Driving Loyalty: How First Student’s Partnership with Salt Labs is Revolutionizing Frontline Rewards

As North America's largest passenger transportation company, First Student has more than 545 locations and 60,000 employees across the United States and Canada. In April 2024, First Student partnered with our company, Salt Labs, the first modern employee rewards system for frontline workers.

First Student made a bold move to help its hourly staff workers finally own something more than just the paycheck they bring home each week. With recognition that their business is only as good as the reliable service their drivers provide - like showing up consistently for pick-ups and drop-offs, and getting children home safely, First Student knew they had to elevate the employee experience and continue to make the drivers feel rewarded and recognized.

First Student was impressed with what Salt could offer its highly distributed workforce: a loyalty and rewards program for frontline workers that could scale as First Student’s workforce and number of locations continue to grow. Prior to Salt, First Student offered spot bonuses and rewards, but it was hard to operationalize across the locations, and was hard to measure the impact. Never before had they seen a program that was truly automated, where the employees were in complete control of their own incentive & rewards system. 

With Salt, First Student’s hourly workers can set goals and earn rewards by mining the Salt they receive just by working their shifts. They are excited to come to work and watch their Salt Balance grow with each hour worked, saving for financial products and experiences they never had access to before. Salt transforms workers’ short-term mindset into long-term goals by providing them with their first opportunity to build their own store of value and because they can’t get these rewards anywhere else.

In the first 2 days of launch, the First Student leadership team was amazed to see a 10% adoption of the benefit and are projecting 40% adoption before the school year ends in June.

First Student intends on watching the first phase of launch closely and will be measuring the impact that Salt has on employee retention, call-outs, and training throughput (measures the number of new hires who complete training), which greatly impact business performance. With a highly seasonal staff due to the summer break, only 40% of drivers typically return the next school year. Salt Labs has seen an average of 56% employee turnover reduction across its other enterprise clients.

Salt worked with First Student on co-branding that matched the tone and look of their brand. You can visit their program details here.

At Salt, we’re on a mission to help frontline workers save. Something they haven’t been able to do for far too long. If you want to hear more about how you can partner with Salt Labs on this mission, please reach out to us at partnerships@saltlabs.com.

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