Progressive HR Live - Gita Kulkarni, and part 2 of an interview with When I Work; Blake Adams & Tilak Joshi

Hello Resourceful Humans,

Welcome to the 27th edition of Progressive HR Newsletter.?

Let's jump into the latest news in HRTech, Work Tech, & People Operations.

??Trending news in HR Tech, Work Tech, Skills Tech, & Web 3

Dayforce /Ceridian acquires eloomi .

Kashable raises $25.6M to offer employment-based lending.

Kaira Technologies selected as a top 10 HR tech provider.

TravelPerk raises $104M -CEO Avi Meir

Kara Connect honored with CX award at the Irish Impact awards.

?? New - Tech Founder Insights - Interview with When I Work, Blake Adams, CEO at When I Work and Tilak Joshi, CEO at Lean (acq by When I Work) PART 2

Coreyne: You've been very vocal about employee first decisions and employee first platforms. Providing 'Employee First Tools' is part of your idea for this acquisition to help overcome the stigma that many people have of being an hourly worker or a shift worker, possibly using the term 'blue collar worker'.

?Tilak Joshi: I think one thread that goes across all industries and all types of flex work, whether it's hourly or gig, is the lack of steady income. And a lot of the financial system is based on steady income. You can't see these problems that people are facing and not being able to get the right type of financial assistance.

It's across all industries and it's just the nature of the work patterns that creates the conflict. And it's not new, I think, from a When I Work perspective to go directly to the individuals and start solving problems there to help small businesses and individuals together financially.

Coreyne: Tell me more about 'closing the gaps in the financial system'.

Tilak Joshi: That takes decades to fully do and working towards that is what we're doing. I think it would be ideal if we find a way to reimagine the risk system that financial services sits on top for this particular workforce to enable every single financial product possible.

But it's baby steps on our way there, right? They're immediate tangible problems to solve. Like, how am I going to put food on the table? How am I going to pay my rent? Take care of that for the workforce, and then go into the next steps around, hey, now I'm getting money on a regular basis.

And we can assess risk on a regular basis as we advance money, that we can start to think about risk a little bit more broadly within this segment. Instead of using old models around stability, like you have to make the same amount for four years to be eligible, we can start to look at, hey, we're solving these immediate problems.

And now we're leveraging our understanding of the workforce and their needs to then rethink risk holistically, which is how you start to then close the gap of financial access, which is the larger ambition for us and beyond us.

I mean, I think in the industry is how do you catch up to a fast changing workforce, but I think When I Work is really well positioned with the access to millions of workers, the access to small businesses. Access to financial services and financial needs of those workers to begin to do that. But I think closing the gap is a multi-decade problem that we'll have to partner across the board to kind of get to.

For example, there are truck drivers that are pulling in $150,000 a year and they have trouble getting access to financial services. It's not so much about the income, it's about the pace of the income and flexibility around their income. So it's not so much about my income as much as it was about liquidity, as much as it is about access to income earned.

Coreyne: So Blake, I think you both answered this question, but I'm just going to ask because I want to know what the mission really means for you.

What is When I Work's vision for the future of the company with Lean as part of its portfolio to really "Make Shift Work Awesome"?

Blake Adams: I think it starts with our customers and we are already solving a set of problems in today. As I mentioned, and time and attendance. And I think as we look more broadly and say helping teams work better together and helping a small business owner, or a supervisor, or a regional manager, interact with their teams, manage their teams and also empower those teams to get more hours to swap shift to their colleagues.

The work with folks in a way that gives them more time back, gives them more flexibility be with their loved ones. I think that's the core of what we do today and sort of the benefits that we deliver. As you think about the vision of what we do tomorrow, it is like starting with that still as the kernel and starting with like. Small businesses within, you know, shift-based verticals, restaurants, hospitality, healthcare, manufacturing. But attempting to do much more for both the small business owners and for their employees.

And, you know, a big part of our vision moving forward was like, we've always been an employee-centric and that's been a huge asset company. And there's a lot of employers that that really resonates for and employees like love the app, they love the flexibility.

