Missed shifts were costly to this McDonald's. An app has fixed the problem
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Missed shifts were costly to this McDonald's. An app has fixed the problem
By Andrea Hsu
Monday, August 17, 2026 • 5:00 AM EDT
Heard on All Things Considered
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MORNINGSIDE, Md. — At 10 a.m. on a Tuesday, the drive-through at a McDonald's just off the Capital Beltway is still busy with the late breakfast crowd.<br>Inside the window, Ebert Velasquez Ramos takes an order for a sausage, egg and cheese McGriddle, cheerfully asking the customer if they want to make it a meal.<br>The new high school graduate has been at this job for about a month. It's his first job ever — and so far, so good. The bosses like how personable he is. And he's been reporting for his shifts on time, every day, something he worried could be a challenge.<br>Velasquez Ramos doesn't have a car, and getting here by bus isn't easy. Some days, he's able to catch a ride from a friend or a family member. But when no one's been available, he's turned to Escalate, a startup that began piloting its employee support app at seven McDonald's restaurants in suburban Washington, D.C., late last year. Through the app, he's been able to quickly get a voucher for an Uber, which gets him to work on time.<br>"I don't know if any other jobs really have that option, so I'm glad this one does," he says.<br>An app created by veterans of nonprofits
Escalate is the brainchild of Sienna Daniel and Sean Segal, two veterans of the nonprofit world.<br>For years, they focused on helping unemployed and underemployed people gain the skills needed to land jobs and launch careers. They ran bootcamp-style training, hoping to open up new pathways to work.<br>But they saw that workers kept battling the same practical problems. Cars broke down. Childcare fell through. Absences piled up, and people could not hang onto their jobs.<br>"Opportunities might be there, but if they aren't stabilized and they don't have what they need to be able to get to where they need to go, there's a problem," says Daniel.
Related Story: NPR<br>She has seen this phenomenon play out among her own family members in Ohio, who have struggled with poverty and work. "My dad, who is 73 years old, and my grandmother, who is 94 years old, still support them every day," says Daniel. "Driving them to work. Picking them up. When they get evicted, helping them to find housing. Food is a big challenge. Childcare."<br>But so many others? They have no such safety net.<br>Segal says through their nonprofits, they've seen that people really want to work. And they need the paychecks — even when they're only making minimum wage.<br>"It can be viewed as not a quality job and not a living wage, but it's the job they can get and they have right now. And it's the way they're supporting their families, so it's really important," he says.<br>Feeling as if they were pushing a rock up a hill, Daniel and Segal began to think anew about their work. What if they could help the population they've been so passionate about, while also solving an absenteeism problem that can cost companies tens of thousands of dollars a month? After all, when employees call out on short notice, businesses pay for it — in longer lines, less efficient service and overtime for fill-in staff.<br>That was the genesis of Escalate, a name they gave to both their startup and its app. If businesses could give people what they need to get to work, exactly when they need it, callouts will drop, they posited. Maybe they could get workers and employers to show up for each other.<br>A McDonald's pilot
In 2025, Escalate received a grant from the state of Maryland to run a pilot with Hopkins-Navies Ford Management, a McDonald's franchise with seven locations in Prince George's County, Md.<br>For six months, employees would have access to Escalate's app, through which they could request last-minute help with emergencies: An Uber voucher when transportation is the problem. A grocery gift card if a worker was short on food. A Visa gift card they could use to pay a family member or neighbor to watch their kids. (Daniel found people prefer that kind of arrangement over a voucher for a backup daycare service they haven't used before. "They want the kids to be with someone they know, and that they're familiar with," she says.)<br>Like so many employers, the McDonald's franchise had struggled with callouts across its restaurants, so its owners were enthusiastic from the start.<br>"Having that app, and having our employees make it to work, has been crazy beneficial for us," says Imani Ford, who operates the franchise with her mother, Mary Hopkins-Navies.<br>They haven't calculated the exact cost of a missed shift at one of their restaurants, but in the fast-food industry, it's estimated to be at least $300 per shift. It's easy to see why. Customers will, at times, abandon the drive-through. "If it's taking too long, they'll pull out of line," says...