102: Our Compference24 Review

[00:00:00] Join us on a journey where we unravel the latest trends, tackle your burning questions, and explore innovative strategies that are shaping the future of compensation, all with a coffee in hand.

[00:00:14] Hello everybody and welcome to today's episode of Comp and Coffee.

[00:00:17] In this episode, we are going to take a look back at Payscale's virtual conference that took place between the 17th and 19th of September last month.

[00:00:26] The conference is our flagship virtual conference that aims to bring inspired conversations about the future of pay and total rewards.

[00:00:35] And it's an opportunity for everyone, our customers, our prospects, and general practitioners to hear from speakers, keynote speakers, and expert voices in our field.

[00:00:45] And here at Payscale, it's one of our favorite times of the year.

[00:00:49] So we hope you were able to join us during the conference season.

[00:00:53] So we thought we'd look back on that today.

[00:00:54] So joining me in conversation today are two of our partners who led sessions at this year's event.

[00:01:01] Mark Mullis from Performance Partners and Elena Van Kirk from Exude Human Capital.

[00:01:06] So welcome, Mark.

[00:01:07] Welcome, Elena.

[00:01:08] And thanks for joining me on Comp and Coffee today.

[00:01:11] So Mark, do you want to introduce yourself to the audience?

[00:01:13] Tell us who you are, how you partner with Payscale.

[00:01:18] And then I have an extra bonus question at the end for you.

[00:01:20] But start off introducing yourself.

[00:01:22] Oh boy, interested in the bonus question.

[00:01:24] But yeah, thanks for having me on, Ruth.

[00:01:27] I am the chief excitement officer for Pay Performance Partners.

[00:01:32] The CEO title doesn't really fit me.

[00:01:34] I try to stay as exciting as possible.

[00:01:38] And I think that maybe keeps you young as well.

[00:01:40] I've spent the first 15 years of my career in large organizations, in global manufacturing, commercial construction, banking, entertainment.

[00:01:52] And then I founded Pay Performance Partners 11 years ago.

[00:01:57] We are an industry agnostic consulting firm with a mission really to help small to mid-sized companies and nonprofits get comp strategy and analysis help at affordable rates.

[00:02:12] Well, I'm based in South Carolina.

[00:02:15] Well, I'm based in South Carolina, but we have analysts and consultants all over the country.

[00:02:19] It is prime oyster season in South Carolina.

[00:02:22] So hence the coffee mug with the oysters on it.

[00:02:26] And look, I've been lucky to attend and speak at a number of conferences.

[00:02:34] Gosh, probably.

[00:02:36] I'm coming up on double digits here.

[00:02:38] And we're honored as Pay Performance Partners to be a premier partner of PayScale.

[00:02:44] So how that works is it's such a great partnership.

[00:02:48] PayScale provides the amazing technology and data.

[00:02:51] And then we come in and help out with the strategy and analytics behind it.

[00:02:55] So it's sort of a one-stop shop, so to speak.

[00:03:01] Easy for me to say.

[00:03:03] But yeah, honored to be here with you both.

[00:03:06] Thanks, Mark.

[00:03:06] And you might have foreled the bonus question because it is comp and coffee.

[00:03:11] And we always ask anyone who's new to the show, are you a coffee drinker or are you a tea drinker?

[00:03:17] Oh, goodness.

[00:03:18] I'm definitely a coffee drinker.

[00:03:19] I have more than once said to my wife, hey, let's go to bed earlier so we can get to coffee faster.

[00:03:27] Hence the coffee cup that you just shared with us.

[00:03:29] Okay.

[00:03:30] Thank you, Mark.

[00:03:30] Elena, over to you.

[00:03:31] Do you want to give the audience an introduction to yourself and how you work with PayScale?

[00:03:35] Yes.

[00:03:36] Thanks, Ruth.

[00:03:36] So happy to be here.

[00:03:38] I'm Elena Van Kirk.

[00:03:39] I'm Principal Consultant at Exude Human Capital.