We did a leadership offsite a couple months ago at a go-kart facility and just talking to some of the employees of that facility. It was just like so heartwarming to hear how they used our app and like a few people even had it saved on the dock of their phones because they're in it every day, you know, they're using it to get more hours when they need them.

They're easily able to sort of empower to swap shifts with others to spend time as they need it. But that's like the kernel that we do today. I think as we go into where we go the next five, ten years, it is going to be elevating the shift worker, as more of a first-class customer and everything that we do.

And the thesis is in doing that, Tilak's point, we really will get this flywheel and build a unique ecosystem where the more problems we solve in small business owners it will make a more compelling workplace. Their employees are going to be happier, they're going to have better outcomes with their customer base, businesses will be more successful.

And similarly, the more we do for shift workers and their day-to-day and make their lives easier, the better the small business owners will be. With financial services on demand pay being a good example. I think the strong thesis and others have found, if you look at some industry research on the benefits on demand pay, is for those when an employer offers that to their employee base, their employers actually show up.

There's less callouts. They retain at a higher rate, which lowers costs for the employer and for the company, but it also just helps with the culture. It helps with them be able to better serve customers because they're not worried about how they're going to get their car fixed and they're able to accelerate some of those payments, as one example.

Our vision is going to be continuing to do what we do and just go from shift scheduling and time to a much broader platform. It's really serving small business owners and shift workers equally.

?Coreyne: The financial services industry will see that you're completely crushing it and they'll need to change to keep up with it. You completely change the whole ecosystem of everything...As Tilak said, small steps.

?Blake Adams: That's the plan.

Thank you Blake and Tilak for chatting with us!

?? Progressive HR Live broadcasts

Progressive HR was Live with Gita Kulkarni , Principal and Humor Coach at The Humor Edge, "Humor: The Land of Rebrand & Innovation", on September 19th. Coreyne and Gita discussed how humor can support a positive company culture and how the use of humor can lead to innovation. Check out the clip below. View the full Live show.

Progressive HR was Live on September 23rd with Tracie Sponenberg , Chief People Officer with The Granite Group. Coreyne and Tracie discussed "Generative AI: What is it, Why you need to care about it, and Why it's important for HR". View the full Live show .

?? Progressive HR was Live on December 12th with our Season 3 special where Coreyne and guests discussed 'where are you now' and 2024 HR trends. We welcomed back our HR and Tech experts from Season 2 and Season 3.

View the Live show.

Progressive HR was Live on January 23rd with Tim Whitley , HR Tech Wizard. Coreyne and Tim discussed "Tech Trek: Navigating the HR Tech Decision Maze". View the full Live show .

?? What's new at Progressive HR

Join us on February 21st at 1PMET/10AMPT for a Live event with Marnie Robbins , Founder of VibeHRC, and Troy Vermillion , Client Executive with Hylant on "AI & HR: Revolutionizing Employee Communication in 2024". Sponsored by Dayforce and Hylant . View event details and register to attend.

If you are an HR Tech/Work Tech start-up or organization, and you would like Progressive HR to organize your next webinar series, DM Coreyne Woodman-Holoubek more details.

Thank you all for engaging with this edition of Progressive HR Newsletter. - The Progressive HR team; Kristin, Mindy, Sarahmarie, and Coreyne

Coreyne Woodman-Holoubek is an HR Executive and thought-leader with over 18 years of global business and human resource leadership expertise cultivated in the United States, the United Kingdom and Spain. She is the Founder of Progressive HR, the host of Progressive HR Live on LinkedIn, the Creator of "HR Stand Out & Make an Impact on LinkedIn" and a LinkedIn Top Voice in Company Culture. Coreyne is passionate about emerging HR technology and new work ways; and is a sought-after creator, influencer and media personality for HR tech, Work tech, and the future of work conversations across the globe.

For more content on these topics...

Follow me, Coreyne Woodman-Holoubek ,

? Hit the ???on my profile to ensure my posts go to the top of your feed, and/or ? Follow my hashtag:

Thank you RESOURCEFUL HUMANS!