According to a report from the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, Americans added $333 billion of aggregate household debt in quarter four of 2021—that’s a sharper increase than at any time in the last 14 years and brings the national total to $15.58 trillion.

If reading that makes you want to close all your tabs and crawl into bed, you’re not alone. A 2021 survey from SHRM and Morgan Stanley at Work on the financial well-being of Americans found that monetary stressors and mental health are, for many respondents, linked. As of June, nearly a third of working Americans surveyed reported that during the pandemic they experienced finance-related anxiety and almost 20% reported experiencing finance-related depression. The numbers are higher for those who are unemployed.

Yet, even as companies invest in mental health benefits such as teletherapy and employee assistance programs, fewer have reportedly made similar investments in financial well-being programs. According to the same SHRM/Morgan Stanley report, only one in four HR professionals surveyed said their organization had added or expanded existing financial well-being benefits to “help employees manage their financial stress since the start of the Covid pandemic.”

The SHRM/Morgan Stanley report suggests corporations that adopt such benefits could have a recruiting advantage: Their data suggests unemployed Americans “tend to value financial wellness benefits more than working Americans,” and could view such benefits as “welcome incentives” when choosing a workplace.

One company that’s banking on this prospect is Northwell Health, New York State’s largest health care provider. Keep reading here.—SV

Do you work in HR or have information about your HR department we should know? Email [email protected] or DM @SusannaVogel1 on Twitter. For completely confidential conversations, ask Susanna for her number on Signal.

In February, Microsoft Accessibility, which provides disability hiring resources for job seekers and employers, announced the pilot phase of its Neurodiversity Career Connector (NDCC), a job portal specifically developed to connect neurodiverse candidates with employers committed to being inclusive of them. Employers who are members of the Neurodiversity at Work Roundtable can use the NDCC to source talent or post job listings to attract neurodiverse candidates.

Neurodivergence is when a person’s brain functions differently than what’s considered standard or typical. Neurodivergence includes (but is not limited to) autism, dyslexia, Tourette syndrome, and ADHD.

According to a LinkedIn post from Microsoft’s director of inclusive hiring and accessibility, the program is “a simple way for neurodivergent job seekers to connect to organizations that intentionally hire, support, and grow neurodivergent talent.”

What’s behind the NDCC? The NDCC beta program has the support and involvement of the members of the Neurodiversity @ Work Employer Roundtable, a collection of employers dedicated to creating and executing on neurodiversity hiring initiatives. According to the NDCC homepage, at least one in 15 Americans is neurodivergent. Disability:IN and Microsoft established the Roundtable in 2017 and it currently has more than 40 corporate members, including IBM, Deloitte, Wells Fargo, Dell, and Warner Brothers.

According to The Center for Neurodiversity and Employment Innovation at the University of Connecticut, the unemployment rate for neurodivergent adults runs as high as 40%, eight times the rate of non-disabled adults.

How does it work? If employers want to post jobs on the NDCC, they must be part of the Roundtable, have a neurodiversity hiring program that’s been active for at least one year, and be publicly committed to supporting neurodivergent talent. The Roundtable admits new members on a monthly basis, allowing them to post jobs to the site.—KP

HR Brew will keep you updated on new hiring programs that are trying to transform the workplace.

Do you work in HR or have information about your HR department we should know? Email [email protected] or DM @Kris10Parisi on Twitter. For completely confidential conversations, ask Kristen for her number on Signal.

Brian Miller is the chief talent, diversity, and inclusion officer at the software giant Adobe. Overseeing HR at an organization of Adobe’s size—the company has around 25,000 employees globally across 66 office locations—means the normal responsibilities of an HR chief are put on steroids.

Miller takes a granular approach to the big job he’s tasked with, however, placing an emphasis on DE&I initiatives that spread throughout the organization. An emphasis on diversity and belonging is built into employee engagement and retention and informs Miller’s broader philosophy.

HR Brew recently talked to Miller about how culture starts with middle management, the importance of DE&I, and his gig at Adobe, which he started just six months ago.

This interview has been edited and condensed for clarity.

What motivated you to get into the human resources field? I have always been a very curious person. And I’ve always been enamored with, “How do you really help people learn and grow?” It started way back before I joined HR [and when I] was a teacher. I taught fifth- through eighth-grade math. So I’ve always had this curiosity about how do you really help, whether it’s students or employees, be the best version of themselves. And I think that brought me into HR.

I have often been more curious about…how you put a business mindset to this idea of what I call “helping employees reach their full potential?” So if you think about it from a business standpoint—shareholder value, the ability to really generate customer experiences that drive product innovations—you want to think very similarly about how do I really maximize employee potential and help them reach their full potential as well?

How does the emphasis on diversity in your role inform your approach to all other aspects of the HR business? Keep reading here.—SB

Today’s top HR reads.

Stat: Salesforce recently experimented with an “Async Week,” during which about 20,000 employees canceled routine meetings to focus on their individual work; 72% of the participants “said it made them more productive and 70% reported it made them less stressed.” (The Wall Street Journal)

Quote: “Every company should accept that, for a certain part of the organization, work from anywhere will be the reality of our lives. What is important is that we are organizing it in a way that the face-to-face collaboration and the connection to the culture of the organization is not lost.” — Christian Ulbrich, president and CEO of Jones Lang LaSalle, speaking about the post-pandemic office with Charter

Read: Does your company need a workplace violence prevention program? (EHS Daily Advisor)

Attract and retain talent: Get a handle on what’s important to both candidates and current employees with help from Qualtrics. Their playbook breaks down the 5 KPIs and 25 drivers that top HR teams use to create a world-class employee experience. Get the playbook here.*

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Catch up on the top HR Brew stories from the recent past:

• Biometric monitoring is booming in the workplace, raising ethical and legal questions for HR
• Don’t mind the (career) gap
• Robots or Cobots? The difference could make—or break—your workplace culture