An employee can have a 401(k), a health savings account (HSA) and a financial wellness program and still be unsure where the next dollar should go.
Each benefit may be useful. Making them work together is a different job.
We have spent a lot of time discussing what employers should offer. We need to spend more time on the decisions employees need to make.
The first two articles on retiretech explored the advisor as plan architect and the importance of finding fit. Financial wellness puts both ideas to work.
EBRI’s 2025 employer survey identified difficulty connecting standalone benefits, along with cost, privacy and implementation concerns. Just over three-quarters of respondents said their firms had developed a cost-benefit analysis of their financial wellness offerings.
The useful question is whether a program that succeeds elsewhere can work for this employer. Price matters, as do the benefits already available and how easily employees can use the service.
Workplace RetireTech Map 2.0 separates financial wellness, employee financial benefits and engagement into different neighborhoods. Employee decisions can cut across all three.
A sponsor needs a new capability. It may already have the right resources, but needs a clearer connection between them. Understanding the difference is part of finding fit.
One Paycheck, Several Priorities
Consider Maria, 48, a hypothetical employee. She contributes to her 401(k), has an HSA and can access financial coaching. She also carries credit-card debt, has little emergency savings and helps support a parent.
During annual enrollment, she wonders whether she can increase her savings without falling behind on bills.
Her retirement provider explains long-term saving. Her benefits materials explain healthcare savings. A budgeting tool tracks her spending. Each covers a piece.
Maria still must decide what comes first.
Useful support has three jobs: understand the person, explain the options and help them act.
For Maria, the options need to reflect her bills, obligations and available benefits.
She may understand the numbers and still hesitate. An interactive tool, a person or both can help her work through the trade-offs and decide what to do next.
Better guidance cannot fix a paycheck that falls short. It can help distinguish an affordability problem from uncertainty about what to do.
Give AI a Useful Job
Boldin offers a useful example. Its AI assistant lets people ask questions using the information in their financial plan. Boldin says its planning engine runs the calculations and the assistant explains the results in everyday language.
For someone like Maria, that creates room to explore a savings change, see the projected effect and ask a follow-up question. She can work through the trade-offs at her own pace. Boldin’s documentation describes this kind of scenario exploration using the user’s income, expenses, accounts and assumptions.
PwC’s research points to different preferences. Employees generally favor personal interaction, while AI may offer a lower-pressure starting point for those embarrassed to seek financial help.
That can help her reach a decision. Carrying it out is another step. The service should make clear where she goes next and what she needs to do.
A Few Better Questions
Advisors can bring this perspective into existing sponsor and provider conversations. Three questions help:
Can employees compare options based on their circumstances and the benefits available here?
When someone is unsure, how do they reach qualified help?
Once the employee decides, how do they put that choice into practice?
The advisor uses the answers to guide the sponsor’s selection. The provider explains how it delivers the service. Individual guidance stays with the professionals engaged to provide it.
This also sharpens the selection process. A coaching service, digital tool or targeted benefit may each be appropriate. The question is which offering, or combination, addresses this workforce’s needs at a cost the employer can support.
Ask What Changed
A sponsor should be able to ask what employees gained from the service. Providers can explain what they report about use, completed actions and follow-through, while protecting individual financial information.
Those measures tell different stories. A login indicates that someone has accessed the tool. A completed action shows they did something with it. Sustaining an affordable savings habit would tell us more.
Follow-through does not replace ROI or prove a program caused every improvement. It gives the sponsor something useful to examine alongside cost.
Practical Takeaways for Advisors
Start with a decision employees face
Check whether existing benefits already provide the right help
Ask what providers can show about completed actions, not just logins
The Operator’s View
A recommendation without a way to act is unfinished work.
Look at what happens after someone says, “That makes sense.” Knowing what to do and knowing how to do it are different things. A useful service connects the two.
The employee should not have to assemble the help.