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In an unpredictable labor market, where job gains in January fell below expectations and the future remains uncertain, one thing is clear: Employers cant afford to rest on their laurels. While the economy has remained relatively strong, shifts in the job market have been historically inevitable, and companies must constantly evaluate their operations to ensure theyre attracting and retaining the best talent. One area that employers should pay close attention to: employee benefits. Surprisingly, small businessesoften perceived as lacking the resources to offer substantial perksare quietly leading the charge in providing the kinds of benefits that employees value most. Small businesses are stepping up to meet workers needs, and its not just about flashy perks like wellness programs or flexible work arrangements. Traditional benefits, particularly retirement plans like 401(k)s, have emerged as crucial factors in attracting top talent and securing long-term employee satisfaction, according to Guideline research. While its easy to focus on the more visible, short-term perks that have become synonymous with modern work culture, many employees are prioritizing long-term financial stability over immediate rewards. As workers grow older, their anxiety about financial security in retirement naturally may only increase. This economic uncertainty has become a driving factor in employee decision making. Our Guideline research shows that a stunning 93% of employees say that retirement benefits, such as a 401(k), influence their decision to join a company. More tellingly, half of employees surveyed said they would turn down a job offer from a company that did not offer a retirement benefit. For businesses, this shift in worker priorities presents a clear opportunityand a possible call to action. Small businesses are going the extra mile Small businesses, often without the same resources as larger companies, have begun to recognize the growing importance of retirement benefits. In fact, the same research revealed that 70% of employers feel offering employees retirement benefits helped them with recruiting and hiring talent. And theyre not just offering 401(k) plans, but making them as impactful as possible. For example, nearly 80% of businesses that offer a 401(k) plan through Guideline provide employer matching. Our research shows that these contributions can increase employee participation in 401(k) plans by 9%, further cementing their value as part of an overall benefits strategy. No matter the size of your business, it may not be enough to just offer the basics when it comes to employee benefits. Employers can help employees bridge the retirement savings gap. After all, the lack of access to retirement plans or the absence of a company match may disproportionately affect those who need help saving the mostespecially in a climate where wages have stagnated for many workers. Providing access to a 401(k) plan and offering employer matching are key ways businesses can fulfill their role in helping employees plan for a comfortable retirement. Small businesses are spurring the 401(k) boom The numbers speak for themselves: over 15,000 businesses signed up for a Guideline 401(k) plan just last year. Of these new signed plans, 92% of them were customers who previously hadnt offered a retirement saving option. This surge in interest signals a clear shift in mindseta recognition that long-term financial security is just as important, if not more so, than the short-term perks that have become trendy. Small businesses are recognizing the changing needs of workers and stepping up to meet this demand. As more businesses recognize the impact of robust retirement benefits, its clear that this trend is more than just a passing phaseits a fundamental shift in how employers view their responsibilities to employees. Workers today are no longer looking for a job that simply offers them a paycheck and a handful of perks. Theyre looking for long-term stability and the opportunity to build a secure future for themselves and their families. To put this into perspective, last year, nearly 85% of employees who received access to retirement savings through Guideline participated in their plans, and on average, contributed close to 7% of their paycheck. Small businesses, by offering meaningful benefits like 401(k) plans with employer contributions, are not just meeting these demandstheyre helping to shape the future of employee benefits. While large employers may have the resources to provide a broad array of perks, its the small businesses that are truly leading the charge in addressing the real concerns that employees have about their futures. This shift toward offering substantial retirement benefits isnt just good for employeesit can be good for businesses as well. By helping to ensure their workers can retire with dignity and financial security, small businesses are investing in their most valuable asset: their people. In todays labor market, the companies that prioritize long-term stability and employee well-being can undoubtedly stand out. The time is now for businesses, large and small, to rethink how they approach employee benefits. Its no longer enough to offer just the basics. Employees are looking for more, and small businesses are proving they have what it takes to deliver. The Fast Company Impact Council is a private membership community of influential leaders, experts, executives, and entrepreneurs who share their insights with our audience. Members pay annual membership dues for access to peer learning and thought leadership opportunities, events and more.
