Years ago, when Sanish Mondkar took an extended trip across the United States, he realized that there have been stark, problematic discrepancies between employers and the people they employed.
To Critic of late capitalism, this will sound like an obvious statement. But Mondkar, who has a master's degree in computer science from Cornell University, says the issues up close made all of the difference.
“As I traveled from city to city, I noticed the constant 'For Rent' signs hanging on the windows of countless labor-intensive businesses reminiscent of retailers and restaurants,” he said. “At the identical time, I saw employees changing jobs ceaselessly and still struggling to make a living. This discrepancy between the needs of employers and the truth of employees touched me.”
Inspired by that have, in addition to stints at Ariba as EVP and Chief Product Officer at SAP, Mondkar got down to construct a startup that helps firms manage their workforce – particularly contract and gig staff. His enterprise, legiontoday announced that it has raised $50 million in financing led by Riverwood Capital and with participation from Norwest, Stripes, Webb Investment Network and XYZ.
“My goal was to rebuild the enterprise category of human resources management to maximise work efficiency for firms while creating value for staff,” Mondkar said. “I wanted to distinguish the corporate itself by specializing in WFM’s intelligent automation and worker value proposition.”
Legion is designed to assist customers—employers like Cinemark, Dollar General, Five Below, and Panda Express—manage their hourly workforce by automating certain decisions, reminiscent of: B. how much work must be deployed where and when staff must be scheduled. Taking into consideration demand forecasts, work optimization and worker preferences, Legion's platform creates work schedules.
Employees whose firms are enrolled in Legion can request how they would love to work and set their preferred work hours through the mobile app. Legion's algorithm then attempts to match staff' preferences with the corporate's needs.
“We use algorithms trained on a combination of Customer data and third-party data that Legion collects from its partners,” Mondkar said. “This integration enables predictive planning and resource allocation.”
In addition to basic planning features, Legion relies – very trendily – on generative AI with a tool called Copilot (to not be confused with Microsoft Copilot). Copilot answers questions on work using a corporation's worker handbook, labor standards, and training content. In the approaching months, Copilot will gain the power to aggregate work schedules and fulfill requests so as to add or delete shifts or change staff assignments.
“To attract and retain staff, firms that employ hourly staff must emulate job-like flexibility,” Mondkar said. “Legion delivers this with intelligent scheduling automation. Managers can match staffing to projected needs, bridging the gap between worker needs and the needs of the business.”
That's all well and good, but two essential things stand out to me about Legion: its privacy policy and its Earned Wage Access (EWA) program.
Legion says it stores customer data for seven years by default – an extended time by any standard. Even more worrying, the info includes personal information reminiscent of employees' first and last names, email and residential addresses, age, photos and work preferences. Great praise.
According to Legion, the info is obligatory to “facilitate planning in accordance with labor regulations” and users can request deletion of their data at any time. However, I query the benefit of the deletion process – and the way transparent Legion is about its data retention policies to its customers.
My other criticism of Legion is InstantPay. Legion's EWA program allows employees to access a portion of their earned wages prior to their scheduled payday. Legion charges staff $2.99 for fast payroll transfers, while next-day transfers are free – that may not sound like much, but it will probably add up for a low earner. Legion describes this as a profit for hourly staff, giving them “greater flexibility” and “control” over their funds, in addition to a tool for business retention. But EWA programs are under scrutiny from policymakers, consumer advocates and employers. Legion's mobile app.
Some consumer groups argue that EWA programs must be classified as loans under the U.S. Truth in Lending Act, which provides protections reminiscent of: B. the duty of lenders to tell prematurely before increasing certain fees. These groups say EWA programs can force users into overdrafts while effectively collecting interest through fees.
Furthermore, it isn’t clear whether EWA programs represent a net profit for employers. Walmart recently tried to deal with turnover by giving its hourly employees early access to wages. Instead, employees were found to be using EWA tended to stop quicker.
