TOTAL REWARDS

Jonathan Heisler

While we all scream for ice cream, at least employees at Seattle-based Molly Moon’s Homemade Ice Cream don’t need to fret over childcare for their screaming babies and children, thanks to a dynamic childcare benefit that dynamically changed the culture and opportunity at the small regional chain.

According to founder and CEO Molly Moon Neitzel, a new generous childcare benefit began with an observation and question: Why weren’t some of the company’s most talented employees moving up the career ladder?

“We’ve realized that lots of young parents weren’t really climbing the career ladder at Molly Moon’s, and I started to see that amazing talent in our company were staying in the entry-level positions, scoopers and ice cream makers, making our starting wages,” Neitzel said.

Neitzel told a room of HR professionals at HR Brew’s Total Rewards Equation event last month in New York City that she had noticed talented employees—many of them young women and parents—across her dozen stores weren’t applying for roles higher on the career ladder “when they were obviously talented and seemed ambitious.”

For more on Molly Moon’s childcare benefit, how it came to be, and the difference it’s made for employees, keep reading here.—AD

      

Sponsored By Quantum Workplace

Many HR leaders are sitting on more talent data than ever…but not more clarity. Towering silos mean that talent decisions are still made on partial pictures, and connecting disparate systems can feel like a massive (not to mention expensive) undertaking.

Thankfully, Quantum Workplace’s new e-book, Connecting your talent data for stronger people decisions, looks at these hurdles and how you can solve them. And spoiler alert: Every solution comes back to more connected talent data.

Take a look at the e-book for guidance on where to start addressing talent issues and how to build an incremental approach. You’ll also find a guide you can use with your HR team to discuss how to get started on connecting tools and data for deeper, more actionable insights.

If you want to improve your talent data, start here.

HR STRATEGY

Morning Brew

We’re bidding a fond farewell to HR’s biggest industry conference. (We mean that literally: Its largest gathering in Chicago in 2024 brought together more than 26,000 HR pros, and we were there.) The Society for Human Resource Management (SHRM) announced last month it was retiring its annual conference, replacing it with a new event that “moves professional development beyond gaining knowledge to building capabilities,” according to the man behind the “voice of all things work.”

SHRM’s CEO, Johnny C. Taylor, told HR Brew it’s not an IHOP-IHOb marketing move. He hopes attendees (and the companies paying to send them to the event) get more out of the new SHRM HR-X Live! than just conference badges, networking opportunities, tote bags and other corporate swag.

“When you get 20,000 people registered for a conference, sometimes it feels like you’re just grazing. That was a word that showed up a lot in our conversations: you’re just grazing,” Taylor said. “People wanted depth.” Instead, HR-X Live! will be a four-day “credentialing academy” set for next summer, June 27–30, 2027, in Chicago, with a goal of reimagining what is possible when a bunch of HR pros gather to grow in one place.

This isn’t the first notable reboot of a popular SHRM conference event of late.

For more on what HR pros can expect from SHRM’s credentialing academy, keep reading here.—AD

      

Sponsored By Bank of America

Benefits work when employees utilize them. Only 56% of employees understand their HSAs—and annual enrollment is the perfect moment to change that. Help your team make the most of what’s available to them. Read the article.

COMPLIANCE

Francis Scialabba

Regulations that recently took effect in New Jersey provide more clarity to employers about how to determine if a worker should be classified as an employee or an independent contractor.

New Jersey is one of more than two dozen states that has a so-called “ABC test” for classifying independent contractors. Such tests are more stringent than the standard that federal agencies use, and require employers to meet three different criteria.

The New Jersey rules, which took effect on Oct. 1, provide more granular detail for employers that must comply with the state’s ABC test. They draw on previous court decisions concerning independent contractors, including a 2022 ruling that found drywall installers employed by a New Jersey-based company should have been classified as employees under the ABC test.

Here’s what HR pros at New Jersey-based companies should know.

For more on what New Jersey’s ABC test requires, and what it will mean for HR pros, keep reading here.—CV

      

Sponsored By LinkedIn

More than a mandate. LinkedIn research notes that talent acquisition’s role is expanding beyond hiring. Think of it as “talent orchestration.” Their Future of Talent report explores what it means when talent acquisition becomes less centered on a mandate to fill roles quickly and more about shaping talent strategy.

work perks

Francis Scialabba

Today’s top HR reads.

Stat: Small business employees are less likely to enroll in retirement plans than those with large employers, with 60% participating, compared to 83%, respectively. The average savings rate among the two groups is similar, though. (planadviser)

Quote: “At my last job, I was, in some sense, working to automate myself.”—Jacob Coxon, an AI researcher, who said he resigned from Anthropic after he became concerned about the pace at which the company was automating research on its own technology (Business Insider)

Read: OpenAI is piloting a new type of interview where job candidates will be asked to discuss how they’d contribute to the company’s mission, as well as consider trade-offs of its technology. HR and marketing candidates will be the first to engage in these “mission interviews.” (Fortune)

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Jobs

More focus, less fluff. CollabWORK filters out the noise and delivers jobs that actually match what HR Brew readers are looking for. Click here to see the full board of curated roles.

• HR Manager at Alamo Group Inc.
• HR Manager at Post Holdings Inc.
• HR Manager at Global Polymer Ind., Inc
• HR Manager at Lumin8 Transportation Technologies LLC
• HR Manager at Spring Footwear Corp