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Country Fair cuts employee turnover by 22 percent with ZayZoon
Home Instead cuts payroll admin time and bolsters employee financial autonomy with ZayZoon
About Home Instead
- Location: Edmonton, AB
- Industry: Senior care
- Employees: 80
Nearly 75% of employees want their employers to help with their finances. In ZayZoon's own report of 5,000 surveyed employees across 8 industries, 81% said employers need to invest in their financial wellness. It's clear employees want the tools and resources to manage their financial lives and futures instead of having to ask their employers for help.
This is what brought Jay Dell, Home Instead’s co-owner and operations director, to ZayZoon. He found his employees needed pay advances, which took a lot of time to process. Jay says he’s always ready to help employees no matter what situation they are in but what if there was another way?
“If I can put a tool in my company that allows employees to utilize their money more effectively and efficiently then that's a win, right?” Dell asks. “That's a huge win.”
Problem
The Edmonton-based senior care company—one of 200 franchises across North America—has remote staff. Similar to any work in any industry, sometimes Dell's staff needed their wages in advance of payday.
“I don’t want to have my staff in a situation where they have to use predatory lending institutions but that they were able to get what they—to be honest—should be entitled to,” Dell says.
Processing pay advances takes time. Sixty-two percent of surveyed HR professionals in our report said manually processing pay advances can be somewhat to very time-consuming.
“For pay advances, you've got to stop everything you're doing, log onto your computer, go into your e-transfers, and start moving the money,” Dell explains. “You've got to remember on Monday when you go into the office and write that in your books to track it so you remember to take it out in payroll the next week and stuff.
Dell needed to save time to focus on other tasks at Home Instead and give his employees the freedom to handle their financial lives on their own.
Solution
After researching other EWA options, Dell chose ZayZoon to be the EWA and financial benefits solution for his employees. ZayZoon's easy onboarding and seamless integration with ADP made it a perfect fit for Home Instead.
ZayZoon also offered Dell’s employees an opportunity to make the most of their earnings. Not every employee who uses ZayZoon takes out their earnings ahead of time for a crisis. Home Instead’s employees can select from a number of perks or card payout options like gift cards, a prepaid VISA and gas card with a percentage of money added back.
“Do you have to be financially fragile to buy a gift card and get a bonus?” Dell asks. “Maybe it's your friend's birthday and instead of going out you’re using ZayZoon, getting a bonus on top. You're getting more value for your dollar. It just gives my employees more options in a reasonably low or no cost way.”
Results
90%
New employee sign-up
40%
Total employee sign-up
120
Minutes of payroll processing saved
Dell has nearly 90% of new hires onboarded and activated with ZayZoon.
“Generally,” he explains, “when we roll out software and new apps, we do get a fair number of calls saying, ‘I'm sorry, I can't figure this out,this doesn't work for me or I can't make it work or how do you do this or how do you do that?’ That hasn’t been the case for ZayZoon.”
With ZayZoon, Dell has more time to focus on his business and the clients Home Instead services.
Before, he found himself in a time suck cycle, going back and forth ensuring all of the company’s financials are correct after helping his employees.
Now, he feels peace of mind that both are taken care of.
"We're a care company, right? I care very deeply for my clients. I care very deeply for my staff. I'd want someone else to do this for me if I was in that situation. I do it for them."
About Country Fair
Country Fair is a convenience store chain with over 70 locations in three U.S. states. Its mission is “Country Fair Cares—For its Employees, its Customers, and its Community.”
To meet and surpass their company mission every day, Country Fair partnered with ZayZoon to address high turnover rates and offer the best benefits to its employees.
- Industry: Convenience
- Headquarters: Text
- Payroll platform: Text
- Number of employees: Text
Challenges
High turnover and financially stressed employees
The convenience store industry has notoriously high turnover rates. The National Association of Convenience Stores reported turnover rates for full-time and part-time employees in the industry averaged 141 percent in 2022.
Driving employee retention was a priority for Country Fair, whose customer-oriented mission was negatively impacted by the operational burdens caused by high turnover.
While Country Fair’s turnover rate was much lower than the industry standard, at close to 60 percent, the high costs associated with hiring and training new employees still presented the company with a challenge.
