Driving deeper engagement with student loan benefits

As a career opportunity platform, Guild is dedicated to breaking down barriers to economic mobility across the American workforce. And when it comes to the barriers to financial wellbeing faced by their own workforce, Guild has long recognized that student debt is a major hurdle for many of their employees.

“Before we partnered with Candidly, we were actually already offering student loan repayment contributions. But because we administered that benefit in-house, we relied on manual, analog processes that ultimately hindered participation and made it really difficult to track the program’s impact. We also realized that there were other steps borrowers could take to manage their loans, beyond just paying their monthly bill — and that we could get a lot more value out of our investment if we had a partner that could help our employees take those steps,” says Libby Culpepper, Director of People Operations at Guild.

That, Libby says, is where Candidly comes in. “It’s easy and secure, and the Core platform features drive so much more impact for our employees than repayment contributions alone. Candidly allows us to provide employees with more tools and more guidance, so we can offer meaningful support without having to have an in-house student loan expert on staff. And from the perspective of an administrator, the insights and analytics Candidly provides into our employees’ engagement and progress really demonstrate the value of this offering.”

As a Growth Coach at Guild, Kate Perryman knows that when it comes to reaching your goals, having an advocate on your side is key. But when it came to tackling her student loans, Kate used to feel like she was on her own.

“I knew that improving my financial literacy would help me navigate my student debt, but it was so hard to find dependable information — even official government websites are often vague or confusing. I was taking what I thought were the right steps, but I still wasn’t moving forward,” she says.

That challenge is what initially attracted Kate to sign up for Candidly. “But it ended up being so much more than that,” she says. “Candidly advocates for me by providing me tools to gain greater confidence and clarity about my student debt, and that empowers me to be a better advocate for myself, too.”