Ceridian LifeWorks Receives Ford Foundation Grant to Help Lower-Wage Employees’ Access Publicly Funded Work Supports
Six Ceridian LifeWorks Clients of Varying Size and Industries Will Participate in This First-of-Kind, Year-Long Initiative
Minneapolis (June 20, 2007) – Ceridian Lifeworks, the Employee Assistance Program (EAP), work-life and health and productivity division of Ceridian Corporation (NYSE: CEN), recently received a $252,000 grant from the Ford Foundation to work with six U.S. employers on a pilot program to help increase the number of lower-wage employees who enroll in publicly funded work supports.
The grant, awarded by Families and Work Institute, a nonprofit center for research on the changing workforce, changing family and changing community, is part of the Supporting Work Project, funded by the Ford Foundation. This project is enabling business and governmental leadership to establish partnerships within communities to increase the number of employers that help their lower-wage employees access publicly funded work supports. These programs will enable lower-wage employees to better support themselves and their families. Included are such programs as the Earned Income Tax Credit, Food Stamps, housing and heating assistance, child care subsidies and tax credits, Medicaid and the State Children’s Health Insurance Program (SCHIP).
According to Families and Work Institute’s Entry-Level, Hourly Worker Reports, some 12 to 15 million employees in this country earn low wages and live in low-income households. Publicly funded work supports have the potential to increase the disposable income, purchasing power and financial stability of these employees. But many employees are either unaware that they qualify for these benefits or face considerable barriers in accessing them.
“In addition to the obvious benefit that this initiative will bring to employees, we anticipate that employers will see their employee absences and turnover rates improve because their lower-wage employees will be more economically stable,” said Ceridian LifeWorks senior vice president Zachary Meyer. “As a result, these individuals will gain access to more resources to help them manage things such as childcare, housing and health insurance. As a result, they will have fewer distractions from their work and are more likely to stay in their jobs.”
Ceridian will provide this new program to six existing Ceridian LifeWorks customers as an optional addition to their Ceridian LifeWorks EAP service. All employer costs will be covered during a 12- to 18-month pilot period through funding from the Ford Foundation. There will be no fee to these clients, which range in size from less than 1,000 employees to more than 100,000 and represent the hospitality, retail, property management and manufacturing industries. At the completion of the pilot program in 2008, Ceridian intends to continue to offer the program on a per-employee fee basis to organizations wishing to add this service.
“The greatest employment growth in recent years has been in lower-wage jobs,” said Helen Neuborne, senior program officer in the Ford Foundation’s Economic Development unit. “The notion of the ‘American Dream’ can be hard to achieve for employees in these jobs. Getting educated about publicly-funded programs and benefits can be an important way for this segment of the workforce to move up the ladder of economic opportunity toward economic stability and the middle class.”
Through this initiative, Families and Work Institute, with the support of the Ford Foundation, will focus on groundbreaking ways that community and business leaders can help employers of all sizes help their employees gain access to government and community supports. According to Ellen Galinsky, president of Families and Work Institute, “These projects have the potential to improve the economic stability of employees and their families, increase the competitiveness of local businesses by reducing turnover, and enhance the prosperity of communities by bringing millions of dollars of resources into local economies.”
Ceridian was the nation’s first provider of fully integrated EAP, work-life and wellness services. Today, Ceridian’s EAP, work-life and health and productivity solutions are utilized by more than 37,000 organizations of all sizes in virtually every industry.
Source: Ceridian
