June 24, 2025 • 30 mins
In this episode of the Tech on Toast Podcast, Chris Fletcher chats with Archie Heaton, Head of Commercial at Level, the salary-linked financial wellbeing platform that’s making waves in hospitality.
We dive into:
Archie’s journey from Microsoft and Xbox to startup life
What on-demand pay really is—and why it’s not a debt trap
How Level compares to WageStream and why many operators are making the switch
The real impact of financial flexibility on retention and team morale
Why hospitality is next in line for a financial wellbeing revolution
And how Level is now powering platforms for other providers, like US giant Daily Pay
💬 “You only get one chance to mess up someone’s pay. People don’t forget.”
💡 This one’s for the operators, people directors, and GMs who want to do things better—for their team and their business.
🔗 Learn more:
👉 Explore Level on the Tech on Toast Marketplace
📧 Contact Archie: aah@levelft.com
🔍 Follow Chris: @techontoast
🧡 Like what you hear?
Follow the show, leave a review, and share with someone who needs to hear this!
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:02):
Hello and welcome to the Techontos Podcast.
My name is Chris Fletcher and this is season 12.
Techontos Podcast is serving up fresh chats with the sharpest
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Now enough of that, ready for the next episode?
Let's go. Welcome to the next episode of
(01:10):
the second Host podcast, and today I'm delighted to be joined
by Archer Heaton, Head of Commercial at Level and Branded.
Hello mate, how are you? Yeah, very well.
Thank you. Got caught in a downpour on the
way here but. I know what's going on.
We're both from the I'm originally from Liverpool,
right? And you've definitely got a
northern accent. Manchester.
Yeah, there you go. So the northwest here
representing and it always rainsat home and never in London.
So I don't know what's happened today.
(01:31):
Yeah. Especially after the bank
holiday of sunshine. Hello, welcome to Voorbos.
This is quite cool, isn't it? Yeah, I didn't think it'd be
this nice, but. This is what I would all the
gear. No idea, but the they actually
do know what they're doing. So before we get into anything,
let's learn a bit about you. Tell us what obviously you're
from Manchester. Tell us a little bit about your
back story, how you have you ended up at level?
Yeah, originally from Manchester, then went to
(01:51):
university in Birmingham, then ended up in London, sort of
steadily been. On your way down the country.
Allen up in France soon worked for Microsoft first out of uni
for a bit, then Omnicom, the marketing group, back to
Microsoft for a bit, specifically Xbox and sort of
gaming side of things was doing a little bit of start to.
That but yeah, yeah, yeah. Was doing a little bit of
(02:13):
startups here and there. I just wanted to go full time
into a startup. So that was about 3 years ago.
Joined level, probably now more of a scale up and yeah,
absolutely loved it. So probably never go back to the
big sort of corporate world again.
I don't think absolutely. Love it.
And just while you're there, because my son is an avid gamer,
tell us what you're doing there,Xbox.
Partnerships and marketing, so mainly working with, yeah, all
(02:35):
the publishers. So yeah, I'm actually not into
games. I have an Xbox on my desk and
I'd rather do emails because I'msad like that.
Wow. But a lot of my friends, I got a
lot of brownie points. I was going.
To say that you just gather a lot of friends at that point in
your. Life.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Some of them are so shallow on
there and and anyone who doesn'tknow level, give us your best I
suppose pitch or what does leveldo?
(02:57):
Yeah, we are a financial well-being app that's salary
linked. However, the main product we're
known for is a product called OnDemand Pay.
You might have heard it called Earned Wage Access.
And essentially what it does is it lets your staff access their
earned, but as you get unpaid wages before payday, just so in
a way that doesn't impact your cash flow as the employer, but
(03:18):
and is debt free for your staff.So the staff have a great high
quality alternative to debt if they need money and flexibility
around getting some cash. But you as the employer get all
these benefits that I'm sure we're going to discuss doesn't
affect your cash flow. You still run payroll as normal.
And I'd probably say at least 1/3 of hospitality, 1/3 to 40%
of hospitality employers are nowoffering a service like this.
(03:40):
Yeah, I think. I won't mention it, but I
remember about five years ago maybe, I first saw this popping
up kind of thing and there was some worry, right also around
people taking money early. Are we going to put these kids
in, I suppose more factual pain than they're already in.
And I remember if I'd had this growing up in the business, it
would have been a huge asset forme because I was a nightmare,
right? I've spent my whole life in this
(04:00):
industry and you just live off what you've got, right?
Yeah. And tips and whatnot, you kind
of, you kind of just survive. And then to have access early
would be really useful because sometimes things just catch up
on you, right? And you just need that.
And what industry have you come from?
Because you're you're kind of starting your journey in
hostility. Right, Correct.
Yeah. So we have primarily been
focused on other frontline industries.
So a lot of care, a lot of business process outsourcing, so
(04:22):
big call centres, things like that, little bit of retail.
So these other areas. And really now, yeah,
hospitality is something we're starting to see a lot of demand
for. And so we're sort of making a
big push in this area just trying to get, you know, the
brand and the name out there. So people at least hear about us
and know that if this is something they're looking for or
they're struggling with some of the problems we can help with.
(04:43):
Yeah, that we're here and they should give us a call and.
I and I think it more recently actually, because retention and
and attraction in hospitality has always been poor, right?
It's just, I don't, I'm trying to think it's an Evergreen
problem as some people blame thepandemic.
So it's a lot worse when it's not.
It's actually, I mean, I'm sure it is worse because of Brexit,
everything. I mean, it's a few big shocks
right on top. But the reality is as long as
(05:03):
I've been in the industry, it's always been difficult to keep
people. I actually think that financial
well-being is something that wasoverlooked for ages, right?
We just never really talked about it.
As I said, you know, when I was a kid growing up, we just
didn't, it wasn't a conversationto have.
Do you think that level is going, is it going to support I
suppose attraction and retentionin in the industry?
Yeah. So I think firstly, your point
about financial well-being overlooked, I mean, you know,
(05:25):
for a long time now employees have cared about your physical
well-being. And then I think probably in the
last 2010 years, you know, you've seen that mental
well-being side of things reallycome in.
And actually the third pillar, which is financial well-being
has been really overlooked untilprobably the last few years.
And actually, if you think aboutit right, a lot of people can
support you with your mental health or your physical health,
(05:45):
whereas actually your, your financial health, your employer
pays an absolutely pivotal role as most people's only or main
source of income. And so it's probably not to say
the other areas aren't important, but it's probably the
area of your health where actually your employer can make
the biggest difference. And we're, we've definitely seen
from cost of living COVID, couple of these shocks now that
finally employers are really starting to realize the critical
(06:07):
role they can have in support inthat financial well-being piece.
Which is mad, right? Because you would.
I think it's pretty, I think it's always been pretty obvious
it's a low, It has always been an entry level job for people.
So it's low paid and then peoplekind of climb the ladder within,
but they don't really experienceanything else.
So they don't know that actuallysalaries over here are much
better. And I think maybe do you think
it's the tech that came late rather than the, or the ability
(06:31):
to do what you're doing now, what you guys can do at level?
