September 16, 2026

Presented By

Hi there! Steve Jobs was named Apple’s “interim-CEO” on this day in 1997—12 years after his departure, making him one of the most iconic boomerang employees, and revolutionizing technology for us all.

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In today’s edition:

🤝 Support secured

🤖 Emotional AI

✨ Benefit refresh

—Courtney Vinopal, Adam DeRose, Natasha Piñon

TOTAL REWARDS

End-to-end care

Photo collage showing two images juxtaposed next to each other one, one is a close crop of a woman leaning over a young baby, her face is obscured by her long straight brown hair but her smile is visible. Next to that is a view from behind of presumably the same woman giving her mother a side hug.

Shannon May, Photos: Adobe Stock / Unsplash

Wellthy, a caregiving provider with services including backup care, is acquiring Cleo, which provides a range of support for caregivers at different stages of their lives.

Both companies have been around for a decade or more, and together count companies including Meta, Hilton, PepsiCo, and Salesforce as customers.

Around 120 Cleo employees will join Wellthy as part of the acquisition, bringing the acquiring company’s headcount to about 500.

This acquisition comes at a time when employees are struggling to secure the right care for their loved ones due to ongoing shortages in the caregiving market, the CEOs of Wellthy and Cleo told HR Brew. What’s more, employers may rely on a patchwork of point solutions to support workers with caregiving needs, which can create friction as workers try to access the right support.

For more on the merger, and HR’s role in supporting caregivers, keep reading here.—CV

Sponsored By General Assembly

On a role

General Assembly shares that 35% of SMBs say role-specific training is the most effective AI upskilling approach. It ranks above tool-specific training (26%), external reimbursement (21%), and on-the-job experimentation (18%) by a significant margin.

Like the look of those numbers? You’re not alone, because 51% of SMBs already offer role-specific training by team or department.

General Assembly notes that the organizations seeing the strongest results have moved beyond generic AI literacy to training built around actual workflows.

That’s why General Assembly’s role-specific AI training programs are built around how marketing, HR, operations, engineering, and other functions actually work, so employees build skills they can apply from day one.

Explore their AI talent research here.

TECH

In your feels

crying AI person behind a retro looking screen with human hands drying tears

Getty Images

Maybe your feelings can be facts…but should they?

California lawmakers are looking to ban one of the more controversial uses of AI technology at work: using software that can detect or infer how employees are feeling.

The state legislature in the Golden State approved Assembly Bill 1883 late August, which would ban employers from using AI-powered workplace surveillance tools that collect “neural data” and recognize or predict a worker’s emotional state. The bill awaits action at the governor’s desk.

The state defines “neural data” as any information generated by measuring an employee’s activity related to their central or peripheral nervous system—signals such as facial expressions, voice characteristics, or other behavioral information, which AI emotion-recognition systems claim to analyze and attempt to classify a person’s emotional state. Other surveillance tools were not barred by this measure, and the measure carved out exceptions related to work for or on behalf of the federal government and technology designed to “ensure safety.”

For more on the new measure, and other moves to curb use of AI at work, keep reading here.—AD

Sponsored By Culture Amp

Turn chatter into people strategy. Glassdoor and Culture Amp’s webinar, Your Employees Are Talking, Are You Listening? puts employee voice on speakerphone. Daniel Zhao and Heather Walker connect workforce sentiment to people strategy in a 60-minute session on Wednesday, Sept. 23 at 1pm ET. Feedback finally gets a follow-up.

TOTAL REWARDS

Are you ready for it?

Coffeekai/Getty Images

You know that teeny, tiiiiiny leak that you kept meaning to fix? The one that eventually caused the gaping hole in your ceiling? Well, that’s how many organizations are treating executive benefits—and the clock might be running out on that strategy.

Organizations have often “approached executive benefits through a familiar lens: retention, attraction, and compensation competitiveness,” Tony Greene, president of NFP’s executive benefits division said in a new executive benefits trend report. And while all of those factors still matter, “the pressures shaping the highly compensated workforce strategy are becoming far more complex,” Greene said.

“Economic uncertainty has become persistent rather than temporary. Leadership movement has become less predictable. Retirement timelines continue to shift. Succession planning is becoming more urgent while, at the same time, many organizations still lack formal transition strategies,” he explained.

As a result, executive benefits strategies are going to need to do a lot more than just retain current employees in the years ahead, Greene added.

For more on how employers should rethink executive benefits, keep reading on CFO Brew.—NP

Sponsored By EasyLlama

Consider this your compliance cheat code. Know exactly what trainings and policies are required for your organization with EasyLlama’s Compliance Advisor. They narrow it down to the role, region, and industry, and even help you track your completions in real time to keep you audit-ready. Take a 2-minute product tour.

work perks

A desktop computer plugged into a green couch.

Francis Scialabba

Today’s top HR reads.

Stat: $25 million. That’s how much the tech consulting agency Accenture agreed to pay in order to settle allegations raised by the Trump administration that its DEI practices “failed to comply with antidiscrimination requirements” for federal contractors. (Business Insider)

Quote: “[ICE] failed to engage in basic vetting requirements which led my client to be alarmed that they were putting agents on the street without knowing anything about their backgrounds. The basic processes weren’t even followed.”—Kevin Owen, an attorney representing a DHS whistleblower, who warned the agency of its hiring new recruits and clearing them for duty “without fingerprints, identity verification, or credit checks” (the Washington Post)

Read: The EEOC found tech giant Cisco may have failed to protect Muslim, Middle-Eastern, and pro-Palestinian employees, subjecting them to a “hostile work environment.” (the New York Times)

Let’s rock ‘n’ role: General Assembly, offers role-specific AI training programs built around how marketing, HR, operations, engineering, and other functions actually work. Explore their AI talent research.*

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Total Rewards event

A Promo card for the HR Brew live and virtual event about Total Rewards on September 17, 2026

Morning Brew Inc.

An in-person event in NYC unpacking how HR leaders are balancing cost, care, and culture in their total rewards strategy—timely as budgets tighten heading into 2027 planning.

Check it out

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Written by Courtney Vinopal, Adam DeRose, and Natasha Piñon

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