It is no secret certain businesses are having more trouble these days attracting and keeping employees.

Many employers are offering higher pay, signing bonuses and flexible hours given the scarcity in the workforce.

Getting paid on the same day you work, not having to wait for compensation, is fast becoming a popular way to attract workers.

Sikeston, Missouri's Americare Senior Living recruits for positions online, and among the benefits the company touts to prospective employees is "access to wages daily."

Mike UnverferthCPU Inc. vice president of payroll

Mike Unverferth, vice president for payroll with Cape Girardeau-based CPU Inc., helps CPU clients for whom the firm does payroll processing, to link with ZayZoon, a Canada-based "wages on demand" financial technology platform founded in 2014.

"The basic theory is people can get access to already earned pay ahead of payday. It's caught on, frankly, in all types of industries but especially in the fast-food business. Typically, these are low-end wage positions and they need or want access to their money without waiting a week or two weeks," said Unverferth, who has been with CPU for 25 years.

"The truth of the matter is, when folks typically live paycheck to paycheck, they may be going to a payday loan office — and those rates are really high — not to mention the bank penalties incurred if someone bounces a check."

ZayZoon co-founder and president Tate Hackert visited Cape Girardeau on Friday, Oct. 28, part of a 75-day bus trip across America to promote the company's wages-on-demand service.

"We're a reactive product; We provide last-minute help through our app," said Hackert, in remarks at Codefi Works in Cape Girardeau's Marquette Tower.

ZayZoon's vice president of growth, Shubh Sidhu, lays out the situation for many American workers today.

"The numbers are staggering. A full 10% of employees use payday loans, 13% use employer advances, 78% live check to check and Americans paid $34 billion in overdraft and insufficient funds fees in 2017 alone. It's an epidemic. Employees are incurring massive fees, entering debt spirals, and their money is going to organizations that profit from these personal financial crises," Sidhu wrote in an online post.

"This service with ZayZoon is about $5 per transaction, so they can get access to the money they've earned before payday for $5 — similar to the fee from an automatic teller machine," Unverferth said.

"For people already using other methods to get funds early, this is a big money saver," he added.

Tate Hackert, ZayZoon co-founder and president, talks Friday, Oct. 28, with guests at Codefi in the Marquette Tower in downtown Cape Girardeau. ZayZoon's app helps workers get paid in advance of a company's usual payday.Jeff Long

The method

"CPU helps link to the ZayZoon app for all of our payroll clients, and employees voluntarily sign up through a mobile app," Unverferth said. "Once they sign up, they link their personal bank account and can request pay for work they've earned ahead of payday. On the back side of things, the ZayZoon system creates a deduction in payroll on the employee's next upcoming paycheck to pay the money back. For example, if I request $200 on Monday and payday isn't until Friday, I'll get the money Monday, then on my paystub received at the end of the pay period, it'll show up as a $205 debit."

Worst case

A worker may request money early before payday and then not stick around until the end of the pay period.

Unverferth acknowledges the possibility and says ZayZoon has already baked in the scenario.

"If an employee makes a request and gets money early and quits the next day and their final check is not sufficient to recover the advance, ZayZoon tries to recover the money from that individual," Unverferth said. "If ZayZoon can't recover it, the employer is not on the hook for repayment and is never liable. It's pretty much no risk for the employer. ZayZoon builds in potential losses into its business model and is willing to take the risk."

Popularity

"A lot of times if you go into a fast-food restaurant, you'll see a sticker on the door, reading, 'Work today, get paid today', or words to that effect. It's really catching on in a lot of restaurants, honestly," said Unverferth, who added the first step to getting started with the wages-on-demand platform is for the employer to sign up.

CPU will facilitate the link with ZayZoon and help get a business started.

Unverferth said CPU does payroll processing for approximately 400 nursing homes in nearly 20 states.

"We work with a lot of nursing homes and this service is very, very popular with those employees. Their utilization of the app is phenomenal, truthfully. Being able to get paid early is effective as a recruitment tool on their job boards," he said.

More information is available at www.zayzoon.com.

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