On-demand pay shouldn’t be treated as a perk but rather a financial lifeline, says SE Health's Matthew Snyder
For Matt Snyder, workplace wellness isn’t a blanket approach but rather a layered strategy shaped by the individual needs of employees.
The chief human resources officer at SE Health believes one of the most overlooked strategies when it comes to financial wellbeing is earned wage access or on-demand pay. He sees this strategy not as a silver bullet, but as a critical tool in a broader, more flexible response to financial stress in the workplace.
“If they're not accessing their pay early, they could be going to Money Mart or another loaning company,” Snyder said. “They're paying a significant interest on credit cards, spiralling into credit card debt. Some people are going to need pay on demand, because they're going to get hit [at] certain points where they're going to be in a bit of trouble and they're going to just need that cash now versus needing to wait.”
In those moments, the ability to access earned wages could be the difference between staying afloat and slipping into debt. He doesn’t describe it as a problem to solve with a single fix, but rather “a multi-faceted challenge” that requires a range of adaptable, individualized solutions.
He spoke from experience, recalling a period when managing money meant juggling credit cards just to get to and from work.
“I remember a time getting on the GO Train in the morning, calling multiple credit cards to try to figure out which one had enough money... Things were tight,” he said. “Life is hard, money is hard.”
From his perspective, on-demand pay makes sense as both an immediate support and part of a longer-term shift in how employers structure pay. He believes the future lies in offering more than just early access to wages. Giving employees control over their pay schedule, even letting them choose how often they’re paid, could further empower financial well-being.
“Most pay-on-demand situations, you're paying a fee to access your pay early. If you can get to the spot where people are getting paid whenever they want it directly from the employer, you cut that out,” Snyder said.
That, he argued, “takes it to the next level of making things affordable. If employers can help their employees with being paid more regularly, I think it creates a significant advantage.”
The current biweekly or monthly pay cycle, he argues, is a leftover from a bygone era. He emphasized prior to World War One, it was possible for employees to be paid every day because employers didn’t have to worry about tax or benefit deductions.
“We’ve stuck with an antiquated model of pay that came in for very good reasons at a particular time. As employers, we could do better,” he said.
He underscores that the technology now exists to pay workers daily, while still managing deductions and payroll compliance “and have it all line up at the end of the two-week cycle,” he said.
There’s more than just compassion behind this thinking. Snyder asserts that the business case for pay flexibility is strong.
“If you support and enable your people by meeting their needs around physical, mental health, spiritual and financial health, you are going to get the performance you’re looking for,” he said. “You get less sick time, less voluntary attrition, more discretionary effort, more innovation, better care, better quality service. That’s what you want if you want to impact the bottom line.”
And yet, financial stress remains a stubborn barrier to wellness. He acknowledges the criticism as some say it’s the schools’ job to teach financial literacy, not employers. But Snyder disagrees.
“You could argue those things should all be taught somewhere else, but they're not,” he said. “We do training on all kinds of things that aren’t taught elsewhere. We do that training because it's a need that has to be done to accomplish the mission at hand. It's an unmet need that a lot of staff have. If we can meet it again, we reduce some stress.”
For him, it’s about seeing employees not just as labour units but as people living in a complicated, expensive world. And that means letting go of legacy mindsets.
“It involves us unlearning some of what we’ve all traditionally learned and challenging our own stereotypes around what is or isn’t the responsibility of the employer,” he said.
And in a labour market that continues to shift, Snyder makes it clear that standing still is not an option, especially as he believes the labour market will increasingly demand more flexible payment options where workers will be able to choose pay frequency and adjust it over time.
“I believe the labour market is going to insist upon that in the years ahead,” emphasized Snyder. “Employers can either get in front of that and do what's right for their people, while building a better employee value proposition for their organization, or they can wait until they have to do it because all of their competitors are.”
“The labour market is going to force you to change the way you treat your people,” he added. “It already has.”