And do you think that maybe it just wasn't a just wasn't a
choice before And the other options were payday loans, which
were horrific? Yeah, I think part of it is that
the tax caught up. I think part of it is a cultural
mindset shift. We offer like I'm sure we'll
touch on it later, but we offer a range of benefits within our
(06:51):
app. So we do payroll savings,
budgeting tools, financial coaching and yeah, the the
earned wage access on demand paypieces, sort of the hero piece.
And that really has only been enabled by the technology shift
probably in the last five to 10 years.
So people actually tracking hours on things like workforce
management apps, you know, the money movement, the faster money
movement, the fact you can actually ping money to people
(07:12):
and they get it instantly. And so there's been these few
innovations which I suppose haveenabled what we do.
And yeah, you're right before the market has always been
really good at going, right. If you want flexibility, we'll
provide it, whether it's unarranged overdrafts, payday
loans, you know, buy now, pay later services like Klarna.
If your staff want flexibility, they're getting it already.
The market will provide it, they'll just do so in a slightly
(07:34):
dodgy way that takes advantage of certain people, you know, all
very high interest, all interestthat can grow and compound if
you miss payments and business models actually that rely on
people missing those payments. So if your staff want
flexibility, they've been getting it for years in the
market. What we're saying is why don't
you provide a totally high quality, quality alternative to
(07:55):
that, right? And I think that's, that's, I
think that's the bit that was missing.
Like you said, those are the bits we're focused on.
But that was the one bit that wasn't accessible or wasn't
being thought of. And it's not just about the pay,
is it? It's about that control and
confidence in the way they spendtheir money.
And I think that I suppose having confidence that my, my,
my son is 18, he's working at Peter Pilgrims.
(08:15):
I borrow everyone every week with this.
But you know, he, he has, he's really financially aware because
we've made sure he is. But I think this generation are
almost expecting that from, froman employer, I suppose.
And so that that kind of expectation going to work for
someone now must be there, right, That they want that
control and confidence and that change in behaviour.
Are you seeing that in real terms then when these guys are
(08:36):
accessing these funds? Yeah, I think these guys have
grown up in a world where not only for the last five years to,
you know, most of the NHS, most of the big hospitality guys, you
know, the the big supermarkets, whether it's Tesco, Sainsbury's,
Asda, they're all offering services like ours.
Yeah. So this itself is an
expectation. But just if you think slightly
broader, people have grown up with Uber and gigs.
(08:56):
People expect to be able to track everything, right.
You don't wait for a taxi anymore with Uber, you follow
the little icon of it coming, right.
People expect to be able to track it and we'll see you.
Yeah, yeah. Yeah, I know.
I do. Let you see like when it.
Comes up on my watch now but yeah, people like to track
things and what we see actually is a is a relatively large
cohort of users who don't often withdraw their money early, but
(09:20):
they use the app a lot to track their earnings and see their
earnings go up. And what we've seen is even with
that cohort that don't actually withdraw their earnings very
much, you still see the increasein retention, the drop in
absenteeism, the increase in shift filling.
And the hypothesis there, speaking to some of our
employers who we work with, is that actually, you know, you
have a rubbish day of work and it feels like, right, I want to
(09:41):
quit or I'm going to call in sick tomorrow.
Or, you know, it could be 30 days till you get paid for that
shift. Whereas if you have that rubbish
day at work, but then you can check the app and you see the
balance has got up £100, you sort of think, well it makes it
very tangible. You sort of think I know it was
rubbish, but I can see the reward I've got.
So by closing that gap between putting in the hard yards and
the hard work and actually getting rewarded for it, even if
(10:03):
you don't withdraw it and you can just see it go up, it makes
that work feel way more tangiblethan at the moment, Which is
I've just worked my absolute butt off for 10 hours and I'm
not going to get any reward or even any signal of a reward for
30 days. Yeah, I think that's absolutely
huge. And I think that's the bit of
our confidence, right? And that understanding that
actually I've done a good job today.
(10:23):
I've worked, especially the guyswho work like in the kitchens
and stuff where it's bloody hardwork, it's physical, hot,
horrible, but be able to sit at the end of the shift in that
real time because as you said, they've got it in the rest of
their lives. What are some of the
percentages? I saw a quote here where I'm
trying to find it 62% more. I know it's an aggregated
percentage probably. Is that accurate?
Yeah, so the two big quotes we sort of have seen from our
(10:46):
research is the first one is Capita PLC, one of the UK's
biggest employers. They released this for all
40,000 of their staff and what they saw when they did a massive
data piece on their staff is thestaff who we use in this
service, whether they were taking the money out of it very
often or not, they were half as likely to turn over as the staff
who didn't. And that was even more marked in
(11:07):
that critical sort of three month probationary period.
So and again, I think it is justthat your work feels very
tangible. The reward feels much more
tangible for that work. And especially in that first
three month period where you know, you might have moved to a
new city, you've got to pay yourrent upfront and then suddenly
you've got, you've got two months rent and a house deposit
upfront. Then you don't get paid for the
1st 30 days. And so there's this enormous gap
(11:29):
without pay, right? And it all feels very thankless.
And, and, and that is actually aperiod where, and I assume it's
to say with a lot of hospitalityemployees where you've got sort
of a massive, massive problem with turnover in that first 30
days. And actually, if you can get
people to stick it past probation, they're a much
stickier employee. And so across the board, we saw
a 50% reduction, but it was evenmore marked in that sort of key
(11:50):
probationary window. Yeah.
And I think. In my career, I had to move a
lot of like cities a lot to to get promotions.
I had to kind of if you're aggressive and you want to kind
of move up the ladder to get better, I had I had to move, you
know, different cities and with that, each time became new
financial pressures. They obviously the company would
help you with some moving costs,whatever, but you're always like
that deposit there when you set it then comes that really.
(12:11):
Shivers that much, but. Yeah, because it's true, right?
You've got like, I think it's like a 12 week up front.
You have to pay, you have to paythree months up front, whatever
it is. And you have all that pressure
come on you and you can't reallygo into work and say, oh, boss,
I'm having a bad time. Because as much as they care,
they probably care less because you're, you know, if you're
working, you're getting paid forwhat you do.
But actually that tangible beingable to, as you say, being able
to get reward and get it straight away or at least plan,
(12:32):
I think is that one of the big things that I suppose because
there's a there's an AI tool isn't on the website like it's
like a financial planning coach.Yeah.
Yeah, Yeah. Is that how often do can you see
the usage on that? How much they?
Use, yeah, So you can, the usageis all trackable.
I think what you see is that people just use it in totally
different ways. So we have some people who just
use our product to save money. Yeah, we have some people who
just use the financial coach. We have some people who use a
(12:53):
mix even within earned wage access itself, the usage is, are
so varied the the use cases. So we have some people who just
take their overtime so they willnever touch their base hours.
But every time they do overtime shift, they want to draw down
that because the idea is, well, I'm doing that extra I want.
That's my level. Yeah, yeah.
See why I did that? And that's.
