SoFi Blog

The ability to help people who really need it may be the main reason you’ve decided to become a nurse. But let’s face it—money is usually a factor in job choice. That comes into play in two distinct ways: in terms of the salary you’ll be able to earn as a nurse, and the loans you’ll have to repay.

As an HR professional, you’re likely aware that many of your millennial and Gen X employees struggle with student loan debt. The average 2016 graduate has student loan debt of $37,172. Nationally, that debt is now over $1.4 trillion, which is more than the total credit card debt of all Americans.

Last summer, we surveyed 1,000 working professionals for The Impact of Student Loan Benefits, SoFi’s most recent white paper outlining the effect of student loan debt on employee recruitment, engagement, and retention. And what we found was telling: Employees want help alleviating the financial pressure of their student loan debt balances. In fact, just over 60% of respondents said that student debt is one of the top two most stressful financial burdens in their lives.

Luckily, student loan refinancing exists, and many millennial and Gen X employees are taking advantage of it. But what is it, and how does it help?

In our #SoFiStartups Q&A series, SoFi co-founder Dan Macklin sits down with startup founders who have gone through the SoFi Entrepreneur Program, where we offer mentorship, access to investors, and student loan deferment for founders of young startups. In a candid conversation, he speaks from one entrepreneur to another about their experiences founding a company.

Medications can improve the quality of your life—when you remember to take them, that is. This is the insight at the heart of Pillsy, a smart pill bottle that syncs wirelessly to your phone and beeps when you forget a dose. The set-up lends an effortless, tech-assisted hand to help you keep track of your vitamins and medications.

But if this solution sounds deceptively simple, that’s because it is. In fact, it took the Seattle-based startup two years to get to where they are today, on the verge of launching their product. Challenges like manufacturing cost-effective hardware, wrestling with Bluetooth, and developing a user-friendly format didn’t make Pillsy easy to bring to life. As co-founder Otto Sipe describes the process, “It was long and there were a lot of rewrites along the way. Along the lines of—Oh, this is completely not going to work.“

If you haven’t yet reached the point of sitting in your cubicle and counting sticky notes out of boredom or because your workplace has become so grueling, you can’t be bothered to pay attention anymore—congrats. You’re one of the lucky souls not suffering from job burnout.

But even go-getters can suffer from career stress—the feeling that work has become a series of mindless repetitions and frustrating situations. And once it hits the burnout stage, that feeling is no joke. Left to fester, burnout can wreak havoc on your health, happiness, productivity, and performance. According to the Staples Business Advantage 2016 Workplace Advantage Index, 91% of U.S. and Canadian workers surveyed for the report put in over 40 hours a week, at least some of the time, and 22% have changed jobs because of work-life balance issues, including decreased family time and battling work pressures that seep into their personal lives. In addition, 3 out of 4 respondents reported they aren’t provided with the latest technology and are expected to do more with less, and only 35% have a wellness program available at their current job.

Snapping back from job burnout and once again becoming excited about your career is doable, but you must first take a deep dive into how you’re feeling to identify the source.

Protecting your personal information is one of SoFi’s top priorities, which is why we are excited to introduce two-step verification (aka two-factor authentication or 2FA) for your SoFi account. 2FA provides an additional layer of security to help protect your account from unauthorized access.