SALT LAKE CITY — With low unemployment and stiff competition in Utah's labor market, businesses have had to get creative and find new ways to attract new hires and retain current staff. Local gourmet cookie maker, Chip Cookies, is no exception; the company began offering its workers expedited pay schedules to stand out in the market.
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Like the vast majority of America's workforce, Kevin Wither, manager of Chip's Salt Lake City store, was accustomed to the traditional bi-weekly pay schedule. That is until he started working for Chip.
"This is actually the first job I've had that does daily pay. But it's been super helpful for me at least," Wither said. "Getting out of debt coming out of college and all that stuff."
He said receiving his pay on a daily basis has allowed him to take care of bills and be more flexible with his money.
"It helps out a bunch, I think," he said. "You know normally I have to wait like a week or two for my other jobs. This one, the next day I have my money."
Chip's owner, Sean Wilson, said he decided to implement daily pay as an added benefit for his workforce.
"It seemed like a natural fit to be able to give our employees something that they really needed in terms of getting paid sooner," Wilson added. "And also our desire to want to give our employees that much more of a benefit for working for us."
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He said the daily pay is not only helping to attract new workers, but also to retain current staff.
"It just shortens that cycle for when they receive benefit for the work that they're doing," Wilson said. "And it gives them an opportunity to use the money that they've earned and spend it on the things that they want to spend their money on."
The daily pay is made possible by another Utah based payroll company called Everee.
"We set out to disrupt the traditional payroll cycle by paying workers as fast as they've earned their wages," said Everee CEO Brett Barlow.
It works like this: Wilson pays Everee $10 per employee per month, and in turn Chip is given a credit line by Everee to help pay employees on a daily basis.
"We pay their payroll every single day," Barlow said. "And then they just settle up with us on their normal payroll cycle to keep their cashflow consistent."
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Wilson said the monthly fee is money well spent in order to give his employees financial flexibility.
"We have to pay for payroll anyways and so it was kind of an no brainer in the sense that the cost was already going to be incurred in a large part," he added.
For managers like Wither, it makes staying competitive during this worker shortage that much easier.
"People just like that they have something that's so flexible that pays them right away, so it's always a nice benefit to have," Wither said.
The trend of on-demand pay is not limited to small businesses. Grocery giant, The Kroger Company, shifted to a daily pay model last year, and now pays all 400,000 plus of its workers every day. According to The Aite Group LLC, a financial services research firm, the on-demand pay market grew by 51 percent, or $3.2 billion, between 2019 and 2020.