You're welcome. And that's where you see a
(13:14):
massive drop off of unfilled shifts because suddenly when
you're asking someone to work some overtime or stay on a bit
later, but I might not get paid for that for 20 days.
No, thank you. But actually, we've seen up to a
62% reduction in unfilled shiftsbecause, well, if I can, you
know, I might have to work late on a Thursday and I'm tired, but
I can get that money for the Saturday, suddenly I'm way more
likely to take that shift. And what's interesting about
(13:36):
that is we're saying you don't have to pay a penny more because
I think there's always this focus, and rightly so, on what
you earn. It's about how much are you
paying, right? And obviously that's the most
important part of pay. But ultimately, with National
Insurance rises with, you know, the minimum wage increases, a
lot of employees physically cannot afford to pay any more.
And so we're saying, why not approach it from a different
(13:56):
angle? If you can't afford to pay any
more, why not look at how you pay and when you pay with a
service like this and approach it from a slightly different
angle. And actually, you can see the
sort of benefits you would usually see with a pay rise like
that massive reduction in unfilled shifts just because
you're rewarding people so much more instantly for that work.
And that is probably in an industry that hospitality, the
(14:17):
biggest feedback we get is just and care as well is that filling
my shifter is not a problem anymore.
Yeah. It's probably the Holy Grail,
right? Making sure that everyone's
serviced all the time. And it's all very well saying
that, but how easy is it to, I suppose the practicality of
doing that, how disruptive, because I always say about
bringing you tech and is it openheart surgery?
Have you kind of like put a new pause and you've got to RIP
(14:38):
everything apart, right? And kind of put it in?
How practical is it installing level or how much work do you
have to do alongside payroll, HRtech?
Yeah, it's super easy and I knoweveryone says that, but it
honestly is. If you didn't, we'd be
disappointed. Our typical launch window from
deciding to work with us and signing a contract to launch is
4 to six weeks, right? So it's not sort of like ripping
(14:59):
out your payroll system. It's not a year long project.
We work with every single payroll and workforce management
system. We are agnostic.
We are pre integrated with most of them and we will, we have a
team whose only job is to integrate with new ones.
So they will integrate on request.
But it, it really is a sort of weeks, not months type project.
(15:19):
Like I said, totally agnostic toyour systems and we work with
everyone from, you know, tiny little care care businesses who,
you know, do it all on spreadsheets and you know,
employ 100 people all the way upto some of the biggest retailers
in the UK who employ 10s of thousands of people and everyone
in between. So we've never found a system or
an employer we couldn't work with before.
(15:40):
There's there's lots of ways to skin the cat but we've never had
problems. And I suppose you mentioned
before about operators being a depression, actually finding
different ways to, yeah, do things.
And this is more than just a perk, right?
If you know what I mean. I know, I know.
It is a, it is a perk, right? It's the ability to access your
your funds early. But it's more than that, isn't
it? There's real ROI behind this.
(16:01):
Yeah. I think when you can see the,
you know, reduction in absenteeism, the reduction in
unfilled shifts, the increase instaff loyalty and staff
retention, it's really easy to prove an ROI.
And, and typically, you know, for employers of a certain size,
definitely 500 plus, this is often cost neutral from the
employer side of things. And so the ROI is really stark
(16:23):
in a situation like that, but, but also the sort more human
side of it as well. You know, we speak to loads of
people who say, you know, if it wasn't for this, I'd have had to
take out a payday loan again or pressure, you know, family
members who don't have the moneyto lend.
Or, you know, probably one of our services that gets the best
feedback when I speak to users is our savings product.
And it's often not the people who are saving loads and loads
(16:44):
of money. It's those people putting aside
£2030 a month. At the end of the year they've
got two, £300 actually. Sometimes these people are well
into their 40s and they say I'venever had a savings part in my
whole life. And you speak to them and
swimming crops up, the car breaks down and for the first
time in their whole life they'vegot a savings part which they
can use and they can actually deal with that financial problem
(17:06):
themselves without going to friends and family, without
taking on debt. And when you speak to them, they
are probably the most are passionate users because it's so
empowering. It's hard to overestimate how
empowering they find that for the first time in their lives to
actually have said I had a problem and I dealt with it
myself with my own savings. And there really is a flywheel
to that. I think that is probably of all
(17:27):
things you've said, actually, that's probably the one of the
things that hit home the most that the reality of a lot of
people in their 40s and 50s now who've been working in this
industry for a long time. If I'd stayed in, I'd probably
be the same as where I was when I was in the industry.
You, you handsome mouth. And it's, you know, I'm not
talking about your, you know, you're living on the streets
kind of thing, but you are very much living to your earnings
because that's the way you've always done and you just stretch
(17:47):
it all time. And I'm sure some people are
saying, well, you should behave better financially, but it the
nature of the beast is chaos, a little bit hostility.
And sometimes that behaviour creeps into other parts of your
life. And I think, I think if you can
give people that stable the confidence we mentioned for and
that ability to see where they're at and, and you're right
to have a bit of a win. Just to.
Yeah, yeah. Who cares, 100 quid, £50,
(18:08):
whatever it is, just being able to sit and go.
Actually for the first time in my life I've actually bought
some money away and most people struggle with that outside of
hostility, right? It's just one of those things.
And do do you think going forward this is going to be, I
think the answer's yes anyway. But do you think it's going to
be a stable part of the, I suppose, the offer as it would
be? If you look at the whole of the
UK right now, you're between 15 and 20% of all UK employers
(18:32):
offering a service like this. You take frontline industries
like hospitality, care, retail, you can easily double that.
So we're already on between a third and 40% of employers in
sectors like this offering this.I think either at some point
this year or next year on our projections, we would expect you
to cross the threshold of half. Now you already seen that in
(18:54):
some areas. So for example, in the NHS, half
of all NHS employees have accessto this.
So you have seen that. And interestingly, it's one of
the few examples where the public sector appears to have
innovative faster than the private sector, which is not
very, not very common I think. That was driven by the pandemic,
though potentially that that theway they were being treated or
have been treated during that period of time, maybe there
(19:15):
wasn't and that they've. Acted on that and again they're
in a very unique position where you can be the CEO of a 10,000
person NHS Trust, but you have no control over what you pay
your staff because that is set by the treasury at the
government level. And so it's this bizarre
situation where you've got thesereally powerful senior people
who have no control over what their staff are paid.
That's the chancellor's job and so I think they were looking for
(19:37):
I might not control what they'repaid but can I innovate around
the edges on when they're paid or how they're paid.
So I think that may have been the driver, but I, I would say
that, yeah, this is already in hospitality and retail and, and
places like that close to close to a sort of must have.
And I think if we had this conversation in 12 months, it'd
be an absolute no brainer. But I think what we're
(19:57):
increasingly seeing is that the time to do it, especially look,
we can implement this at any time, but especially if you are
changing payroll provider or youare changing workforce
management provider or you are looking at your tax stack.
That is such a golden time to dothis because it's such a cherry
on top, easy win. And actually, when you're asking
all your staff to download, say,a new workforce management app.