[00:03:41] We are an HR consulting firm.

[00:03:45] We're based out of the Philadelphia area.

[00:03:48] But we have consultants and clients across the country and clients really across the globe.

[00:03:53] As a consulting firm, we work with organizations with under 10 employees to over 10,000 employees.

[00:04:00] And we really do cover all spaces from traditional human resources support to talent management, talent-enabled support, leadership development.

[00:04:09] And we really do all of our work through the lens of equity and inclusion.

[00:04:13] My individual background is in psychology.

[00:04:16] And so over the last couple of years, I've really leaned into the performance and compensation space with a focus on equity and really trying to identify behaviors that will drive equity through performance and compensation and development practices.

[00:04:36] So I have probably a bit of a unique approach, but it's really been eye-opening to influence some change in our clients across the country and across the globe.

[00:04:50] And our partnership with Payscale is newer than Mark's.

[00:04:55] We've been a client of Payscale for a very long time, but our partnership and us working together is a little bit newer.

[00:05:03] And so we use Payscale's technology platform to support all of our clients.

[00:05:08] Many of our clients also have their own relationships with Payscale.

[00:05:12] But we're really excited to be in this new space to continue to share thought leadership with each other as we all love to continue and grow and bring new ideas out to our client space.

[00:05:22] So I'm very excited to be here today.

[00:05:24] Well, thank you.

[00:05:25] And coffee or tea?

[00:05:26] What's your beverage of choice?

[00:05:28] Oh, so if it's hot, I'm coffee.

[00:05:31] If it's cold, I'm tea.

[00:05:34] That's not related to the time of day then, because for me, I'm in London now.

[00:05:38] So we are in the middle of the afternoon.

[00:05:40] So I've normally definitely moved to tea by this time of the day, but I'm coffee in the morning.

[00:05:46] Okay, well, thanks for joining me.

[00:05:48] You were also speakers at conference, which we're going to be focusing on today.

[00:05:52] You joined some 57 speakers across 15 sessions that we delivered during the virtual conference.

[00:05:59] So thank you both, firstly, for taking the time to give your thought, your expertise to that program.

[00:06:08] I'm interested to start our conversation by finding out what were some of your key takeaways from conference 24 in general?

[00:06:14] Like what were the headline takeaways for you?

[00:06:17] Elena, do you want to start us off?

[00:06:19] Sure.

[00:06:19] This was my first time at conference, and I was so excited to be able to be a panelist as well as a participant.

[00:06:28] And I think one of the favorite things was just that there's so much perspective.

[00:06:34] So I had panelists that worked at large companies.

[00:06:37] I ended up being able to speak with a number of other participants from smaller organizations.

[00:06:42] I've been lucky enough to be able to connect with other consultants.

[00:06:47] So for me, it was such a learning opportunity because it really put me in a position to be able to see things from so many varied perspectives,

[00:06:55] whether you're internal, whether you're external, whether you're a one-person show,

[00:06:59] whether you're part of a huge team launching an enormous initiative for a large organization.

[00:07:04] That was so much fun for me to be able to just be immersed in all of these conversations with such varied perspectives.

[00:07:11] Great. Thank you.

[00:07:13] And Mark, how about you?

[00:07:14] Obviously, you've been on conference before.

[00:07:16] What stood out for conference 24 this year?

[00:07:18] Well, first, Elena, I loved your session.

[00:07:23] Your session was fantastic.

[00:07:24] I think communication is a must.

[00:07:28] Us comp geeks, we get kind of stereotyped into being numbers geeks all the time, right?

[00:07:34] And really, there's more to it than that.

[00:07:37] It doesn't stop there.

[00:07:38] We have to take those numbers and translate them into a consumable language for managers and employees and our HR colleagues as well.

[00:07:46] So I really loved that session because we've seen an uptick just in what we do in our COP 101 offering.

[00:07:57] So we do a COP 101 session for managers and employees for our clients.

[00:08:03] And really, we've seen that pick up so much.

