05/11/2021

What makes employees happy?

By Natalia Sharma

How do you think what makes employees happy? Simple question, but there is so much behind it. According to research, salary is very important, but beyond that, people are looking for different kinds of things such as extra vacation time, work from home options, free gym memberships, etc. But on top of that, what makes people really happy is feeling valued, recognized, and appreciated for what they do. A wise employer knows that showing appreciation to employees for their work is one of the most important factors to increase their performance, and of course, giving benefits is one way to show it. 

happy employees
All the benefits mentioned above are undoubtedly good, but there is something else that we don't even think of...Why? Because it is something innovative that we didn't get used to...It's Flipful! Imagine that you could have access to your earnings at any moment of any day not waiting for the end of the month. Sounds good? We all from time to time have some urgent and unforeseen expenses during the month and knowing that you can have already earned money even if you worked just a few days of the month brings peace of mind. 
 
But what's there for the employers? You are most likely an employer if you are reading this :)
 
Flipful is a modern app that allows your employees to access their earned salary without making changes to existing payroll processes.
What makes employess happy

How do you think what makes employees happy? Simple question but there is so much behind it. According to research salary is very important but beyond that people are looking for different kinds of things such as extra vacation time, work from home options, free gym memberships, and so on. But on top of that what makes people really happy is feeling valued, recognized, and appreciated for what they do. A wise employer knows that showing appreciation to employees for their work is one of the most important factors to increase their performance and of course giving benefits is one of the ways to show it. 

Worry is a distraction. When employees are worried about their finances, they cannot focus enough on their work, but when this distraction is removed, productivity increases. An increase in productivity reduces employee turnover and its costs. Employees will be more loyal to their employer who cares about them giving them peace of mind by making their salary flexible and accessible at any moment when they need it. It's a win-win situation.

I asked Jānis Putniņš, CEO and Founder of Flipful a few questions:
 

How did you get the idea of Flipful?

"The idea for Flipful came from seeing the challenge for people.
During the previous crisis, many people had a harder time applying for affordable finance (credit cards, overdrafts) since the financing and requirements became stricter. These times accelerated the growth of the new payday lending model and we saw many people all over the world turning to them. While it gives an alternative for those in need, not long after, the financial stress for these people rose significantly on a global level as in order to borrow small amounts, they were charged huge interest rates
.

Janis Putnins - Founder at Flipful, helping companies to motivate their employees
LinkedIn Profile

The need to have small amounts of money often occurs just a week before they get paid. They could ask their employer to just advance a part of their salary earlier, however, many people do not want to show they need money, they might need to wait to process the application, and accountants are not very happy with additional work.

When we look at the problem and the potential solution, it becomes clear that by solving the pain point for employers to give salary advances, you can also solve the need for employees who need these advance payments. So Flipful is a solution to managing salary advances in an easy way."

How difficult was it for you to bring this idea to life?

"While the salary advances have been here and do not sound like a very complex thing, it turned out to be that if you want to implement it as a third party, you need to take many things into consideration. It starts from the designing process that is compliant with the country's tax regulations, employment laws, and financial regulation as well. Then you need to carefully think of privacy since salary data is quite sensitive. It took some time to sort out this puzzle, however once sorted with the help of many professionals in the field, we could build the solution quite quickly and move to the piloting phase."

Janis Putnins - Founder at Flipful, helping companies to motivate their employees
LinkedIn Profile

Is Flipful a suitable solution for small companies with 3-5 employees?

"What we see is that most of the employers with over a thousand employees have the biggest demand for Flipful as in this case we are usually talking about distributed teams where additional complexity arises and the accountant is not reachable. When it comes to small teams of 3-5 people, they most likely have a direct relationship with the accountant and if they have a good relationship, asking for a salary advance would not be an issue. On the other hand, they could still be interested in a solution like Flipful that offers to automate the process and keeps a better track of who has accessed their salaries. In addition to that, the team gets financial education tips in-app which is a nice additional bonus." 

How did you come up with your pricing scheme? What were the factors you considered?

"Initially we did very detailed calculations of what could be fair pricing that will also turn into positive revenue for us to be able to serve customers in the long term. We came up with two pricing models – subscription as a service model based on the number of employees and the second one where we could charge per transfers made. Afterward, during the sales process, we proposed both models to employers. Soon we saw more interest in paying a fixed amount for an enrolled employee per month, so SaaS naturally elaborated as the primary model while transaction-based model we keep in case the employer specifically asks for it."

That's all for this week. Be happy and safe!
 
Natalia Sharma
Business Development Manager

moduulo, innovation for european accounting firms

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