DailyPay, a company that provides on-demand payment solutions for employees and employers, has secured $500 million in capital.
That, in some part, is thanks to home-based care providers buying into the method.
The New York-based company recently announced it raised $175 million in a Series D equity round, led by Carrick Capital Partners along with other existing investors. DailyPay additionally raised $325 million of credit capital from various sources.
Of the more than 400 clients that use DailyPay, nearly 25% are health care providers. Rockaway Home Care and BrightSpring Health Services are two examples of home-based care agencies that use its services.
Broadly, the platform allows providers to pay workers on a daily basis, or whenever they’d like to receive the money they earned.
“Home health care is a great area and a great industry for us,” Jeanniey Walden, the chief innovative and marketing officer at DailyPay, told Home Health Care News. “In fact, it was one of the initial industries that put DailyPay and on-demand pay, in general, on the map. I think they self-identified a need to use a benefit or service offering like DailyPay to help competitively hire in the early days, because there’s always been that labor shortage.”
The massive funding round gives DailyPay the ability to go after more providers in health care and achieve its goal of transforming the financial system for how workers are paid.
Especially for home-based care workers, who are often subjected to low wages, daily pay can be very beneficial. It allows them to access their money whenever, so bills not lining up with paychecks is not an issue.
The payday structure — where an employer handed out paychecks every two weeks or month — began after World War II in an effort to help the economy. It has stuck since, but hasn’t always made sense for employees.
“It’s just become an efficiency game for a lot of organizations,” Walden said. “But unfortunately, as the world has evolved, various bills don’t necessarily line up with your payday. In many cases, the timing of your expenses is at odds with the timing of your paycheck. DailyPay simply fills a need that employees have — to have money in the right place at the right time.”
Home care providers like Rockaway Home Care have leveraged this payment method in recruiting.
“Daily pay has been a game changer for us,” Sean Hirsch, Rockaway’s executive director, told HHCN last year. ““We saw that as a way to offer another non-monetary benefit to our labor force. The happier [employees] are, that transfers over to the patient as well.”
Rockaway operates six home care care locations in the greater New York City area. Its payment structure has differentiated it from its competitors in a field where there aren’t always many differences between agencies.
Another reason why DailyPay is useful for workers is that it lets them access their pay balance whenever.
“If you’re in an hourly job, before the pay balance was available, nobody actually knew how much money they were making,” Walden said. “You kind of knew, but there were [various factors] in how you got paid. You generally knew what your check would be, but now you can look at your pay balance and say, ‘Oh, OK. I’ve already earned this money, and there’s three more days until payday.’ And you can make some decisions off of that, like if you need to pick up another shift or if you can take a day off.”
Employers can also offer on-the-spot bonuses to reward their employees for accomplishments on the day of.
One way to utilize that, for example, would be rewarding an employee hazard pay on the same day they cared for a COVID-19 positive patient.
Providers can also give bonuses the week before a holiday so their employees can access that immediately and buy gifts or pay for a Thanksgiving meal.
“With spot bonuses or rewards, if you [need them] Tuesday, I can give it to you then,” Walden said. “If I give you an extra $50 in two weeks, you’ll get it. And maybe you’ll remember that you’re a valued employee. But it’s more appreciated [in the moment].”