SupportPay, a fintech platform designed to help co-parents manage expenses and scheduling, is expanding into caregiving, the company announced on July 26.

SupportPay started marketing its services as an employee benefits solution last year, according to founder and CEO Sheri Atwood. She told HR Brew that the tool is intended to “streamline and automate” processes that take away from employees’ working hours—for divorced parents, that might include coordinating schedules, tracking child expenses, or managing alimony.

After picking up on similar needs among caregivers, SupportPay decided to retool its platform for those customers. The decision comes as more companies are marketing benefits for caregivers, recognizing that a growing segment of the workforce provides care for loved ones.

How SupportPay demonstrates ROI to employers. In a recent survey, SupportPay found that 28% of US adults are financial caregivers, whether for children or another family member. One in five shares caregiving responsibilities with other family members or friends outside their immediate household.

The caregiving platform will work similarly to the app designed for co-parents, Atwood told us. In addition to tracking expenses and payments, caregivers can use the platform to communicate with family members, manage schedules, and resolve financial disagreements via a dispute management process.

When employees have to take time out of their day to devote to these responsibilities, “it directly impacts their coworkers, their managers, and ultimately the employer’s bottom line, because they lose focus,” Atwood said. By investing in the platform, employers can win back some of that lost productivity, SupportPay argues.

Keep reading here.—CV

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It’s been over a year since tech companies began massive layoffs in response to the post-pandemic economic downturn. Now, data points to the fact that more women than men have been losing their jobs in an industry where women were already underrepresented.

According to new research from Integro Accounting, women in the UK held 20.1% of tech industry jobs in 2022, down from 22.7% in 2021. In the US between October 2022 and June 2023, 45% of laid-off tech workers were women, according to Layoffs.fyi data shared with Axios.

Women are more likely to have junior roles. ITPro spoke to experts who said that layoffs disproportionately affected women because women were more likely to hold part-time roles or roles that required flexibility, and thus were the first to go. But Donne Burrows, chief operating officer at Engine B, told ITPro that this wasn’t exactly true.

Women at tech companies are likely to have non-tech jobs. According to research from Interviewing.io, the tech layoffs of 2022 disproportionately affected HR and recruiting, jobs that are more likely to be held by women.

Lay off more fairly. Some layoffs are inevitable, but gender inequality needn’t be. To increase equity in layoffs, it’s important for managers to “identify a set of criteria that are going to be used at the outset of the decision-making process,” Daniel Prokott, partner at law firm Faegre Drinker, told HR Brew.

Keep reading on IT Brew.—MM

Here’s this week’s edition of our Coworking series. Each week, we chat 1:1 with an HR Brew reader. Want to be featured in an upcoming edition? Click here to introduce yourself.

Sharon Rosen’s kids were having a hard time understanding human resources (TBH, many adults do, too), so she tried to frame her work using the values that she hopes to instill in her children. To them, Mom helps people get jobs, enjoy their job, and “ensure that people are kind to one another” at work.

Rosen moved to the HR function from nonprofit fundraising after realizing how important the employee experience was to mission-driven work. At the marketing and communications firm Antenna Group, she’s now helping source candidates, nurture company culture, and make life better for her colleagues as they work with clients on important issues like healthcare, climate change, and clean tech.

What’s the best change you’ve made at work?

As Antenna Group has grown significantly over the last two years, I’ve helped develop programming and initiatives that have helped Antenna hold onto that small agency, community feeling, even as we have nearly doubled in size. Whether that’s through events led by our culture team that pair folks together who wouldn’t normally work together, challenges that give extra points for sharing pictures of your pets, kids, or friends with all of the staff, or fostering a culture of growth and gratitude with feedback and shoutouts, we’ve held onto what makes Antenna Group so special and stayed close to what we value.

Keep reading here.—AD

Today’s top HR reads.

Stat: 68% of US workers say it’s “impossible” not to do at least some work-related tasks while on vacation. (ELVTR)

Quote: “A lot of jobs will be made more meaningful; you’ll be able to spend more time doing the things your training and skills have enabled you to uniquely do.”—Kweilin Ellingrud, director of the McKinsey Global Institute, on the potential many low-wage services sector jobs will be replaced by AI (CBS)

Read: Recent record heat across the country has serious implications for workers’ health and productivity. (the New York Times)

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