Navigating the New World of Work through Portable Benefits

28 April 2023 – “People think you can only be either an employee or an independently contracted worker with no benefits. We have to break this mindset; independent workers and employees should be put on equal footing”, New York University Law & Economics Fellow, Dr. Liya Palagashvili said at a Makati Business Club event.
“Portable benefits or flexible benefits are benefits that are not tied to a particular job or employer. For a lot of independent workers, especially freelancers, they might have many different clients at the same time; it doesn’t make sense to have benefits tied to only one organization.” 

Liya was part of a panel that included De La Salle University Prof. Cheryll Soriano and Noah Lang, co-founder and CEO of Stride Health, a U.S.-based insurance provider that connects workers who lack access to traditional worker benefits. They discussed the different possible models that could help address the lack of social protection among the rising number of informal or non-traditional workers. 

In celebration of Labor Day 2023, the event was hosted in partnership with the Center for International Private Enterprise (CIPE), an independent, non-profit affiliate of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, the Employers Confederation of the Philippines (ECOP) and the Philippine Chamber of Commerce (PCCI). The forum was attended by participants coming from Manufacturing, Agriculture, Call Centers (BPOs), Consulting, Education, Accounting, Transport, and Distribution along with National and Local Government agencies. 

“A lot of the workforces we partner with, […] we’ve been working with them to solve the problem with the toolkits that we have today. And even just that, no money in, but assistance and deep thoughtful assistance and education has driven up worker satisfaction. They voice 70% of the time that it makes them more likely to work longer and put more of their work on that platform. ” said Mr. Lang.