Personal banking and the way we get paid has been advanced by technology, but when we get paid hasn’t changed much past the traditional weekly or monthly pay. Until now.
It’s easy to look at pretty much every aspect of life and see how it has been impacted and (mostly) advanced by technology. From a financial standpoint, personal banking has seen us move from having to go into the local branch to do everything, to telephone banking, then internet banking and now being able to do pretty much everything via an app on our phone wherever we are, whenever we like.
And how we’ve been paid has changed through technology too. When I had my first job…some years ago, I was paid weekly by cash in a brown envelope with the details and deductions hand written on the back. Now of course, technological developments means I’m paid monthly by direct deposit into my bank account and I can view my payslip on my mobile via the Fourth App. But one area that hasn’t changed much is when we get paid. For years now the vast majority of employees are paid either weekly or monthly.
For 300,000 UK workers, this causes a problem when an unforeseen expense crops up, leading to them resorting to expensive payday loans to make ends meet. This then puts them a risk of falling into a ‘cycle of poverty’ where the loan or overdraft they’ve taken to cover the unexpected cost leads to higher monthly payments. Their normal income is then less likely to cover these payments, which then leads to increased need to use loans and overdrafts and so the cycle continues.
For the hospitality sector though, that’s all about to change thanks to an exclusive new partnership between Fourth and Wagestream. By combining our leading technologies, workers will now be able to get on-demand access to their earned wages before payday, with just two taps of an app.
So if employees want to access a bit of extra cash before the end of the month or have an unexpected expense, they no longer have to bridge the gap with short-term loans or credit cards. It also means that they can proactively take on additional shifts to get instant access to additional pay ahead of the normal pay run. The result is happier employees who can focus on the job, miss fewer shifts and stay loyal to the company.
What’s more, this doesn’t change the employer’s payroll process or compromise their cash flow because payments are deducted from the normal monthly net pay cycle once payroll has been processed. Employers can control what percentage of the employee pay check can be accessed in this way, on an individual or group basis, or based on conditions such as length of service. The service is fully integrated with Fourth’s Workforce Management solution, so information on schedules, time and attendance, and payments flows accurately through the system.
You can find out more about our partnership with Wagestream and how the solution works in our recorded webinar.
Give us a call today +1 (877) 539-5156, or click the button below.
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