TOTAL REWARDS

Illustration: Morning Brew, Photos: Adobe Stock

Bye-bye, ICHRA. Hello, CHOICE. The scheme that allows employers to reimburse their workers to buy their own health insurance on the individual marketplace has a new name, per a Sept. 3 announcement from the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) and the Small Business Administration (SBA). But aside from that, not much else about the option is changing.

Brokers and administrators are hopeful that the rebrand will help convince more employers to offer ICHRAs to their workers. While the arrangement has been around since 2020, it’s not nearly as popular as traditional group health plans. As of 2025 just 4% of firms offered ICHRA-like plans, according to KFF, whereas 61% offered health benefits overall.

Part of the strategy behind rebranding Individual Coverage Health Reimbursement Arrangements (ICHRA) to Custom Health Option and Individual Care Expense Arrangements (CHOICE) is to promote an “underused option” to small businesses, CMS Administrator Mehmet Oz said at a Sept. 14 press conference.

Health industry leaders are hopeful that the federal government will consider some changes in the near future to make this healthcare approach more attractive to employers.

For more on what HR professionals need to know about CHOICE, keep reading here.—CV

      

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TOTAL REWARDS

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Company performance will no longer help determine most employee bonuses at LinkedIn.

LinkedIn employees’ end-of-year bonuses will be determined entirely by their individual performance starting in 2027, according to an internal memo obtained by Business Insider. This is a shift from the career social networking platform’s current pay-for-performance structure, which awards workers based on a combination of individual and company performance. Employees with sales quotas are exempted from the change, according to the memo from LinkedIn CEO Daniel Shapero.

“We’re updating our bonus plan to create a more direct connection between individual performance and bonus payouts,” a LinkedIn spokesperson told Business Insider.

The move by LinkedIn is part of a broader shift by tech companies to reward individual top performers, rather than the workforce as a whole.

For more on the trend toward incentivizing individual performance, keep reading here.—CV

      

HR STRATEGY

Morning Brew

Yemen’s Houthis have increased attacks on Saudi Arabia in recent weeks, leaving employers and employees in the region potentially vulnerable.

As the US-Israeli war with Iran continues, Iran and its allies have attacked US allies in the region, including the UAE, Oman, and Saudi Arabia.

In response to attacks on Saudi Arabia International Airport and oil company Saudi Aramco, some financial firms, including JPMorgan, Citi, and Deutsche Bank, are allowing employees in the region to work from home, according to Reuters.

When the war began in early 2026, many employers in the UAE encouraged their employees to work from home or allowed them to work from a different country amid the conflict, HR Brew reported previously. Security consultants told HR Brew at the time that several employers had evacuated workers who had been assigned to work overseas, but that employees originating from the region may have more limited options.

For more on how employers with employees in the region are navigating the conflict, keep reading here.—KP

      

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Today’s top HR reads.

Stat: Four in 10 hiring managers have interviewed candidates with a fake identity. (Checkr)

Quote: “I think we should all be worried about sending intentionally or inadvertently or otherwise, signals that send the most talented next wave of AI software engineers to other countries rather than the United States.”—Brad Smith, president at Microsoft, on how suspending H-1B visas could limit hiring of AI talent (Business Insider)

Read: Accenture is limiting employees’ Claude expenses to $29 a month after finding that some were costing the firm as much as $1,000 a month. (Yahoo)

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