These days, we are one click on a smartphone away from buying anything we need.
Everything is immediate. Well, except for the money we’ve earned.
But thanks to innovations like Earnings On Demand, that’s changing.
In this episode, I sit down with James Herbert, Founder & CEO at Hastee, to find out how his company is helping people unlock the money they’ve earned when they need it.
What we talked about:
- The outdated way we are paid
- Why the link between effort and reward needs to be more obvious
- How Earnings On Demand helps workers and companies alike
Wages when you need them
We live in an age when everything is instantaneous.
We see something we want — and we can pull out a smartphone and buy it. We can pay our bills through apps or even automatically. We can send money abroad with a single click.
Everything is immediate…
Except for our wages.
“We control our lives through the touch of a smartphone. Everything’s immediate. But we still have to wait to the end of the month to get the money we’ve already earned.” — James Herbert
It’s a major outlier in how we live our financial lives.
And it’s a surprisingly recent development.
In the UK, getting paid at the end of the month has only been allowed for 60 years. Prior to that, you were paid much more frequently.
So, while this has become the expectation for most, in recent years, it’s become woefully anachronistic.
And it doesn’t track with how you earn those wages. At the end of the week, you’ve still put in the hours.
You’ve already earned those wages.
But rather than change the laws back to a prior time with more frequent payments — which would be a major undertaking — tools like those offered by Hastee can allow workers to access the wages they’ve already earned.
Which has myriad benefits…
Effort and reward
Humans are naturally hunter-gatherers.
We’ve evolved over hundreds of thousands of years to exert effort and to be rewarded for it.
But our modern work life distorts this primal rewards system by separating our earnings from our effort.
And that has numerous downsides in terms of motivation.
In the UK, financial stress is at epidemic levels.
Nearly 60% of workers say that anxiety over money and debt — which has only increased in the era of COVID — has led to applying for high-cost credit and payday loans.
Meanwhile, over 30% of people say this stress is affecting their work and nearly 10% say it’s led them to miss work altogether.
“By linking effort and rewards together, we can change the way people think about that effort.” — James Herbert
When our earnings track alongside our efforts and we have more control over how we use our money, we see reduced absenteeism, increased productivity and generally happier workers.
How Earnings On Demand benefit everyone
When workers have better control over their finances, employers reap the benefits, too.
If you want a more effective workforce, helping to free employees from financial burdens is a great way to start.
And tools that allow for more financial freedom are particularly impactful on those who need them the most.
Unfortunately, the way most financial products are designed is to penalize those with the biggest concerns over finances.
“It’s often the people that can least that the least number of options who pay the most.” — James Herbert
They get worse rates on credit cards. They’re forced to pay insane levels of interest in short-term lending. They miss buying essential purposes.
So, the rise of Earnings On Demand — as opposed to an exorbitant rate on a payday loan — really frees those with the greatest financial difficulty from an endless cycle of debt.
In the end, the rise of Earnings On Demand through products like the one offered by Hastee benefit everyone.
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Until next time!
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