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Just give me my money

Illustration: Anna Kim, Photos: Adobe Stock

We’ve all fallen behind on bills. And we all know how much stress that can add to our already stressful lives.

Some employers try to help their employees through these financial hardships by offering earned-wage access (EWA), through which workers can cash out earned wages ahead of payday.

There are two types of EWA programs: direct-to-consumer and employer-sponsored, according to the Congressional Research Service. The former have faced criticism, as they often leave workers paying high fees and earning less of their paycheck to access it, while the latter see employers cover these fees. These programs, however, are less common: Just 12% of employers offer EWA, according to a 2023 survey by Sapient Insights Group. Furthermore, the benefit is most commonly offered to hourly workers, research from the Harvard Kennedy School suggests.

HCM platform Dayforce offers its corporate employees advanced pay access through its consumer product Dayforce Wallet, according to the company’s chief people officer, Amy Cappellanti-Wolf. Her hope is that by offering the product as a benefit to its over 5,000 employees in the US, UK, and Canada, Dayforce can help improve their well-being.

Keep reading here.—MC

Presented By BambooHR

Take the oops out of onboarding

Never judge a book by its cover, they say. The creator of this saying, respectfully, never experienced onboarding.

First impressions matter, and if onboarding new hires is creating more than its fair share of bumps in the road, BambooHR is coming in clutch with a roadmap.

BambooHR’s free guide, 5 Common Onboarding Mistakes to Avoid, is designed to help HR teams identify…well, exactly what the title says. It also covers the role of AI in onboarding and a step-by-step action plan to help your team avoid popular missteps.

New hires are judging your business’s book by its cover. Make sure it’s a pretty darn cool one with help from BambooHR’s guide. And make their first day memorable for all the right reasons.

COMPLIANCE

Madam Secretary

Saul Loeb/Getty Images

Former Rep. Lori Chavez-DeRemer, the (sorta) pro-union Republican tapped by President Trump to lead the Department of Labor, is headed to a full Senate vote after testifying before the Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor and Pensions (HELP) last week, fielding questions from senators chiefly about her support for the Protecting the Right to Organize (PRO) Act.

The HELP committee voted 13-9 in support of sending her nomination to the full Senate for confirmation. Democrat Sens. Tim Kaine, John Hinkenlooper, and Maggie Hassan voted in support of Trump’s nominee, while Republican Sen. Rand Paul voted against.

“If confirmed, my job will be to implement President Trump’s policy vision, and my guiding principle will be President Trump’s guiding principle: ensuring a level playing field for businesses, unions, and, most importantly, the American worker,” she told lawmakers in her opening remarks at the hearing. “I also know that we will not always agree, but I promise there will never be surprises. My door will always be open, and I will never put my thumb on the scale.”

Chavez-DeRemer first gained notoriety following her nomination by the Trump administration since she was one of only three Republicans in the House of Representatives to cosponsor former President Biden’s stalled signature labor legislation, the PRO Act.

Keep reading here.—AD

Together With ClearCompany

Sturdy training standards. When a century-old furniture store’s old learning management system made onboarding difficult, ClearCompany launched a full-featured LMS in two weeks. The result? Training completion and time-to-contribution rates went up. Way up. Read the case study to learn how ClearCompany’s LMS helped close the skills gap.

DEI

Targeting Target

Target's Bullseye in a form of a pinata.

Anna Kim

Target may not have been too surprised at the social-media drubbing it got on February 2, when—days after announcing that it was curtailing its diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) initiatives—it posted to Instagram, TikTok, and Facebook urging customers to purchase items from its “new #BlackHistoryMonth collection.

“You could not think posting this would yield positive comments,” user @domnthecity commented on Instagram, where, indeed, other commenters slammed it as “performative,” “gaslighting,” and “hypocrisy.”

But while that response may have been explicable for Target, which until recently promoted DEI passionately, it could not have predicted what happened next.

Keep reading on Retail Brew.—AAN

Together With Remote

Expanding your team shouldn’t take weeks or months. It should be fast, secure, and compliant, allowing you to stay laser-focused on building your business with energy and intensity. That’s where Remote comes in. Grow faster by streamlining hiring, payroll, and compliance in one platform to accelerate growth and gain a competitive edge in the global market.

WORK PERKS

A desktop computer plugged into a green couch.

Francis Scialabba

Today’s top HR reads.

Stat: More than half (52%) of US workers are concerned about how AI will affect their workplace. (Pew Research Center)

Quote: “The key takeaway is not that we might not have enough jobs…The issue is really that jobs may look much different.”—Till Leopold, the head of work, wages, and job creation at the World Economic Forum, on how AI will shift the nature of work (CNBC Make It)

Read: Employees may soon find themselves chatting with AI agents more than their human coworkers. (Axios)

Day one: BambooHR’s free guide, 5 Common Onboarding Mistakes to Avoid, includes a step-by-step action plan to help your team avoid popular missteps with new hires. It also covers the role of AI in onboarding.*

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