[00:08:07] And that just goes to show how much communication is involved in getting managers trained to be able to speak to your COP program is so vitally important.

[00:08:17] The second thing that really struck me was there was such a great balance of sessions that were tactical, but then also some that were innovative as well.

[00:08:29] The tactical sessions like reporting techniques just to save time and the leveling of career paths.

[00:08:38] We've seen an uptick in that as well, which generally, you know, some people don't think of that as comp work, but you have to have the job architecture and the career paths in place before you can build anything else, right?

[00:08:49] So that was great.

[00:09:19] We've been doing that for decades, right?

[00:09:21] So there's five generations in the workforce now.

[00:09:25] Let's change that up a bit.

[00:09:26] So I love hearing the innovative piece as well as the tactical piece.

[00:09:30] Great.

[00:09:31] Thank you.

[00:09:32] So we did have an amazing turnout this year.

[00:09:34] We had about 6,000 people register for conference and 3,000 people attending live over the three half days.

[00:09:40] I'm curious.

[00:09:41] You talked about what stood out.

[00:09:42] I'm curious what you find valuable attending this type of event.

[00:09:47] Obviously, you were gaining speaking, you know, thought leadership opportunity.

[00:09:51] But as an attendee and as a professional, you know, what do you get?

[00:09:56] What are the benefits of participating in an event like conference, Mark?

[00:09:59] Do you want to start us off?

[00:10:01] Yeah, sure.

[00:10:02] Look, I'll double down on the innovation piece.

[00:10:05] That's really where my head is.

[00:10:07] We do a lot of very tactical work for small and mid-sized companies, and it's all very important work, and we love doing that work.

[00:10:14] But I also, I really love thinking about how in the future can we innovate compensation?

[00:10:20] There's so many things in the world that are innovative, right?

[00:10:23] We've got electric cars, we've got drones, all kinds of great things, AI coming on.

[00:10:29] So I love to think about innovative ways in which we can do comp.

[00:10:33] And again, the session you had with Heba and Serika and Jess was just fantastic.

[00:10:41] Just really good thinking in innovative ways.

[00:10:45] Because again, for the first time in U.S. history, we have five generations of people in the workforce,

[00:10:51] and they all have different needs.

[00:10:55] And by the way, remember when we were all super scared of millennials coming out?

[00:11:01] Right?

[00:11:02] We were all super scared.

[00:11:04] And well, some of us were.

[00:11:05] I had some millennials on some of my teams, and I loved it.

[00:11:09] The way that the different thoughts that they brought to the workplace really ultimately ended up benefiting us all.

[00:11:17] And I think Generation Z is next, and they're going to bring some fantastic ways of thinking that we really need to adjust to.

[00:11:27] I speak at the College of Charleston to juniors and seniors, and I just did that last week.

[00:11:33] And gosh, you wouldn't believe the number.

[00:11:36] While base pay, of course, they want base pay, right?

[00:11:38] That's table stakes.

[00:11:40] But they're really talking about things like incentives, professional developments, culture.

[00:11:46] We saw that in the CVPR, right?

[00:11:49] The culture was a huge retention area.

[00:11:52] So I do think we have to innovate, and compensation plays into that culture.

[00:11:59] We can help build that culture by building a great innovative compensation plan.

[00:12:05] I think the metrics, is it 30% of the workforce will be Gen Z by 2030, I think.

[00:12:12] And I think when I look at the workforce, I think a lot of the issues we're having around remote work and RTO,

[00:12:17] that friction between how Gen Z feel about being in the workplace and maybe the executives that are making those decisions.

[00:12:26] But that's probably a whole other podcast that we could go down, and I'd love to hear your thoughts on that.

[00:12:32] And, right, Elena, what did you benefit from attending conference?

[00:12:36] What is it that you get out of coming to these events?

[00:12:38] Oh, that's such a great question.

