July 30, 2026

Presented By

Hey there, HR pros. It’s nearly August, which means it’s time for your annual rewatch of The Hills. (No? Just us?) Perhaps one of the most iconic storylines from the reality show also took place during the summer, when Lauren Conrad decided to live at the beach with her boyfriend instead of interning for Teen Vogue in Paris.

Her mistake has since informed generations to say yes to new opportunities. You never want to be known as “the girl who didn’t go to Paris.”

In today’s edition:

🚨 It’s an emergency

⚖️ Legislative lowdown

🔍 Work with me

—Courtney Vinopal, Billy Hurley

TOTAL REWARDS

In case of emergency

Someone pulling money out of a barrel of cash labeled 401(k)

Morning Brew Design

A record share of Americans tapped into their 401(k) accounts for emergencies in 2025, according to an analysis of plans managed by Vanguard.

Emergency savings accounts are seen as one potential backstop to this practice. Since 2019, the non-profit Commonwealth has partnered with BlackRock to expand access to emergency savings benefits by piloting them in workplaces across the US.

Even as hardship withdrawals are on the rise, this Emergency Savings Initiative (ESI) has nonetheless helped boost short-term savings, as well as encouraged retirement participation, among workers, a new report shows. Since the program launched, some 22 million Americans have gained access to emergency savings solutions, which have generated an estimated $7.9 billion in savings.

Notably, the report suggests that enrolling in short-term savings can also promote long-term saving for life events such as retirement, Timothy Flacke, co-founder and CEO of Commonwealth, said. Among the employers participating in the ESI program, 20% began contributing to a 401(k) plan for the first time after opening an emergency savings account.

For more on how employers are approaching emergency savings, keep reading here.—CV

Sponsored By LHH

Ditch the AI slop

AI and one-click application tools made applying for jobs effortless for candidates but a whole lot harder for hiring teams. High-quality, polished resumes used to indicate interest for recruiters—now, it just indicates access to AI.

LHH’s When effortless applications made hiring harder report explores the fallout of AI in hiring for 500 HR and talent acquisition leaders.

They cited similar issues across the board: more no-shows and ghosting, rising fraud concerns, and HR teams getting stuck with more manual sorting than ever.

Luckily, there’s a fix. The report found that teams are already adjusting hiring workflows to filter for real intent early, verify identity, and free up HR to focus on people instead of AI-generated, pattern-matching resumes.

Talk to LHH today.

COMPLIANCE

Legislative lowdown

Francis Scialabba

The Department of Labor (DOL) recently issued a pair of opinion letters detailing how the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA) applies to two situations where employees commute during the workday.

In one opinion letter, the DOL said the employer of a large, non-exempt workforce wouldn’t be obligated to pay employees for the time they spent commuting midday. At the time of writing the letter, the employer hadn’t permitted its office employees to work from more than one location (i.e. home, then office) in a single workday. The business wanted to grant these employees the flexibility to do so, but didn’t want to compensate them for time spent commuting.

The employer wouldn’t have to compensate these workers for midday travel under such circumstances, the DOL said. The agency clarified that “an ordinary home-to-work or work-to-home commute” would qualify as a category for which businesses aren’t required to pay workers, akin to lunch breaks or off-duty time.

A separate opinion letter, however, does offer one example of a situation in which an employer would be required to pay an employee for their commuting time.

For more on what these letters mean for HR, keep reading here.—CV

TECH

Best practice

Bright green resumes stamped with a bold

Francis Scialabba

AI tools aren’t perfect for every job—especially when it comes to hiring staff.

Recruiters are increasingly turning to automation tools to pull prospects from an ever-growing pile of résumés. While that has sped up the hiring process, it has also introduced a fair degree of uncertainty: a 2026 report from hiring platform Greenhouse of 1,865 US respondents (including 1,200 job-seekers and 665 recruiters and hiring managers) revealed that just 21% of recruiters are “very confident” their systems aren’t rejecting qualified candidates.

There are also persistent fears that AI is leading to biased outcomes in hiring. In another study, researchers from Stanford University, Chapman University, and Northeastern University analyzed 4 million job applications and found that automated assessment produced unequal outcomes across racial groups.

If that wasn’t bad enough, those researchers also found that “people who submit multiple applications to positions screened by the same algorithmic hiring vendor are more likely to be rejected from every position to which they apply than would be true if the companies made decisions statistically independently from one another.”

For more on how to ensure AI tools aren’t filtering out good candidates, keep reading on IT Brew.—BH

Sponsored By Paradox, a Workday Company

Less friction for your front line. If your hiring process is loaded down with friction, you’re probably losing some of your top candidates. Learn how to build a candidate-first front-line strategy at Workday’s Aug. 3 webinar. See how Workday helped Valvoline leverage AI to streamline their entire front-line experience.

work perks

A desktop computer plugged into a green couch.

Francis Scialabba

Today’s top HR reads.

Stat: Turnover among new hires was nearly 10% lower at small businesses that offered a 401(k) in 2025, compared to those that didn’t. (Gusto)

Quote: “Just because you have coding agents doesn’t mean you’re not hiring engineers.”—Sarah Franklin, CEO of HR software company Lattice, on why AI investments won’t necessarily result in widespread job cuts (the Wall Street Journal)

Read: West Virginia paid remote workers to move to the state. Many have stayed, lured by easy access to the outdoors, coworking spaces, and a strong sense of community. (NPR)

Not-so-effortless hiring: When AI made applying for roles effortless, HR teams lost an indicator of interest: effort. Learn how 500 hiring pros are navigating a difficult, AI-dominated hiring process in LHH’s new report.*

^{*A message from our sponsor.}

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Written by Courtney Vinopal and Billy Hurley

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