Kroger expands personalized financial tools for employees

Dive Brief:

Kroger announced a pilot program in collaboration with Goldman Sachs Ayco that will provide financial counseling opportunities for its associates, according to a Thursday press release.
Salaried and hourly associates will have the chance to access financial coaches, online tools and other free, confidential services.
This program comes at a time when grocery employees across the industry are pushing for better benefits and working conditions.

Dive Insight:

Kroger said this new initiative provides its associates with resources to create individualized savings plans that outline how to avoid common financial pitfalls, take full advantage of company benefits and achieve personal financial goals with support from coaches.

Expanding the grocer’s work with Goldman Sachs Ayco, associates will have access to one-on-one counseling with trained financial coaches as well as supportive online programming tools and resources that they can use independently.

Kroger’s new program will begin with associates in the Cincinnati/Dayton and Fry’s divisions and with associates in supply chain, manufacturing and offices who are based in Cincinnati. This test run will have these associates give feedback in order for the grocer to improve the program and make it available for more associates next year.

“Kroger is the first retailer in the nation to offer this kind of benefit to hourly workers,” Theresa Monti, Kroger’s vice president of total rewards, said in the announcement. “We know financial wellness is essential to all of us. This is an important way we are improving our associate experience— empowering anyone to thrive and grow at Kroger.”

Throughout this year, grocers have been in a push-and-pull labor struggle at the same time grocery employees are demanding better treatment from their employees. The most prominent recent example of the latter is Trader Joe’s, where so far two stores this summer voted to unionize after Trader Joe’s United claimed the company provided insufficient pay and made cuts to retirement benefits.