Employee Hardships
Hi there HR Professionals!
We are looking to implement a program for helping employees who are going through hardships make ends meet during their time of need. For example, if someone needs help repairing a broken down car to get to work, but does not have the emergency funds to fix it.
I was wondering if anyone had any great programs at their company for hardships, and if so, could you please share your ideas?
Thank you so much! - Brittany
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Following!
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This is a really great idea!
I wonder if a supplemental insurance broker might be able to help develop one of these that is funded by the employer and manages the distribution of funds to employees. That might be a good avenue to explore.The only thing a previous organization had that was somewhat adjacent was the ability to donate PTO. When it went into the PTO bank, employees with hardships, like cancer, family or personal illnesses, etc., that required more PTO than they had, could request through a PTO request form, some of the donated time. There was an approval process through HR, etc. to ensure fairness and equality, but the company removed it after I'd been there about a year.
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Alysa Southall Thank you for the idea!
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Brittany Yeager you're most welcome. Happy to lend additional support if you need it!
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Alysa Southall our company has done a lot of pass the hat or nowadays" gofund" me ect... The downside is its hard to keep confidentiality but it's quick and it actually builds morale for the rest of the team as they are each making the decision to help a co-worker out. We've done it for car repairs, medical bills, and funeral expenses.
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DeAnna Bistodeau - we were able to keep it confidential on our end. If the employee talked about it with others, then there was nothing we could do. But the donating employee filled out a form and provided it to HR whenever they wanted to donate. Then HR and payroll managed the bank of PTO and handed it out when a hardship was reviewed based on a form submitted by the requesting employee.
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DeAnna Bistodeau Thank you for your insight!
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We have something called a Care Team, where a group of 4-5 employees from various departments represent this group. We meet as needed when we hear about someone struggling, and then we will give them money from a budget we are allotted at the beginning of the year.
We have more structure around it, but that is the high level overview of what we do for these kinds of hardships.
Hope that helps!
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Bryan Baumgardner Thank you!!
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We have a Caring Coworker Fund that is funded by employee contributions and has been in place for about 5 years. We have a committee that reviews the requests and I function as the facilitator ensuring employee identifying information removed and facilitate the committee correspondence since the committee members are also confidential.
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Melisa Egbert This is great!
Thank you!
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