“We're always looking for ways to improve that turnover rate. We do that by finding vendor partners and offering products and services to our employees. This was just a really good opportunity for us to add something to our arsenal that we thought would help us retain folks.”
–Steve Seymour, Director of Personnel Training & Development, Country Fair
Financial stress among employees was another significant challenge, contributing to absenteeism and productivity issues. This is common for most workplaces today, as ZayZoon’s State of Employee Financial Wellness Report found that:
- 35% of employees are stressed about their finances daily
- 63% of employers said that financial stress negatively impacts employees’ performance at work.
Employees who experience financial stress are likely to not show up for work or have productivity issues during their shift. This affects the consistent and high-quality customer experience Country Fair strives to provide.
Country Fair needed a cost-effective solution that drove retention and supported employees’ financial wellness.
Our solution
Earned wage access (EWA)
To help decrease employee turnover rates and manage hiring and training costs, Country Fair worked with ZayZoon to introduce earned wage access (EWA) to its employees.
When considering competitors, ZayZoon’s people-driven product, no-cost-to-employer model, and quick and easy onboarding process was the obvious choice.
ZayZoon’s emphasis on employee well-being, with features like fee-free early wage access through gift cards and bonuses, aligned with Country Fair’s commitment to supporting its team members. This was a key factor for Country Fair in choosing ZayZoon over other EWA providers.
ZayZoon offers fee-free gift cards that encourage employees to get early access to their wages via bonuses for gas or groceries that actually give them more money than their regular paycheck.
“When we vetted other companies, they wanted to charge for this, that, and the other thing. But our employees love the idea of the gift card purchases, especially with the add-ons on the gift cards. I mean if you think about this a minute, a $100 Walmart card, maybe 110 because of a 10 percent advantage on that card, that's ten dollars that might be a dinner at somebody's house one night.”
–Steve Seymour, Director of Personnel Training & Development, Country Fair
Results
22% reduction in turnover with ZayZoon
The impact of ZayZoon’s partnership with Country Fair was immediate. A year-long analysis comparing Country Fair employees enrolled in ZayZoon compared to those who weren’t found remarkable results: employee turnover was 22 percent lower among employees who used ZayZoon.
This is a significant reduction in turnover, which directly contributes to better customer service offered by Country Fair. Reducing turnover means that Country Fair customers aren’t impacted by the gaps in customer experience that can sometimes occur during periods of hiring and training new employees.
Reduced turnover also reduces hiring and training costs, positively impacting Country Fair’s bottom line.
ZayZoon helps Country Fair employees manage their financial wellness
Country Fair integrated ZayZoon into their employee orientation, ensuring new hires were introduced to EWA on their first day of work. This process boosted adoption rates to 37 percent, helping over a third of their workforce access immediate financial support.
Country Fair employees found that access to ZayZoon’s EWA helped them manage financial emergencies. One employee’s car battery stopped working on his way to work—a nightmare in the tough winters of Erie, PA. Because this employee had access to ZayZoon’s pay on-demand, he received an immediate pay advance that helped him fix the issue and get to work.
Other employees didn’t have gas money for the week, but by using ZayZoon’s gift cards, they could make it to their shifts.
ZayZoon’s earned wage access helps Country Fair employees manage instances of financial stress, enabling them to be more present at work.
“I think [ZayZoon] helps our company in that [it helps] people to come to work," says Steve Seymour, Country Fair's Director of Personnel Training & Development. "Call-offs hurt in a convenience store because customer service is lost when you’re short-staffed. So for people to be able to get access to their pay to get fuel, a new battery, that’s kind of a big deal.”
Empower your employees with earned wage access
ZayZoon’s earned wage access made a difference for Country Fair because it provided a meaningful benefit that helped employees close gaps between paydays. By doing so, ZayZoon directly improved employees’ financial wellness and job satisfaction while decreasing costly turnover and absenteeism rates. It's a win-win for employers and employees!
If your organization is dealing with financially stressed employees or turnover and engagement issues, give your team an impactful solution with ZayZoon.
Contact us for a free demo with a real live person who can walk you through our seamless, payroll-embedded EWA solution today.
“You try to bring programs in and see how they do for your company. Some programs go by the wayside. I have a feeling [ZayZoon] is gonna stay a good while.”
–Steve Seymour, Director of Personnel Training & Development, Country Fair
