Dear Diary,

The corporate office has been breathing down my neck about finding people to cover shifts over the holidays. It’s been tough – more and more employees are asking for higher wages and even though I want to say yes, I can’t get sign off.

If I can’t find more people, my only option will be to beg everyone on the team to take on extra shifts.

The candidates that are coming in are good, and I’ve been sending out job offers to a lot of them. But more than half of them are saying no because they found something else that has better benefits.

I finally asked one of them why they ended up going with another restaurant, when the offers were probably identical. 

They told me about something called on-demand pay. I think I heard about it at a conference a while ago, they called it Earned Wage Access. Apparently the restaurant they signed up with offers it, meaning they can get paid  within a day of working their shifts. Instead of waiting weeks between paychecks.

I didn’t realize how popular it would be but after reaching out to more restauranteurs in the area, it’s been picking up steam. 

Maybe I should bring it up with Andy next week during our leadership meeting. We can’t keep losing candidates like this. Just last week Mandy and Jo gave me their notice because they found another offer.

– Jackson