(20:18):
Usually that means nothing to them, right?
They don't care if they get their rotors on X or Y, Whereas
if you can say, look, we're moving you from X to Y, but look
at as part of that. Look what you're getting.
This is the give get. We want this, but you're getting
on demand pay. It can just help be that cherry
on top of actually something forthe end users.
(22:56):
And, and for me, actually, there's there's probably the one
name that I hear that what I mentioned before about 2019, I
went to an event and I sat with these people on a panel and it
was the first time I'd heard of something like this.
It was wage stream. And I suppose everybody looks at
that kind of the the first to market as it would be what's the
difference between you guys and wage stream or how is that the
best way to kind of put a comparison there so people know
(23:17):
what you do? Yeah.
Is it banned? Have you?
Got record relationship wage industry go to conduct with
them. We've we know a few people that
got perfectly in relation with them.
There is essentially in the industry.
It's only ourselves in wage stream.
So we we do a very similar thingalmost identical actually and
actually it's only in the UK ourselves in wage stream who can
(23:39):
automate this the reconciliationof this.
So all of the other providers tomy knowledge require payroll to
automatically sorry to manually deduct wow, whereas only
ourselves in wage stream have the full the capability
technically to automate this. And so actually on sort of
accreditations and technology inthe end product ourselves away
(23:59):
Shreve are almost identical. The real divide in line in the
sand is that they also offer debt products within their apps.
So they offer credit cards and loans and things like that.
And look, that is what some employers will want.
We absolutely do not and we knowa lot of employers are a little
uncomfortable with that. Yeah, 100%.
And so we just do the on demand pay and then all of you left
(24:21):
services. So the payroll savings, the
financial coaching, the budget in all entirely free.
We don't cross out anything elseand definitely not debt
products. So that really is the big
dividing line. If you want to automate this,
you come to us on mainstream andthen on the sort of flow chart
decision making, it's do you want debt products?
Yes, go to waystream. No, you go to us.
Irene, is that sympathy? And without eating wage stream
(24:45):
at all. And that's, it's kind of a, you
know, at the moment, I suppose with the way HR team to looking
at that commodity of people, which is absolute gold dust,
you're not sending them down to a debt route.
You know, I don't know, I just, I think it's a, an easier
decision. One stream would tell you that
has accessible, yeah, that stuff.
We have found a lot of employerswho are very uncomfortable and
in my opinion rightly so, signposting towards an app that
(25:08):
has that person and sort of giving it the stamp of approval.
Yeah, a lot of employees are very uncomfortable with that.
And so we've sort of built a brand around just going nowhere
near that. I always say to people I'm happy
to write in the contract, but tobe honest, we've built our
whole. Brand So I'm just sitting there
thinking of three or four peopledirectors I know very well and
all of them would just they justwouldn't do it.
(25:29):
It's just not worth it for them in terms of it sounds really
selfish, but actually reputationally and integrity
wise, sometimes it's just just be careful what you especially
with, I think when you're dealing with people or wages,
you have to. That's why I say to when we're
recommending in a workforce management scheduling tool or
whatever, when we look at payroll, we're like, please just
be careful, make the right decision.
(25:51):
This is people's pay. You only get one chance to make
a mistake and they won't forget.But it's very interesting.
So I always like to kind of put a comparison out there.
So yeah. And to be clear, they also of
the iPod, the industry 100% an awful lot of rebuilding a very
big brand. And yeah, you're absolutely
right, actually on on day 7. As Peter Briff it, I think it
was the guy, I knew he was stillthere, OK, but no.
(26:13):
And so if AGM or a people director or someone in some kind
of decision making role is looking to kind of move forward
to this or understand a bit more, what's the best way for
them to kind of what's the firststeps you would take in this
kind of situation? Yeah, I would say, look, have a
chat with those and there's a few key bits of information we
need to know sort of what systems do you use, sort of what
(26:34):
type of stuff and what your pay cycles.
But to be honest, we are agnostic to all of them.
Like I said, the best thing is this is I'm aware that this is a
very niche area within a niche area.
If I, I live and breathe this all day, right?
The most people don't. And so just have a chat, no
strings attached. You know, we sort of know the
legislation in detail. I'm really bored enough, but we
are. He's alright, laugh.
You can go for a beer with him. We are super at the wings.
(26:57):
Bear in mind that that mean like, you know, HR tech stacks
is a pretty niche area. We're a niche of that, right.
So I just say look, have a chat and we will talk you through.
We'll explain sort of the code of conduct, what the FCA think
of it, what providers and you know really unbiased, what
providers, they're all out there.
Why we think we're better on these metrics and then what we
need to do to launch this. Like I said it launching this,
(27:18):
it doesn't matter what payroll or what workforce management
systems you use, it's weeks, notmonths.
It really, really is a sort of cherry on top.
We are not talking about replacing payroll here.
Yeah. Very cool, love it.
And what's next for Level? I'm calling you Level cuz you've
got your branded shirt on there.What's going on for you guys?
Yeah. We've got a few things in the
pipeline trying to think not a lot I can actually do for that,
(27:40):
but. It's always the way.
Hopefully ask me too much time things.
I think the most exciting thing relatively recently is we are
partnering with the world's largest on demand pay company, a
company called Daily Pay, who sort of invented this technology
based out of the US. So of, you know, multi billion
dollars corporation, they wantedto come to the UK, but obviously
(28:02):
it's very different to America. So they looked at all the
providers and sort of as a source of pride for us, they
decided to partner with us. You know, these guys can DD and
underman pay company. They are the underman pay
company. So they know if there's any
skeletons where they're buried. And yeah, very, very proudly
sort of chose to work with us. And so we are also working on
rolling out their UK products aswell through our platform.
(28:23):
So we increasingly are not only selling our room on demand pay
platform, we are powering other on pay platforms.
So there is other. Almost like the middleware for
on demand pay. Right.
So most people want to come to us direct, but some workforce
management companies in particular, they want their own
on on pay service within their own app so that users yeah, of
(28:46):
course outside to another app. We are increasingly also
partnering and empowering those.So that's an exciting Ave. but
to be honest with delays are focused on you know, that's the
future right now. If you want this, you know, in
the next year or two, truthfully, it's going to be
coming to a compiled like ourselves direct and then let us
worry about all that fancy partnership stuff in the future
where we think the industry's going.
But for right now, you just wantto partner with someone who's
(29:09):
done this for years, you know, has good references and, you
know, can talk to you about the nuances of it, really.
Perfect. That's why you're an improved
partner, my friend. And what's the best way to get
hold of you, apart from finding you in the marketplace for tech
and toast, Where else can we find you?
Yeah, Tech. And Toast search level FT we
should come up on level on demand pay and my e-mail
aah@levelft.com or I'll be on LinkedIn and yeah, I'll have.
(29:31):
Where most of us are, I mean, it's probably it's the best, it
is the best app in it for just hanging out with.
Me, you know, I'm getting increasingly frustrated with
the, you know, I went on holidayto Spain and, you know, I left
my baby in the shop. This is what it taught me about.
OK, I'm going to get creative, man.
