Tal Clark hosts part two of the Instant Payments Podcast with Laura McLand, VP of HR at Sun Holdings, a major U.S. restaurant group with 30,000+ employees, discussing HR trends including earned wage access and digital tipping. Laura says fast, fee-free access to tips improves satisfaction, and notes the shift from physical pay cards to mobile payments. She describes Sun Holdings’ efforts to position restaurant work as a career path, reporting retention improved by 20% over the last two years due to instant payments and greater employee engagement. She explains piloting new programs with one brand before scaling, outlines ROI-driven internal buy-in, and shares how AI is being used in recruiting and new payroll software for faster information retrieval.

00:00 Welcome Back to Laura

00:35 Instant Tips Impact

01:45 Beyond Plastic Cards

03:25 Turnover and Retention

05:39 Employee Engagement Focus in 2026

07:05 Rolling Out Instant Pay

08:45 Selling Value of Instant Payments To Execs

11:09 AI In HR Operations

13:19 Rapid Fire Q&A

15:51 Closing And Thanks

Instant Financial: instant.co

Sun Holdings: sunholdings.net

Connect with Tal Clark: https://www.linkedin.com/in/tal-clark-a60776b/

Connect with Laura McLand: https://www.linkedin.com/in/laura-mcland/