Driving employee retention with student loan benefits

“The majority of our employees are highly educated scientists,” says Sarah O’Reilly, Senior Director of Human Resources. “Student debt comes right along with that, so this benefit is an opportunity for us to address a specific need shared by a lot of our employees.”

That opportunity is what led Andelyn to partner with Candidly in 2022, Sarah shares. “We started just exploring options across the board and met with several different companies that offered some version of student loan repayment, but felt that Candidly really met that overall picture of how we can support [our employees] with that student debt, and also how they can support themselves.”

Despite the prevalence of student debt among Andelyn employees, Sarah shares that her team was initially concerned that the benefit’s reach would be limited to younger employees. “There was an assumption that it would really only help our younger population and those that were coming straight out of college into our entry level roles. But what we’ve learned through this process is that it’s not just the newest generation that’s benefiting from this offering, and I can see from Candidly’s analytics tool that quite a few of our higher level and even very senior roles are taking advantage of this. That’s been a really pleasant surprise,” she says.

Andelyn’s Candidly offering includes a $100 monthly contribution towards eligible employees’ student loan repayment — a perk that has played a critical role in the organization’s retention strategy. “It’s a standout offering and it does keep people with us,” says Sarah. “If an employee is thinking about walking away, they stop and consider whether they really want to lose this resource.”

But Candidly’s impact at Andelyn comes down to more than just the organization’s repayment contribution, says Sarah. “There’s so much support that goes beyond the $100 we’re putting towards their student loan repayment. Candidly gives employees the ability to educate themselves about their financial wellbeing, and gives them tools to put that education into action.”

Driving engagement with the full Candidly platform was a key part of Andelyn’s benefits strategy for 2024, Sarah shares. “Like so many others in biotech, our biggest challenge in 2024 was the need to do more with less. We needed to make sure we were taking care of our existing population without introducing new benefits, so we were very focused on engaging employees with the programs we already offered.”

This proved especially relevant as the return to federal student loan repayment ramped up. “We were getting a lot of questions about Candidly. A lot of people wanted to understand our offering and how we could help them with those monthly payments,” says Sarah.

So what’s next for Andelyn? “In 2025, we’re going to be in a growth state. We’re going to be trying to attract that top talent and trying to hold onto our existing key talent as much as we possibly can,” Sarah says. “Programs like Candidly are key in that effort. This benefit is obviously one that’s pretty unique — it’s not offered at all of our competitors, or any competitors in our region, so we try to make sure that it’s at the forefront of our recruitment advertisements and communications around our benefit plans.”