It's getting difficult. It's getting difficult.
That's a really I'll look for that post.
(29:53):
Look, thank you very much. That was Archie everybody.
You can check out level FT on the website, as I said on tackle
toast dot community or you can go and find him on LinkedIn
where he spends most of his time.
What was your e-mail? Again, a A.
A. A.
H it's easy. Aah, lovely.
All right, great. Thanks very much guys, and we'll
see you all. Next week.
Thanks.
Hello and welcome to the Techontos Podcast.
My name is Chris Fletcher and this is season 12.
Techontos Podcast is serving up fresh chats with the sharpest
minds in hostility in tech. If you're looking to level up
your up, streamline your service, or just sprinkle a
little tech magic into your business, you've come to the
right place. And guess what?
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Now enough of that, ready for the next episode?
Let's go. Welcome to the next episode of
(01:10):
the second Host podcast, and today I'm delighted to be joined
by Archer Heaton, Head of Commercial at Level and Branded.
Hello mate, how are you? Yeah, very well.
Thank you. Got caught in a downpour on the
way here but. I know what's going on.
We're both from the I'm originally from Liverpool,
right? And you've definitely got a
northern accent. Manchester.
Yeah, there you go. So the northwest here
representing and it always rainsat home and never in London.
So I don't know what's happened today.
(01:31):
Yeah. Especially after the bank
holiday of sunshine. Hello, welcome to Voorbos.
This is quite cool, isn't it? Yeah, I didn't think it'd be
this nice, but. This is what I would all the
gear. No idea, but the they actually
do know what they're doing. So before we get into anything,
let's learn a bit about you. Tell us what obviously you're
from Manchester. Tell us a little bit about your
back story, how you have you ended up at level?
Yeah, originally from Manchester, then went to
(01:51):
university in Birmingham, then ended up in London, sort of
steadily been. On your way down the country.
Allen up in France soon worked for Microsoft first out of uni
for a bit, then Omnicom, the marketing group, back to
Microsoft for a bit, specifically Xbox and sort of
gaming side of things was doing a little bit of start to.
That but yeah, yeah, yeah. Was doing a little bit of
(02:13):
startups here and there. I just wanted to go full time
into a startup. So that was about 3 years ago.
Joined level, probably now more of a scale up and yeah,
absolutely loved it. So probably never go back to the
big sort of corporate world again.
I don't think absolutely. Love it.
And just while you're there, because my son is an avid gamer,
tell us what you're doing there,Xbox.
Partnerships and marketing, so mainly working with, yeah, all
(02:35):
the publishers. So yeah, I'm actually not into
games. I have an Xbox on my desk and
I'd rather do emails because I'msad like that.
Wow. But a lot of my friends, I got a
lot of brownie points. I was going.
To say that you just gather a lot of friends at that point in
your. Life.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Some of them are so shallow on
there and and anyone who doesn'tknow level, give us your best I
suppose pitch or what does leveldo?
(02:57):
Yeah, we are a financial well-being app that's salary
linked. However, the main product we're
known for is a product called OnDemand Pay.
You might have heard it called Earned Wage Access.
And essentially what it does is it lets your staff access their
earned, but as you get unpaid wages before payday, just so in
a way that doesn't impact your cash flow as the employer, but
(03:18):
and is debt free for your staff.So the staff have a great high
quality alternative to debt if they need money and flexibility
around getting some cash. But you as the employer get all
these benefits that I'm sure we're going to discuss doesn't
affect your cash flow. You still run payroll as normal.
And I'd probably say at least 1/3 of hospitality, 1/3 to 40%
of hospitality employers are nowoffering a service like this.
(03:40):
Yeah, I think. I won't mention it, but I
remember about five years ago maybe, I first saw this popping
up kind of thing and there was some worry, right also around
people taking money early. Are we going to put these kids
in, I suppose more factual pain than they're already in.
And I remember if I'd had this growing up in the business, it
would have been a huge asset forme because I was a nightmare,
right? I've spent my whole life in this
(04:00):
industry and you just live off what you've got, right?
Yeah. And tips and whatnot, you kind
of, you kind of just survive. And then to have access early
would be really useful because sometimes things just catch up
on you, right? And you just need that.
And what industry have you come from?
Because you're you're kind of starting your journey in
hostility. Right, Correct.
Yeah. So we have primarily been
focused on other frontline industries.
So a lot of care, a lot of business process outsourcing, so
(04:22):
big call centres, things like that, little bit of retail.
So these other areas. And really now, yeah,
hospitality is something we're starting to see a lot of demand
for. And so we're sort of making a
big push in this area just trying to get, you know, the
brand and the name out there. So people at least hear about us
and know that if this is something they're looking for or
they're struggling with some of the problems we can help with.
(04:43):
Yeah, that we're here and they should give us a call and.
I and I think it more recently actually, because retention and
and attraction in hospitality has always been poor, right?
It's just, I don't, I'm trying to think it's an Evergreen
problem as some people blame thepandemic.
So it's a lot worse when it's not.
It's actually, I mean, I'm sure it is worse because of Brexit,
everything. I mean, it's a few big shocks
right on top. But the reality is as long as
(05:03):
I've been in the industry, it's always been difficult to keep
people. I actually think that financial
well-being is something that wasoverlooked for ages, right?
We just never really talked about it.
As I said, you know, when I was a kid growing up, we just
didn't, it wasn't a conversationto have.
Do you think that level is going, is it going to support I
suppose attraction and retentionin in the industry?
Yeah. So I think firstly, your point
about financial well-being overlooked, I mean, you know,
(05:25):
for a long time now employees have cared about your physical
well-being. And then I think probably in the
last 2010 years, you know, you've seen that mental
well-being side of things reallycome in.
And actually the third pillar, which is financial well-being
has been really overlooked untilprobably the last few years.
And actually, if you think aboutit right, a lot of people can
support you with your mental health or your physical health,
(05:45):
whereas actually your, your financial health, your employer
pays an absolutely pivotal role as most people's only or main
source of income. And so it's probably not to say
the other areas aren't important, but it's probably the
area of your health where actually your employer can make
the biggest difference. And we're, we've definitely seen
from cost of living COVID, couple of these shocks now that
finally employers are really starting to realize the critical
(06:07):
role they can have in support inthat financial well-being piece.
Which is mad, right? Because you would.
I think it's pretty, I think it's always been pretty obvious
it's a low, It has always been an entry level job for people.
So it's low paid and then peoplekind of climb the ladder within,
but they don't really experienceanything else.
So they don't know that actuallysalaries over here are much
better. And I think maybe do you think
it's the tech that came late rather than the, or the ability
(06:31):
to do what you're doing now, what you guys can do at level?
And do you think that maybe it just wasn't a just wasn't a
choice before And the other options were payday loans, which
were horrific? Yeah, I think part of it is that
the tax caught up. I think part of it is a cultural
mindset shift. We offer like I'm sure we'll
touch on it later, but we offer a range of benefits within our
(06:51):
app. So we do payroll savings,
budgeting tools, financial coaching and yeah, the the
earned wage access on demand paypieces, sort of the hero piece.