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E-Commerce
Perhaps the surest sign that artificial intelligence really is taking over the world will come the day it wins your favorite March Madness bracket pool. The day could be coming soon. In an experiment that a) was bound to happen, b) might actually make us all look smarter and c) should probably also scare the daylights out of everyone, a successful CEO-turned-disruptor is running a $1 million March Madness bracket challenge that pits his AI programmers’ picks against those belonging to one of the world’s best-known sports gamblers. We’re not a crystal ball, says Alan Levy, whose platform, 4C Predictions, is running this challenge. But it’s going to start to get very, very creepy. In 2025, we’re making a million-dollar bet with a professional sports bettor, and the reason we feel confident to do that is because data, we feel, will beat humans. Levy isn’t the only one leveraging AI to help people succeed in America’s favorite pick ’em pool one that’s become even more lucrative over the past seven years, after a Supreme Court ruling led to the spread of legalized sports betting to 38 states. ChatGPT, a chatbot developed by OpenAI, is hawking its services to help bracket fillers more easily find stats and identify trends. Not surprisingly, it makes no promises. With upsets, momentum shifts, and basketballs inherent unpredictability, consistently creating a perfect bracket may still come down to luck, said Leah Anise, a spokesperson for OpenAI. Also making no promises, but trying his hardest, is Sheldon Jacobson, the computer science professor at Illinois who has been trying to build a better bracket through science for years; he might have been AI before AI. Nobody predicts the weather, he explained in an interview back in 2018. They forecast it using chances and odds. $1 million on the line in AI vs. Sean Perry showdown Levy’s angle is he’s willing to wager $1 million that the AI bracket his company produces can beat that of professional gambler Sean Perry. Among Perry’s claims to fame was his refusal to accept a four-way split in a pot worth $9.3 million in an NFL survivor pool two years ago. The next week, his pick, the Broncos, lost to New England and he ended up with nothing. But Perry has wagered and won millions over his career, using heaps of analytics, data and insider information to try to find an edge that, for decades, has been proprietary to casinos and legal sports books, giving them an advantage that allows them to build all those massive hotels. Levy says his ultimate goal is to bring that advantage to the average Joe either the weekly football bettor who doesn’t have access to reams of data, or the March Madness bracket filler who goes by feel or what team’s mascot he likes best. The massive thesis is that the average person are playing games that they can never win, they’re trading stocks where they can never win, they’re trading crypto where they can never win, Levy said. 4C gives people the chance to empower themselves. It’s a great equalizer. It’s going to level the playing field for everyone. But can AI predict the completely unexpected? It’s one thing to find an edge, quite another to take out every element of chance every halfcourt game-winner, every 4-point-a-game scorer who goes off for 25, every questionable call by a ref, every St. Peter’s, Yale, FAU or UMBC that rises up and wins for reasons nobody quite understands. For those who fear AI is leading the world to bad places, Levy reassures us that when it comes to sports, at least, the human element is always the final decider and humans can do funny and unexpected things. That’s one of many reasons that, according to the NCAA, there’s a 1 in 120.2 billion chance of a fan with good knowledge of college basketball going 63 for 63 in picking the games. It’s one of many reasons that almost everyone has a story about their 8-year-old niece walking away with the pot because she was the only one who picked George Mason, or North Carolina State, or VCU, to make the Final Four. You can’t take the element of fun and luck out of it, Levy said. Having said that, as AI develops, it’s going to get creepier and creepier and the predictions are going to get more and more accurate, and it’s all around data sets. Levy suggests AI is no three-headed monster, but rather, an advanced version of Moneyball the classic book-turned-movie that followed Oakland A’s GM Billy Beane’s groundbreaking quest to leverage data to build a winning team. Now, it’s all about putting all that data on steroids, trying to minimize the impact of luck and glass slippers, and building a winning bracket. We’ve got to understand that this technology is meant to augment us, Levy said. It’s meant to make our lives better. So, let’s encourage people to use it, and even if it’s creepy, at least it’s creepy on our side. The AI’s side in this one: Houston to win it all. Perry, the gambler, is going with Duke. Eddie Pells, AP national writer
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E-Commerce
Dozens of Social Security Administration offices across the country are slated to close this year due to actions taken by Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency as part of the Trump administrations unprecedented effort to shrink the size of government. DOGE has published a list of nearly 800 federal real estate leases that it is seeking to cancel. The Associated Press has obtained an internal planning document from the General Services Administration, which manages federal real estate, which shows when nearly two-thirds of those cancellations are expected to go into effect. The offices are closing despite a new requirement that tighter identity-proofing measures be put in place to prevent fraud and abuse. These steps will require millions of recipients and applicants to visit agency field offices rather than interact with agency employees over the phone. The AP also obtained more information about each lease on DOGEs list through other publicly available datasets, including their addresses, the dates the leases had started and were originally expected to expire, and the landlords who own the properties. Of the 47 Social Security Administration offices listed for closure, only some had anticipated dates for when those lease cancellations would take effect. Here’s a state-by-state breakdown of the 26 offices listed as expected to close this year, along with the termination date for each lease, according to the General Services data: Alabama 634 Broad St., Gadsden: Sept. 30 Arkansas 965 Holiday Drive, Forrest City: April 25 4083 Jefferson Ave., Texarkana: May 25 Colorado 825 N. Crest Drive, Grand Junction: June 21 Florida 4740 Dairy Road, Melbourne: May 16 Georgia 1338 Broadway, Columbus: Sept. 30 Kentucky 825 High St., Hazard: April 24 Louisiana 178 Civic Center Drive, Houma: April 25 Mississippi 4717 26th St., Meridian: June 1 604 Yalobusha St., Greenwood: June 1 2383 Sunset Drive, Grenada: May 1 Montana 3701 American Way, Missoula: June 21 North Carolina 730 Roanoke Ave., Roanoke Rapids: Aug. 1 2123 Lakeside Drive, Franklin: June 23 2805 Charles Blvd., Greenville: June 24 1865 W. City Drive, Elizabeth City: June 24 North Dakota 1414 20th Ave. SW, Minot: June 21 Nevada 701 Bridger Ave., Las Vegas: June 1 New York 75 S. Broadway, White Plains: May 31 332 Main St., Poughkeepsie: July 31 Ohio 30 N. Diamond St., Mansfield: May 17 Oklahoma 1610 SW Lee Blvd., Lawton: April 25 Texas 1122 N. University Drive, Nacogdoches: May 7 8208 NE Zac Lentz Parkway, Victoria: May 25 West Virginia 1103 George Kostas Drive, Logan: April 30 Wyoming 79 Winston Drive, Rock Springs: June 20 Meg Kinnard, Associated Press
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