it, to survey employees, to to bring in outsiders, to help them interpret it.
00:48:18
Speaker
And then once they do that, you know but what's the phrase? like There's lies, damn lies and statistics. And so just because you have good data doesn't mean you're not telling yourself ah you know some lies, but it's better than
Conclusion and Further Insights
00:48:31
Speaker
guessing. And I think in a lot of cases, for a lot of complex organizations,
00:48:36
Speaker
you know, ah understanding really what's going on in your organization, having that data, having ah you know replenishing it regularly is going to, it it won't do you wrong. um That's good. Yeah.
00:48:48
Speaker
I think that's really good advice. I mean, you're right. We can we can create write any kind of narrative that we want to to tell that story with the data that we have. But as long as the data is good, that's a good starting point. um That's good advice. Devin, thank you so much for for our chat today. I really appreciate you taking the time to to join me.
00:49:08
Speaker
Thank you, Curtis. It was fun. Yeah, you bet. Well, I want to thank everybody for tuning into Mustard Hub Voices behind the build. Please share this fireside chat and be sure to come back for our next episode.
00:49:20
Speaker
More insights are on the way. Also, check us out at mustardhub.com to see how we help companies become destinations for workplace happiness and turn culture into a competitive edge.
00:49:31
Speaker
Until next time.