And that really has only been enabled by the technology shift
probably in the last five to 10 years.
So people actually tracking hours on things like workforce
management apps, you know, the money movement, the faster money
movement, the fact you can actually ping money to people
(07:12):
and they get it instantly. And so there's been these few
innovations which I suppose haveenabled what we do.
And yeah, you're right before the market has always been
really good at going, right. If you want flexibility, we'll
provide it, whether it's unarranged overdrafts, payday
loans, you know, buy now, pay later services like Klarna.
If your staff want flexibility, they're getting it already.
The market will provide it, they'll just do so in a slightly
(07:34):
dodgy way that takes advantage of certain people, you know, all
very high interest, all interestthat can grow and compound if
you miss payments and business models actually that rely on
people missing those payments. So if your staff want
flexibility, they've been getting it for years in the
market. What we're saying is why don't
you provide a totally high quality, quality alternative to
(07:55):
that, right? And I think that's, that's, I
think that's the bit that was missing.
Like you said, those are the bits we're focused on.
But that was the one bit that wasn't accessible or wasn't
being thought of. And it's not just about the pay,
is it? It's about that control and
confidence in the way they spendtheir money.
And I think that I suppose having confidence that my, my,
my son is 18, he's working at Peter Pilgrims.
(08:15):
I borrow everyone every week with this.
But you know, he, he has, he's really financially aware because
we've made sure he is. But I think this generation are
almost expecting that from, froman employer, I suppose.
And so that that kind of expectation going to work for
someone now must be there, right, That they want that
control and confidence and that change in behaviour.
Are you seeing that in real terms then when these guys are
(08:36):
accessing these funds? Yeah, I think these guys have
grown up in a world where not only for the last five years to,
you know, most of the NHS, most of the big hospitality guys, you
know, the the big supermarkets, whether it's Tesco, Sainsbury's,
Asda, they're all offering services like ours.
Yeah. So this itself is an
expectation. But just if you think slightly
broader, people have grown up with Uber and gigs.
(08:56):
People expect to be able to track everything, right.
You don't wait for a taxi anymore with Uber, you follow
the little icon of it coming, right.
People expect to be able to track it and we'll see you.
Yeah, yeah. Yeah, I know.
I do. Let you see like when it.
Comes up on my watch now but yeah, people like to track
things and what we see actually is a is a relatively large
cohort of users who don't often withdraw their money early, but
(09:20):
they use the app a lot to track their earnings and see their
earnings go up. And what we've seen is even with
that cohort that don't actually withdraw their earnings very
much, you still see the increasein retention, the drop in
absenteeism, the increase in shift filling.
And the hypothesis there, speaking to some of our
employers who we work with, is that actually, you know, you
have a rubbish day of work and it feels like, right, I want to
(09:41):
quit or I'm going to call in sick tomorrow.
Or, you know, it could be 30 days till you get paid for that
shift. Whereas if you have that rubbish
day at work, but then you can check the app and you see the
balance has got up £100, you sort of think, well it makes it
very tangible. You sort of think I know it was
rubbish, but I can see the reward I've got.
So by closing that gap between putting in the hard yards and
the hard work and actually getting rewarded for it, even if
(10:03):
you don't withdraw it and you can just see it go up, it makes
that work feel way more tangiblethan at the moment, Which is
I've just worked my absolute butt off for 10 hours and I'm
not going to get any reward or even any signal of a reward for
30 days. Yeah, I think that's absolutely
huge. And I think that's the bit of
our confidence, right? And that understanding that
actually I've done a good job today.
(10:23):
I've worked, especially the guyswho work like in the kitchens
and stuff where it's bloody hardwork, it's physical, hot,
horrible, but be able to sit at the end of the shift in that
real time because as you said, they've got it in the rest of
their lives. What are some of the
percentages? I saw a quote here where I'm
trying to find it 62% more. I know it's an aggregated
percentage probably. Is that accurate?
Yeah, so the two big quotes we sort of have seen from our
(10:46):
research is the first one is Capita PLC, one of the UK's
biggest employers. They released this for all
40,000 of their staff and what they saw when they did a massive
data piece on their staff is thestaff who we use in this
service, whether they were taking the money out of it very
often or not, they were half as likely to turn over as the staff
who didn't. And that was even more marked in
(11:07):
that critical sort of three month probationary period.
So and again, I think it is justthat your work feels very
tangible. The reward feels much more
tangible for that work. And especially in that first
three month period where you know, you might have moved to a
new city, you've got to pay yourrent upfront and then suddenly
you've got, you've got two months rent and a house deposit
upfront. Then you don't get paid for the
1st 30 days. And so there's this enormous gap
(11:29):
without pay, right? And it all feels very thankless.
And, and, and that is actually aperiod where, and I assume it's
to say with a lot of hospitalityemployees where you've got sort
of a massive, massive problem with turnover in that first 30
days. And actually, if you can get
people to stick it past probation, they're a much
stickier employee. And so across the board, we saw
a 50% reduction, but it was evenmore marked in that sort of key
(11:50):
probationary window. Yeah.
And I think. In my career, I had to move a
lot of like cities a lot to to get promotions.
I had to kind of if you're aggressive and you want to kind
of move up the ladder to get better, I had I had to move, you
know, different cities and with that, each time became new
financial pressures. They obviously the company would
help you with some moving costs,whatever, but you're always like
that deposit there when you set it then comes that really.
(12:11):
Shivers that much, but. Yeah, because it's true, right?
You've got like, I think it's like a 12 week up front.
You have to pay, you have to paythree months up front, whatever
it is. And you have all that pressure
come on you and you can't reallygo into work and say, oh, boss,
I'm having a bad time. Because as much as they care,
they probably care less because you're, you know, if you're
working, you're getting paid forwhat you do.
But actually that tangible beingable to, as you say, being able
to get reward and get it straight away or at least plan,
(12:32):
I think is that one of the big things that I suppose because
there's a there's an AI tool isn't on the website like it's
like a financial planning coach.Yeah.
Yeah, Yeah. Is that how often do can you see
the usage on that? How much they?
Use, yeah, So you can, the usageis all trackable.
I think what you see is that people just use it in totally
different ways. So we have some people who just
use our product to save money. Yeah, we have some people who
just use the financial coach. We have some people who use a
(12:53):
mix even within earned wage access itself, the usage is, are
so varied the the use cases. So we have some people who just
take their overtime so they willnever touch their base hours.
But every time they do overtime shift, they want to draw down
that because the idea is, well, I'm doing that extra I want.
That's my level. Yeah, yeah.
See why I did that? And that's.
You're welcome. And that's where you see a
(13:14):
massive drop off of unfilled shifts because suddenly when
you're asking someone to work some overtime or stay on a bit
later, but I might not get paid for that for 20 days.