[00:12:41] And I actually think Mark really hit it a little bit earlier in that we, I think we get kind of so narrowed into our focus,

[00:12:51] especially in our own organizations, and sometimes even as consultants to be at administration of our structure,

[00:12:59] and is it working, and is it not, and how do we continually educate and reinforce the way that we're making decisions.

[00:13:06] But our focus, I think, narrows so much over time and over the course of the year and where we are in our cycles.

[00:13:13] And conference is such a fantastic opportunity to really blow that up in a sense

[00:13:20] and take a step back and see the entire landscape and all of the pieces that we're not thinking about and not talking about.

[00:13:29] And so one of the ones that this year in particular I think has really resonated for me,

[00:13:35] and I share this a lot with my clients, that most people start with the dollars.

[00:13:40] And from my perspective, the dollars are the last piece.

[00:13:45] You know, we have all of these decisions that get made before, but once we make them, we fail to go back to them.

[00:13:52] So, you know, are we following the labor market or the economy?

[00:13:56] Are we talking about how we value jobs?

[00:13:59] Are we valuing the – are we recognizing, you know, the labor market value?

[00:14:04] Are we also incorporating what is the internal value of this job?

[00:14:08] How are we defining scope and autonomy and things like that?

[00:14:12] How are we providing support?

[00:14:13] All of these pieces that ultimately play a role in those numbers at the end of the day.

[00:14:20] And so I think it's such a fantastic opportunity to, like, restart the story in a sense.

[00:14:27] And I think it's such an eye-opening experience for organizations to go back to the starting point

[00:14:34] and be able to look through those decisions in a new lens with new information.

[00:14:40] And so that, to me, is, I think, such a key benefit of being able to attend an event just like conference.

[00:14:48] Yeah, I agree.

[00:14:49] And I think, you know, you can be so busy working with your own customers or clients,

[00:14:54] and sometimes it's just good to take that time and hear from other people, hear different voices,

[00:15:00] hear different perspectives, and, you know, hear what's being innovated, as you said, Mark,

[00:15:06] and be inspired, you know, to go back and maybe rethink about something you're working on in a completely different way.

[00:15:12] So I think that's what I enjoy at that conference.

[00:15:15] And to your point, Bruce…

[00:15:16] Yeah, getting that true, like, diversity of thought from all the panelists and from attendees,

[00:15:20] even, that were asking great questions in the Q&As.

[00:15:24] So, yeah.

[00:15:26] Yes.

[00:15:26] And Ruth, to your point about, you know, the millennials or Gen Z coming in,

[00:15:32] I think we spend a lot of time being really stuck in our reaction and, for some people,

[00:15:40] frustration that their sense of self, their sense of value,

[00:15:46] their expectations are not aligned to four generations ahead of them.

[00:15:50] And, yeah, now we're all in the same place.

[00:15:52] And I think it's really interesting to be in this space where I think many organizations have kind of started to just accept that,

[00:15:58] like, that is the reality of where we are.

[00:16:01] So now how do we use that as information to be able to navigate and move forward?

[00:16:08] And, of course, not all attendees to conference were humans.

[00:16:11] And I don't mean robots because every other conference I've been to this year, we've talked about robots and AI.

[00:16:16] But we also had animals at conference.

[00:16:18] So we do have a break on each of the days where we go off to the zoo in Seattle and get to spend some time with animals,

[00:16:27] which actually comes out as one of the highest scoring sessions every year in conference.

[00:16:32] So I think we saw flamingos, giraffes.

[00:16:35] I can't remember what the other animals are.

[00:16:36] I don't know if you managed to catch any of the animals during the conference.

[00:16:41] Look, I think that just shows that comp people are fun too, right?

[00:16:45] We're not all serious.

[00:16:46] We have some fun.

[00:16:49] I did suggest that we did it as a permanent feed for all our employees at Payscale,

[00:16:54] because I think everybody just from a, even just from a mental well-being,

[00:16:58] like having a moment in your day where you just go and virtually spend some time with animals.

[00:17:04] So it seemed to be enjoyed by a lot of the attendees at conference anyway.

