Student Loans Are Coming Due. How Companies Plan to Help
BY Ashlie Fanetti March 23, 2022Speaking with a startling consensus, nine out of 10 college students say they want to be employed by a company that offers a student-loan benefit, according to a 2019 study. Since then, the pandemic hit and student loans were frozen for almost 45 million borrowers in the U.S. But with the pause lifting on May 1, the nearly $1.75 trillion debt is guaranteed to return to the forefront as one of the country’s most pressing public-policy issues. That raises the question: What are companies going to do about it? Some companies are, in fact, providing a roadmap in offering student-loan benefits and even more are considering it. According to an October survey by the Employee Benefit Research Institute, 48% of employers currently have or plan to offer student loan debt assistance as a benefit, which is up from 32% in 2018. As for setting up a system, “In simple terms, a company provides money to pay down an employee’s student loans,” Robert Farrington, founder of The College Investor, told From Day One. “Companies can set up the arrangement in many different ways.” One example was profiled this January by CNBC. Abbott, the health care and medical-device maker, has a “Freedom 2 Save” program that enables employees with student loans to divert the 2% minimum contribution they’d normally contribute to their 401(k) plans to receive a 5% match to pay off their loans faster. When they show that they’re using at least 2% of their eligible pay to whittle down loans, the company kicks in with a 5% contribution to their 401(k) accounts. The program, launched in 2018, has attracted 1,800 employee participants and saw a 50% uptick in the monthly average number of employee sign-ups in the past two years, according to the company. Employee Leahannah Taylor, who was profiled by CNBC, said she used the program to help pay off $59,000 in student debt in a little less than two years. According to the October EBRI survey, programs like Abbott’s, where 401(k) plan contributions are tied to employees’ student-loan debt payments, are the most widely offered employer benefit for student debt assistance. But in the wake of the Great Resignation and an unprecedented movement to cancel student debt, corporate-benefits experts believe a greater share of employers will start offering student-loan payment counseling and/or loan-repayment subsidies, similar to tuition reimbursement. The data shows that such a move is likely to attract talent and retain employees. According to a survey done by American Student Assistance, 86% of employees would commit to a company for five years if the employer helped pay back their student loans. Companies including Fidelity, Google and New York Life already offer direct payments toward employee’s student debts. Vault.co, an employee-benefits platform, offers employers the ability to pay a portion of an employee’s student loan through the platform. According to CEO Romy Parzick, this method ensures that payment actually goes towards student loans, helping them with reporting to the federal government in order to receive new tax incentives through the CARES Act. Parzick said that the most popular benefit offered through Vault.co is the student-loan benefit. She describes it as a win-win for the employer: “It really helps with attracting talent, retaining talent and engaging talent.” Farrington added that another plus for employers is that it’s a form of tax-free compensation. From an employee standpoint, these benefits can really provide financial relief, since an average student-loan debtor carries a lot of more than $37,000. “Two in three college graduates have student-loan debt, and a majority of student-loan debt holders feel burdened by their debt,” Farrington said. Educational assistance benefits also can contribute to lessening the debt divide. Women hold almost two thirds of the total student debt. In addition, borrowers of color tend to lack intergenerational wealth that would help with the burden. “Women and people of color don’t start at the same place as their white, male peers,” Parzick said. “I think, especially for companies that want to support and attract people of color, this could be a really important component to the program they are putting together to really be welcoming to women and people of color.” Despite the many upsides to this benefit, there’s still a long way to go before it’s normalized. “There’s really a mismatch between the demand that employees have and the supply of benefits being offered,” Parzick noted. “That’s why it’s actually a great benefit for employers to add because it differentiates them from the rest.” Ashlie Fanetti, From Day One’s winter intern, is a Wisconsin native who recently graduated from the University of Wisconsin-Eau Claire with a degree in journalism. She has been a reporter for six years and has written about everything under the sun, but especially enjoys reporting on diversity, equity and inclusion issues and underserved communities.
