By Jason Lee, Founder, Salt and Chief of Chime Enterprise
When Rob Law and I founded DailyPay and introduced earned wage access or on-demand pay to the world in 2015, our mission was to enable the paycheck-to-paycheck worker to access her earned pay as needed. The members of this workforce previously had no way to pay an emergency expense or bill on time, so they often had to resort to predatory payday loans or incur hefty late fees and overdraft payments. DailyPay changed that, allowing employees to access their earned wages on demand.
In the summer of 2022, the founding members of DailyPay and I founded Salt Labs to create ownership opportunities for hourly workers, addressing the fact that these employees generate value for a company but often don’t share in its long-term benefits. In the post-Covid labor market, wage inflation failed to effectively improve retention, motivating us to develop a solution that provides long-term value and ownership for workers.
The idea was to create an asset-based system that would drive employee engagement, retention, and financial wellness while benefiting employers.
Salt Labs — the early days
The name “Salt Labs” was derived from the historical context of salt, which was used in Roman times as a food preservative. The team at Salt Labs focused on building a product that would allow hourly workers to preserve or retain their earnings for the future.
We offer Salt to workers through their employer as an employee loyalty program, similar to an airline mile program, only for working. Employees love earning Salt — it is the first time they get to see the output of their work instantly and in a way that builds over time. In most jobs today, employees simply receive a paycheck, most of which goes to basic necessities like rent, gas, utilities, and groceries. I call this “the boring stuff.” We built Salt to allow employees to associate their work with fun and positive outcomes, not just paying the bills.
From what we learned over the last year, Salt has helped businesses of all sizes — from 1,000 to 100,000 employees — improve retention and proactively reward employees in real time for every hour worked.
Today, we are releasing a whitepaper on the impact of Salt on employees across six different industry verticals. We partnered with Dr. David (DK) Kryscynski, an Professor of Human Resources Management at Rutgers University and the nation’s expert in strategic human capital and non-monetary incentives to write this. Dr. Kryscynski is one of the nation’s experts in non-monetary incentives and so we turned to him to validate the Salt’s impact on the workforce in this new study.
The summary is employees who earn Salt — and therefore build loyalty to their employer — stay 62% longer than those that don’t.
Salt incorporates well-established behavioral science theories like the endowment effect and the goal gradient effect. These same principles are used in modern consumer loyalty programs, like airline miles and retailer points or cash-back programs. They suggest that when individuals accumulate something of value, they tend to want more of it. Most simply put, Salt gives employees something they want, and something they want more of — from financial products to experiences. It allows them to obtain things they might never be able to save for — and that’s really special. It makes them incredibly grateful and more loyal to their employer.
We are so excited about these results and as such are releasing the new generation of our application. In Salt 2.0:
- We’ve upgraded personalized earning and goal tracking, making reaching milestones and earning bonus Salt easier so your employees can get what they want faster.
- We know that no employee has ever said “no” to more Salt, so we’ve made it easier to customize challenges and badges. You can award bonus Salt and badges when employees achieve a goal you’ve set to work toward in your business goals.
- Want to give employees better experiences to set goals for and get the credit? We’ve made it easier for your employees to enjoy more memorable and meaningful rewards, like VIP Pro Sports game packages, seasonal reward drops and limited-time offers.
Where do we go from here?
I’m excited to see what’s ahead for Salt and even more excited to apply consumer loyalty program principles to encourage every employee of our employer partners to sign up, set goals and redeem their Salt for rewards they really want.
When employees get what they want, they stay, benefitting employers, too. A 62% reduction in turnover saves millions of dollars because you’ll no longer be replacing workers who have moved on to what they hope are greener pastures. You can keep them by bringing that greener pasture to them by adopting Salt.
To learn more about Salt’s potential impact on your organization, download the recent Rutgers ROI study here.