No, thank you. But actually, we've seen up to a
62% reduction in unfilled shiftsbecause, well, if I can, you
know, I might have to work late on a Thursday and I'm tired, but
I can get that money for the Saturday, suddenly I'm way more
likely to take that shift. And what's interesting about
(13:36):
that is we're saying you don't have to pay a penny more because
I think there's always this focus, and rightly so, on what
you earn. It's about how much are you
paying, right? And obviously that's the most
important part of pay. But ultimately, with National
Insurance rises with, you know, the minimum wage increases, a
lot of employees physically cannot afford to pay any more.
And so we're saying, why not approach it from a different
(13:56):
angle? If you can't afford to pay any
more, why not look at how you pay and when you pay with a
service like this and approach it from a slightly different
angle. And actually, you can see the
sort of benefits you would usually see with a pay rise like
that massive reduction in unfilled shifts just because
you're rewarding people so much more instantly for that work.
And that is probably in an industry that hospitality, the
(14:17):
biggest feedback we get is just and care as well is that filling
my shifter is not a problem anymore.
Yeah. It's probably the Holy Grail,
right? Making sure that everyone's
serviced all the time. And it's all very well saying
that, but how easy is it to, I suppose the practicality of
doing that, how disruptive, because I always say about
bringing you tech and is it openheart surgery?
Have you kind of like put a new pause and you've got to RIP
(14:38):
everything apart, right? And kind of put it in?
How practical is it installing level or how much work do you
have to do alongside payroll, HRtech?
Yeah, it's super easy and I knoweveryone says that, but it
honestly is. If you didn't, we'd be
disappointed. Our typical launch window from
deciding to work with us and signing a contract to launch is
4 to six weeks, right? So it's not sort of like ripping
(14:59):
out your payroll system. It's not a year long project.
We work with every single payroll and workforce management
system. We are agnostic.
We are pre integrated with most of them and we will, we have a
team whose only job is to integrate with new ones.
So they will integrate on request.
But it, it really is a sort of weeks, not months type project.
(15:19):
Like I said, totally agnostic toyour systems and we work with
everyone from, you know, tiny little care care businesses who,
you know, do it all on spreadsheets and you know,
employ 100 people all the way upto some of the biggest retailers
in the UK who employ 10s of thousands of people and everyone
in between. So we've never found a system or
an employer we couldn't work with before.
(15:40):
There's there's lots of ways to skin the cat but we've never had
problems. And I suppose you mentioned
before about operators being a depression, actually finding
different ways to, yeah, do things.
And this is more than just a perk, right?
If you know what I mean. I know, I know.
It is a, it is a perk, right? It's the ability to access your
your funds early. But it's more than that, isn't
it? There's real ROI behind this.
(16:01):
Yeah. I think when you can see the,
you know, reduction in absenteeism, the reduction in
unfilled shifts, the increase instaff loyalty and staff
retention, it's really easy to prove an ROI.
And, and typically, you know, for employers of a certain size,
definitely 500 plus, this is often cost neutral from the
employer side of things. And so the ROI is really stark
(16:23):
in a situation like that, but, but also the sort more human
side of it as well. You know, we speak to loads of
people who say, you know, if it wasn't for this, I'd have had to
take out a payday loan again or pressure, you know, family
members who don't have the moneyto lend.
Or, you know, probably one of our services that gets the best
feedback when I speak to users is our savings product.
And it's often not the people who are saving loads and loads
(16:44):
of money. It's those people putting aside
£2030 a month. At the end of the year they've
got two, £300 actually. Sometimes these people are well
into their 40s and they say I'venever had a savings part in my
whole life. And you speak to them and
swimming crops up, the car breaks down and for the first
time in their whole life they'vegot a savings part which they
can use and they can actually deal with that financial problem
(17:06):
themselves without going to friends and family, without
taking on debt. And when you speak to them, they
are probably the most are passionate users because it's so
empowering. It's hard to overestimate how
empowering they find that for the first time in their lives to
actually have said I had a problem and I dealt with it
myself with my own savings. And there really is a flywheel
to that. I think that is probably of all
(17:27):
things you've said, actually, that's probably the one of the
things that hit home the most that the reality of a lot of
people in their 40s and 50s now who've been working in this
industry for a long time. If I'd stayed in, I'd probably
be the same as where I was when I was in the industry.
You, you handsome mouth. And it's, you know, I'm not
talking about your, you know, you're living on the streets
kind of thing, but you are very much living to your earnings
because that's the way you've always done and you just stretch
(17:47):
it all time. And I'm sure some people are
saying, well, you should behave better financially, but it the
nature of the beast is chaos, a little bit hostility.
And sometimes that behaviour creeps into other parts of your
life. And I think, I think if you can
give people that stable the confidence we mentioned for and
that ability to see where they're at and, and you're right
to have a bit of a win. Just to.
Yeah, yeah. Who cares, 100 quid, £50,
(18:08):
whatever it is, just being able to sit and go.
Actually for the first time in my life I've actually bought
some money away and most people struggle with that outside of
hostility, right? It's just one of those things.
And do do you think going forward this is going to be, I
think the answer's yes anyway. But do you think it's going to
be a stable part of the, I suppose, the offer as it would
be? If you look at the whole of the
UK right now, you're between 15 and 20% of all UK employers
(18:32):
offering a service like this. You take frontline industries
like hospitality, care, retail, you can easily double that.
So we're already on between a third and 40% of employers in
sectors like this offering this.I think either at some point
this year or next year on our projections, we would expect you
to cross the threshold of half. Now you already seen that in
(18:54):
some areas. So for example, in the NHS, half
of all NHS employees have accessto this.
So you have seen that. And interestingly, it's one of
the few examples where the public sector appears to have
innovative faster than the private sector, which is not
very, not very common I think. That was driven by the pandemic,
though potentially that that theway they were being treated or
have been treated during that period of time, maybe there
(19:15):
wasn't and that they've. Acted on that and again they're
in a very unique position where you can be the CEO of a 10,000
person NHS Trust, but you have no control over what you pay
your staff because that is set by the treasury at the
government level. And so it's this bizarre
situation where you've got thesereally powerful senior people
who have no control over what their staff are paid.
That's the chancellor's job and so I think they were looking for
(19:37):
I might not control what they'repaid but can I innovate around
the edges on when they're paid or how they're paid.
So I think that may have been the driver, but I, I would say
that, yeah, this is already in hospitality and retail and, and
places like that close to close to a sort of must have.
And I think if we had this conversation in 12 months, it'd
be an absolute no brainer. But I think what we're
(19:57):
increasingly seeing is that the time to do it, especially look,
we can implement this at any time, but especially if you are
changing payroll provider or youare changing workforce
management provider or you are looking at your tax stack.
That is such a golden time to dothis because it's such a cherry
on top, easy win. And actually, when you're asking
all your staff to download, say,a new workforce management app.
(20:18):
Usually that means nothing to them, right?
They don't care if they get their rotors on X or Y, Whereas
if you can say, look, we're moving you from X to Y, but look
at as part of that. Look what you're getting.
This is the give get. We want this, but you're getting
on demand pay. It can just help be that cherry
on top of actually something forthe end users.
(22:56):
And, and for me, actually, there's there's probably the one
name that I hear that what I mentioned before about 2019, I
went to an event and I sat with these people on a panel and it
was the first time I'd heard of something like this.
