October 06, 2026

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In today’s edition:

✅ Standard steps

💸 That’s growth

🤖 AI anxiety

—Courtney Vinopal, Adam DeRose

TOTAL REWARDS

Managing menopause

A woman holds a fan to her face while working at a desk.

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As HR teams consider how to better support workers who experience menstruation and menopause, a new global standard may help inform how they design policies tied to these conditions.

The nearly 60-page standard, published by the International Organization for Standardization (ISO) on Sept. 7, includes a host of recommendations for workplace leaders to consider, from working conditions to job design to manager training.

It was spearheaded by the British Standards Institution (BSI), which develops national standards for government entities and consumers in the United Kingdom. The BSI initially worked on a UK standard after observing that high numbers of women were leaving the workforce early, in part due to health challenges stemming from menopause, Anne Hayes, director of sectors and standards development, told HR Brew.

“That meant organizations were losing skills, they were losing experience, and younger people coming into the organization were finding they were losing people that they could look up to and emulate and follow and be mentored by,” Hayes said.

For more on the new standard, and what it means for HR, keep reading here.—CV

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Whole benefits

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Whole Foods has been part of the Amazon family since 2017, but up until now employees of the grocery chain haven’t had access to the same benefits as employees of their parent company.

That’s changing, according to a recent announcement from Jason Buechel, VP of Amazon Worldwide Grocery Stores and CEO of Whole Foods Market.

Starting on Jan. 1, 2027, Whole Foods employees “will gain access to Amazon’s comprehensive benefits,” including health plans with coverage for fertility and other types of specialty care (like cancer support and mental health resources), as well as access to the e-commerce giant’s career development platform.

Whole Foods is also raising pay for hourly store employees, with average wages going up to $21 an hour starting on Sept. 28. Amazon is spending more than $230 million to expand these benefits to Whole Foods workers, Beuchel said.

For more on how Whole Foods employees will see their benefits change, keep reading here.—CV

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work perks

A desktop computer plugged into a green couch.

Francis Scialabba

Today’s top HR reads.

Stat: Demand for basic AI skills, like prompting, has fallen 25% among employers since January 2026, while more in-depth AI skills, like building tools, automating workflows, and AI engineering, has risen 51%. (Workday)

Quote: “You could try to do the inside game or you could try to do the outside game, and it seemed to me the inside game was not going to work.”—Daniel Kokotajlo, a former governance researcher at OpenAI and one of many ex-AI lab workers who quit over concern that their former employers lack necessary guardrails (New York Magazine)

Read: Three different countries’ failures to vet and share security information about an Omani pilot allowed him to go under the radar until attacking another pilot on a FlyDubai flight last week. (the Wall Street Journal)

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Written by Courtney Vinopal, Adam DeRose, and Paige McGlauflin

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