August 12, 2026

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Hi there! It’s Middle Child Day. Cost gets the budget meetings, culture gets the all-hands slides, and care just quietly holds the middle. The Total Rewards Equation gives it the spotlight Sept. 17, live in New York. Grab your ticket.

In today’s edition:

💵 Beyond EWA

⚠️ Pay with caution

🤖 Embracing AI

—Courtney Vinopal, Mikaela Cohen

total rewards

Stream-lining financial benefits

Mario Tama/Getty Images

Albertsons Companies, the grocery chain that owns stores including Safeway, Shaws, and Jewel-Osco, recently announced it’s rolling out financial wellness benefits to its 280,000-person workforce.

The new suite of benefits, offered through a partnership with the financial well-being vendor Stream, includes earned-wage access (EWA). Though other employers in the grocery sector already offer benefits that allow employees to access their paychecks early, this is the first time Albertsons is doing so.

In addition to EWA, Stream’s platform also includes tools to track and budget earnings, build emergency savings, and gain insight into both short- and long-term financial planning.

“We know that building financial resilience goes beyond just a paycheck, and we’re excited that so many of our associates are already using Stream’s tools to plan for their futures,” Jennifer Weinstein, Albertsons’s VP of benefits, said in a July 28 press release.

For more on Albertsons’s financial wellness offerings, keep reading here.—CV

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Your learning stack is built of a bunch of single-purpose tools: an LMS to administer it, an authoring tool to build it, a virtual classroom to deliver it, a wiki for quick answers, and a BI tool for reporting.

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It builds courses from your existing material, automates enrollment and scheduling, and turns your learning data into real-time dashboards.

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Total rewards

Salary growth slowdown

Illustration: Anna Kim, Photos: Adobe Stock

Some 51% of HR and total rewards professionals said they believed their organizations would see moderate revenue growth prospects this year, while nearly one-third (31%) described signals as mixed or uncertain, according to a Korn Ferry survey fielded in June.

The top external factors survey respondents cited as affecting business growth were geopolitical uncertainty and conflicts (68%), a global economic slowdown (61%), and strong global competition (38%).

But amid uncertainties such as an expanding war in the Middle East and slowing economic growth, total rewards leaders aren’t cutting back entirely on benefits. Instead, they’re “becoming more disciplined, targeted, and capability-oriented in how they manage rewards,” Tom McMullen, a senior client partner with Korn Ferry, told us via email.

Compensation is one area where total rewards leaders appear to be proceeding with caution in light of current economic uncertainty, as 59% reported “more constrained and tightly managed base salary growth” at their organizations, according to the survey.

For more on how HR leaders are approaching pay raises, keep reading here.—CV

Sponsored By Paradox, a Workday Company

The cold, crisp taste of top talent. Coca-Cola Consolidated made a huge promise to prioritize their front-line workers—and they kept it. That’s how they achieved a 95% acceptance rate + an 82% engagement score. Want all the deets? They’re in this new report presented by Paradox and The Josh Bersin Company.

hr strategy

Full ste(AI)m ahead

Photo collage showing two images side by side. On the left, a top-down view of a messy desk, with a calendar, post-it notes, paperwork, calculator, and cup of coffee. On the right, a top-down view of a clean desk with just two robot hands type on a computer keyboard.

Shannon May, Photos: Unsplash, Adobe Stock

While many workers are still grappling with how to use AI, the kids have seemingly embraced it.

The number of high school and college students and recent graduates who said they don’t use AI tools dropped from 36% in 2024 to 6% this year, according to a recent report from the National Society of High School Scholars. The respondents include students who graduated or will graduate high school between 2019 and 2028.

Nearly half (49%) of respondents said they use AI on a daily or weekly basis, but they’re also aware of the societal and environmental risks associated with increased AI use. The majority (69%) believe AI as “a more negative than positive” societal impact, a jump from 59% in 2024.

“There’s been a significant change in the use of AI, going from something that really wasn’t useful or helpful to something that is very meaningful,” James Lewis, NSHSS’s president, told HR Brew. “It was a significant change in the students’ behavior as a tool for them to succeed in their academic lives.”

For more on why young people are warming up to AI, keep reading here.—MC

Sponsored By CoAd

HR services that actually fit. CoAd gives employers the flexibility to build HR services around their business instead of requiring them to purchase a predetermined, one-size-fits-all bundle. With CoAd, employers can choose the combination of payroll, benefits administration, compliance support, and more HR services that best fit their org.

work perks

A desktop computer plugged into a green couch.

Francis Scialabba

Today’s top HR reads.

Stat: 44%. That’s the percentage of employees who say they are looking to grow their career in other ways than moving into management. (People Management)

Quote: “Go to your parents and ask them: Hey, like every time I get a chance to talk to my boss, ask me if I can have more days off. Ask your parents what they think of that as a career strategy.”—Meta’s CTO Andrew Bosworth scolded employees who asked if AI-related productivity gains might revive a popular “Meta Days” program offering additional days off (Business Insider)

Read: Robot overlord? Well, workers at this San Francisco shop (a first-of-its-kind boutique run by an AI agent overseeing human employees) say they have “the most lenient boss.” The agent wasn’t that great, however, at…checks notes…making any money? (the New York Times)

Close the gaps: When your learning stack is built from disconnected tools, the gaps between ’em break down the learning process. Sana Learn houses the entire learning process in one platform. Learn more.*

^{*A message from our sponsor.}

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Written by Courtney Vinopal, Mikaela Cohen, and Adam DeRose

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