Your employees are leaving free money on the table. Here's how much.

Here's a stat that surprises most HR leaders: about one in four employees don't contribute enough to their 401(k) to capture the full employer match. They're literally walking past free money.

For a company with 500 employees, a 4% match, and a $70,000 average salary, that's roughly $1.4 million in employer contributions that go unclaimed every year. The company budgeted for it. The employees earned it. Nobody picked it up.

Why it happens

It's not because employees don't care about retirement. It's usually one of three things:

They don't understand the match. "We match 50% of the first 6%" is clear to an HR professional. To someone who hasn't thought about percentages since high school, it's gibberish. They know there's a match. They don't know how much they need to contribute to get it all.

They can't afford to contribute more (or think they can't). When money is tight, increasing your 401(k) contribution feels like taking a pay cut. What most people don't realize is that a 1% increase in contribution on a $60,000 salary is about $23 per paycheck before tax. For many people, that's findable.

Nobody sat down with them. Auto-enrollment helps, but it typically defaults to 3% — below most match thresholds. Nobody follows up to say "you're leaving $1,200 a year on the table."

What a coaching conversation does

This is one of the highest-ROI coaching conversations that exists. It takes 15 minutes, costs the employer almost nothing relative to the benefit, and the employee walks away with an immediate, measurable financial gain.

A coach does three things:

First, they translate the match formula into plain English: "If you put in 6%, your employer adds another 3%. That's a 50% return on your money before it even hits the market."

Second, they look at the employee's budget together and find the contribution increase. It's almost always smaller than the person expects.

Third, they help the employee actually make the change — log in, adjust the percentage, done.

Total time: 15 minutes. Annual value to the employee: $1,000–$3,000+ depending on salary and match. Compounded over a career: tens of thousands.

The free version

We built a 401(k) match calculator that does the first step — translates the match into real dollars. It's free, it takes 60 seconds, and it's often enough to get someone to act.

If you want to make this part of a broader program, that's what 12th & Good Street for employers is. Our coaches handle the conversation. Your employees get the money. Everyone wins.