For Workers With Disabilities, Hybrid Work Is a Turning Point
BY Ashlie Fanetti February 17, 2022For Stacey Vizinat, who works as an analyst in the oil-and-gas industry in Louisiana, the shift to remote work during the pandemic has been a welcome change in her life. Vizinat has a disability, diagnosed as Hypermobile Ehlers-Danlos syndrome and Dysautonomia, which causes her daily pain, migraines and other symptoms. She can deal with them more easily in her own home, where she is in control of her surroundings. “For me, working remotely has been mostly a blessing. The fact that I’m able to control my work environment at home is extremely beneficial,” Vizinat told From Day One. She said her interactions with customers have not changed much, since she already communicated with them mostly over the phone. Life has become simpler. Vizinat represents millions of Americans–an estimated 26% of adults have some kind of disability–who found benefits in the remote-work revolution. They’ve been able to avoid the obstacles of commuting and the lack of accommodations in many workplaces. At the same time, they’ve benefited from swift improvements in communications technology, driven in part because suddenly more people needed them, including able-bodied workers. Yet now comes a bittersweet turning point for workers with disabilities. As employers start ushering a return to the office, these workers face newfound challenges. On the one hand, they’re concerned that they will be forced back to workplaces not very welcoming to them. On the other hand, if they stay remote, they will lack the face time with managers and peers that leads to engagement and advancement on their work teams. How the transition works out will depend on personal and management considerations in the months ahead. The success of remote work for people with disabilities varies based on the person, their disability type, and the nature of the job. Most individuals need to be well-organized and motivated to be able to work from home successfully, as well as having the resources to support such work, according to Sharon McLennon Wier, executive director of the Center for Independence of the Disabled, NY. Productivity doesn’t seem to be a major consideration in deciding where employees should do their jobs, since most office workers have proven to be more productive from home, which may be even more true for workers with disabilities. However, other factors to consider include the social aspect of work. Social isolation is something that people with disabilities are more likely to face in their lives than typically abled people. Working closely with others, for some of those people, becomes a way of meeting and networking with others. “It may be very conducive for that person to leave the home because if they just sit at home, they miss a big part of their socialization,” McLennon Wier said. Vizinat acknowledges that the social aspect has been the only drawback of working from home. She doesn’t see her co-workers every day, as she did before. “So far, the only downside I’ve experienced from working remotely is not having in-person interaction throughout the days,” she said. The lack of interaction is exactly why Jim Sinocchi, head of the global Office of Disability Inclusion at JPMorgan Chase, doesn’t think working fully remote is a good choice for his employees, whether they are disabled or not. “Working from home is nice to have,” Sinocchi said. “But it’s not the road to success when you’re working in business.” Jim Sinocchi of JPMorgan Chase during an onstage interview in 2019 with From Day One’s Carina Livoti (Photo by Steven Edson) Sinocchi said it’s important for co-workers, especially those with disabilities, to go to work and meet other people. Engagement is key for employees with disabilities to be able to learn from their business colleagues, and it’s hard to do that outside of the office. According to Sinocchi, working from home can also be limiting for workers with disabilities in terms of getting leadership positions because people need to see and talk to an employee for them to become part of the workplace culture and potentially a leadership team. “Having a job is great,” Sinocchi said. “Being a leader and managing people and managing functions is even greater.” Sinocchi said there is an assumption among some managers that hiring people with disabilities and letting them work from home is best for everyone involved, but he disagrees. He says the point of hiring people with disabilities is to get them out into the marketplace and into the infrastructure of business. For Sinocchi, who is quadriplegic, part of the reason for hiring people with disabilities is so they are not hidden–and having them work fully remotely is failing that goal. “Working is healthy when you’re with people and you’re part of a community,” Sinocchi said. Sinocchi welcomes the benefits that have come from remote work, like the application of video technology and job flexibility. New accommodation teams have been created to make the company more accessible to everyone, both online and in-person. “Technology has enabled people with disabilities to compete for jobs more than ever before,” Sinocchi said. The solution to come out of all these considerations may well be a hybrid work arrangement, with accommodations for individual needs. That’s the direction Vizinat expects to take. “I really do not see myself working full-time in the office environment five-days-a-week ever again,” Vizinat said. She goes into the office sometimes to reconnect with her colleagues, but feels it drains her. So the hybrid model may allow her to focus on her health and comfort in order to keep being of value to her employer, she said. Sinocchi agrees that hybrid work options can be helpful because they offer employees flexibility in the workplace. The hybrid-work model, Sinocchi said, can help employers give able-bodied and disabled employees the same flexibility across the board and help create a level playing field. “The idea is, give us flexibility. Don’t segregate us.” Ashlie Fanetti, From Day One’s winter intern, is a Wisconsin native who recently graduated from the University of Wisconsin-Eau Claire with a degree in journalism. She has been a reporter for six years and has written about everything under the sun, but especially enjoys reporting on diversity, equity and inclusion issues and underserved communities.