It was wage stream. And I suppose everybody looks at
that kind of the the first to market as it would be what's the
difference between you guys and wage stream or how is that the
best way to kind of put a comparison there so people know
(23:17):
what you do? Yeah.
Is it banned? Have you?
Got record relationship wage industry go to conduct with
them. We've we know a few people that
got perfectly in relation with them.
There is essentially in the industry.
It's only ourselves in wage stream.
So we we do a very similar thingalmost identical actually and
actually it's only in the UK ourselves in wage stream who can
(23:39):
automate this the reconciliationof this.
So all of the other providers tomy knowledge require payroll to
automatically sorry to manually deduct wow, whereas only
ourselves in wage stream have the full the capability
technically to automate this. And so actually on sort of
accreditations and technology inthe end product ourselves away
(23:59):
Shreve are almost identical. The real divide in line in the
sand is that they also offer debt products within their apps.
So they offer credit cards and loans and things like that.
And look, that is what some employers will want.
We absolutely do not and we knowa lot of employers are a little
uncomfortable with that. Yeah, 100%.
And so we just do the on demand pay and then all of you left
(24:21):
services. So the payroll savings, the
financial coaching, the budget in all entirely free.
We don't cross out anything elseand definitely not debt
products. So that really is the big
dividing line. If you want to automate this,
you come to us on mainstream andthen on the sort of flow chart
decision making, it's do you want debt products?
Yes, go to waystream. No, you go to us.
Irene, is that sympathy? And without eating wage stream
(24:45):
at all. And that's, it's kind of a, you
know, at the moment, I suppose with the way HR team to looking
at that commodity of people, which is absolute gold dust,
you're not sending them down to a debt route.
You know, I don't know, I just, I think it's a, an easier
decision. One stream would tell you that
has accessible, yeah, that stuff.
We have found a lot of employerswho are very uncomfortable and
in my opinion rightly so, signposting towards an app that
(25:08):
has that person and sort of giving it the stamp of approval.
Yeah, a lot of employees are very uncomfortable with that.
And so we've sort of built a brand around just going nowhere
near that. I always say to people I'm happy
to write in the contract, but tobe honest, we've built our
whole. Brand So I'm just sitting there
thinking of three or four peopledirectors I know very well and
all of them would just they justwouldn't do it.
(25:29):
It's just not worth it for them in terms of it sounds really
selfish, but actually reputationally and integrity
wise, sometimes it's just just be careful what you especially
with, I think when you're dealing with people or wages,
you have to. That's why I say to when we're
recommending in a workforce management scheduling tool or
whatever, when we look at payroll, we're like, please just
be careful, make the right decision.
(25:51):
This is people's pay. You only get one chance to make
a mistake and they won't forget.But it's very interesting.
So I always like to kind of put a comparison out there.
So yeah. And to be clear, they also of
the iPod, the industry 100% an awful lot of rebuilding a very
big brand. And yeah, you're absolutely
right, actually on on day 7. As Peter Briff it, I think it
was the guy, I knew he was stillthere, OK, but no.
(26:13):
And so if AGM or a people director or someone in some kind
of decision making role is looking to kind of move forward
to this or understand a bit more, what's the best way for
them to kind of what's the firststeps you would take in this
kind of situation? Yeah, I would say, look, have a
chat with those and there's a few key bits of information we
need to know sort of what systems do you use, sort of what
(26:34):
type of stuff and what your pay cycles.
But to be honest, we are agnostic to all of them.
Like I said, the best thing is this is I'm aware that this is a
very niche area within a niche area.
If I, I live and breathe this all day, right?
The most people don't. And so just have a chat, no
strings attached. You know, we sort of know the
legislation in detail. I'm really bored enough, but we
are. He's alright, laugh.
You can go for a beer with him. We are super at the wings.
(26:57):
Bear in mind that that mean like, you know, HR tech stacks
is a pretty niche area. We're a niche of that, right.
So I just say look, have a chat and we will talk you through.
We'll explain sort of the code of conduct, what the FCA think
of it, what providers and you know really unbiased, what
providers, they're all out there.
Why we think we're better on these metrics and then what we
need to do to launch this. Like I said it launching this,
(27:18):
it doesn't matter what payroll or what workforce management
systems you use, it's weeks, notmonths.
It really, really is a sort of cherry on top.
We are not talking about replacing payroll here.
Yeah. Very cool, love it.
And what's next for Level? I'm calling you Level cuz you've
got your branded shirt on there.What's going on for you guys?
Yeah. We've got a few things in the
pipeline trying to think not a lot I can actually do for that,
(27:40):
but. It's always the way.
Hopefully ask me too much time things.
I think the most exciting thing relatively recently is we are
partnering with the world's largest on demand pay company, a
company called Daily Pay, who sort of invented this technology
based out of the US. So of, you know, multi billion
dollars corporation, they wantedto come to the UK, but obviously
(28:02):
it's very different to America. So they looked at all the
providers and sort of as a source of pride for us, they
decided to partner with us. You know, these guys can DD and
underman pay company. They are the underman pay
company. So they know if there's any
skeletons where they're buried. And yeah, very, very proudly
sort of chose to work with us. And so we are also working on
rolling out their UK products aswell through our platform.
(28:23):
So we increasingly are not only selling our room on demand pay
platform, we are powering other on pay platforms.
So there is other. Almost like the middleware for
on demand pay. Right.
So most people want to come to us direct, but some workforce
management companies in particular, they want their own
on on pay service within their own app so that users yeah, of
(28:46):
course outside to another app. We are increasingly also
partnering and empowering those.So that's an exciting Ave. but
to be honest with delays are focused on you know, that's the
future right now. If you want this, you know, in
the next year or two, truthfully, it's going to be
coming to a compiled like ourselves direct and then let us
worry about all that fancy partnership stuff in the future
where we think the industry's going.
But for right now, you just wantto partner with someone who's
(29:09):
done this for years, you know, has good references and, you
know, can talk to you about the nuances of it, really.
Perfect. That's why you're an improved
partner, my friend. And what's the best way to get
hold of you, apart from finding you in the marketplace for tech
and toast, Where else can we find you?
Yeah, Tech. And Toast search level FT we
should come up on level on demand pay and my e-mail
aah@levelft.com or I'll be on LinkedIn and yeah, I'll have.
(29:31):
Where most of us are, I mean, it's probably it's the best, it
is the best app in it for just hanging out with.
Me, you know, I'm getting increasingly frustrated with
the, you know, I went on holidayto Spain and, you know, I left
my baby in the shop. This is what it taught me about.
OK, I'm going to get creative, man.
It's getting difficult. It's getting difficult.
That's a really I'll look for that post.
(29:53):
Look, thank you very much. That was Archie everybody.
You can check out level FT on the website, as I said on tackle
toast dot community or you can go and find him on LinkedIn
where he spends most of his time.
What was your e-mail? Again, a A.
A. A.
H it's easy. Aah, lovely.
All right, great. Thanks very much guys, and we'll
see you all. Next week.
Thanks.
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