Paid leave inequities get exposed in TikTok campaign from fintech startup Sorbet

Sorbet, an Israel-based fintech startup, is on a mission to draw attention to shortcomings in U.S. paid time off policies with a social media campaign highlighting the importance of paid leave—for both workers and their employers. Founded in June 2020, Sorbet transforms employees’ unused PTO into usable cash by purchasing it from their employers for a fee of 5%-7.5% of the cash amount. The startup essentially takes the debts that a company owes to employees who worked more days than the company had accounted for in their salaries, and puts the accrued value of those PTO debts onto a prepaid credit card that employees can use anywhere, from gas stations to grocery stores. Sorbet declined to share the number of companies it works with or the names of these companies. Typically, unused paid leave becomes an “illiquid asset” with a financial value that employees can’t access because it becomes a debt owed by their employer rather than part of their salary, said Veetahl Eilat-Raichel, co-founder and CEO of Sorbet, in an interview. Sorbet gives that debt a physical, immediate value, meaning “you get to be empowered, for the first time ever, to choose whether you want to use this time as time off or if you want to use this for an emergency financial expense or for day-to-day expenses,” she said. Ad Age Next: CMO Get your tickets for the Dec. 7 event in New York Register here According to data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics, American employees only use about 72% of their accrued PTO, which equates to an average value of $3,000 of unused leave per employee. But in the U.S.—one of only a handful of countries that doesn't require employers to provide PTO—employees are lucky to even have the option to take paid leave. People of color are disproportionately impacted by this lapse in PTO policies, with nearly 40% of Black employees and one in two Latinx employees reporting their employers offer no form of paid time off, according to a 2021 study by the National Partnership for Women & Families. It’s these deficient PTO policies that a swath of American workers experience that Sorbet aims to expose in its new TikTok campaign, the #ShowMeYourPTO Challenge. The campaign’s ambassador is Kevin Ford, who went viral after he received a handful of cheap gifts, including a single movie ticket and a bag of candy, as recognition for never missing a day of work for restaurant operator HMSHost in 27 years. HMSHost operates the Burger King in the Harry Reid International Airport in Las Vegas where Ford currently works. Ford will produce a series of TikTok videos showing how he uses a prepaid card provided by Sorbet loaded with roughly $8,900–the national average of unused PTO per employee, or $2,226, multiplied by the four years Ford plans to continue working before his retirement–in his daily life. With these videos, Ford hopes to highlight the empowering potential of having paid leave converted into usable cash and spark conversations about the need for improved PTO policies in the U.S, he told Ad Age. “When you have no safety net, and when you are living paycheck-to-paycheck, to be able to cash out your hard-earned money and have it instantly in your pocket … it’s really, really great for your mental health,” Ford said. “I’m going to spend [this money] like I would normally: gas, utilities, phone bills. Use it for my family, my kids. Mainly, it’ll give me the freedom to relax, take some time off and refresh.” In the last few years, Ford said he and his Burger King coworkers had been expected to take on the workload of multiple employees and were often denied requests for time off. The restaurant sets specific times of the year that employees can take paid leave, and doesn't provide that pay until after an employee takes their time off—”So, when we take our vacations, we’re broke,” Ford said. For years, Ford delivered food orders in addition to his restaurant job to make ends meet and was still unable to afford to visit one of his daughters and her children who lived in another part of the country. A Burger King representative did not reply to an email request for comment. HMSHost also did not respond to a request for comment. “[This campaign] is about taking Kevin’s personal story and highlighting a social justice issue around employers’ responsibility to take care of their employees’ well-being—and not just because it’s the right thing for you to do for your employees, but also because it’s the right thing to do for you as a business,” Eilat-Raichel said. “There’s so much research that points to the fact that allowing employees to take time off actually improves performance, and reduces stress and burnout.” “For us, [this campaign] is about awareness and about empowering employees to ask questions and make sure that they receive the right kind of benefits,” she added. The TikTok challenge urges users to share their own stories about how their employers’ PTO policies harmed them and to emphasize the benefits of taking paid leave by capturing what a day of paid time off looks like for them in a video. Paid time off was also the focus of a recent campaign from Mike’s Hard Lemonade, which encouraged Americans to request a day of “Mike’s Time Off” for a chance to receive an electronic payment of $200. The beverage company offered this money as a way for U.S. workers whose employers don’t provide PTO to afford to take a day off of work. As of last Wednesday, more than 39,000 people had entered the sweepstakes, said John Shea, Mike’s Hard Lemonade chief marketing officer. According to Shea, the company will select 250 winners to receive “MTO” based on their answers to two open-ended questions asked in their sweepstakes entry: “Why do you need MTO?” and “What will you do on MTO?” “It was important to us that MTO be more than a sweepstakes—to really engage with and learn more about the hard-working people applying for MTO,” Shea said in an email. Workers without access to PTO are often forced to turn to companies that allow employees to receive a paycheck early, but in the form of a loan and with a percentage of that paychecks’ value taken out. These businesses, also known as payday loan providers, are sometimes the only option for people living paycheck-to-paycheck, as Ford once did, when an emergency expense arises, Ford said. He’s eager to begin sharing videos of how he uses the paid leave provided by Sorbet and letting people know that other options are available, he said. “I hope I can get across in these videos that there is a lifeline—a safety net—out there for them,” he said. “To know that there’s something out there that’s legit, and it’s your money to be able to turn to…that’s a game-changer.”

Paid leave inequities get exposed in TikTok campaign from fintech startup Sorbet

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