[00:17:07] I love that.

[00:17:08] What a great way to reset.

[00:17:11] Okay, let's get it more serious then.

[00:17:13] Let's talk about your sessions.

[00:17:14] Mark, you led a session that was all about leveraging data and reporting to show how the effectiveness of investment in compensation came about.

[00:17:24] So can you give the audience a recap of the session and what were the main takeaways from that?

[00:17:30] Yeah, I had two wonderful co-presenters, Ben and Jungna,

[00:17:35] and they brought some case studies and I kind of navigated us through the conversation.

[00:17:41] But wow, what a couple of great case studies on how reporting for them, they were using it very proactively,

[00:17:49] using, of course, Payscale products and some other analytical tools as well.

[00:17:54] But reporting and being proactive about it rather than reactive was the biggest thing that I got out of that.

[00:18:01] And the amount of thinking that went into Ben's piece was on, he's in healthcare and hospitals,

[00:18:12] and they talked about traveling nurses and how much is being spent on traveling nurses.

[00:18:17] And not traveling nurses are great, but they said, look, we're underpaying our on-staff nurses

[00:18:23] and overpaying on traveling nurses after they did proactive reporting.

[00:18:27] And that led them to save millions of dollars and shift some of that money over to their underpaid nurses that were on staff.

[00:18:37] So now they've got better engagement as well.

[00:18:40] So just a really, really great story of using, you know, again, CompGeeks, we're numbers people, right?

[00:18:46] Well, not always true.

[00:18:48] I mean, it is definitely true, but we also have to tell the story.

[00:18:52] And that's where reporting comes in.

[00:18:53] And wow, there's just so much technology and data in the world today at our fingertips to be able to report on.

[00:19:01] In our session, we even talked about, well, I talked about being the older gentleman in the room,

[00:19:08] how we used to have three ring binders in our cubicles, right?

[00:19:11] Where we pulled survey data and flipped through the three ring binders and type it into Excel.

[00:19:16] And now all we have to do is just go to pay factors and or market pay and run a report.

[00:19:22] So technology and data is definitely advancing us.

[00:19:25] And I love being able to use reporting to be proactive rather than reactive.

[00:19:32] Yeah.

[00:19:32] Because I think when you're doing the role, you can spend a lot of your time just doing the doing or running a process

[00:19:38] and not really sort of lifting your head above the sand to say, well,

[00:19:43] what is really going to make a difference to this business?

[00:19:45] What are the key insights that are going to shift the needle here and make a difference?

[00:19:50] So I did enjoy both those case studies in that session as well, Mark.

[00:19:55] Mark, I did not get a chance to attend your session.

[00:19:58] So I am curious, was any of your conversation around like determining what kind of data we want to use

[00:20:08] and what it means to us?

[00:20:10] And I ask that because your story about the nurses resonates so much with me.

[00:20:15] And I have some other clients more in the social services industry who have been struggling with the market

[00:20:25] tends to undervalue some of their most mission critical employees.

[00:20:29] And so they're trying to understand how do I use this data when the market values my receptionist and my administrative assistant

[00:20:39] in a dollars standpoint more than all of the people we need on the ground doing the work to serve our purpose and our mission.

[00:20:47] And so I'm curious if that came up in your conversation at all.

[00:20:51] Yeah, a little bit.

[00:20:52] And we always, we at Payformance always talk about external data and internal data, and both are extremely valuable.

[00:21:00] We have some clients that are, you know, very niche organizations in cybersecurity or electrical grid cybersecurity,

[00:21:09] as well as, gosh, engineering, mining engineering.

[00:21:13] There's just so many specialized roles that we can look for external data.

[00:21:19] It's great.

[00:21:19] But we also need to understand what's the value to the company.

[00:21:23] So if the company says, look, this job only pays 50,000 in the market, we get that.

[00:21:29] But if we lose this role, if we have trouble filling this role, it's going to be a huge impact to our business.

[00:21:37] So the internal value really plays a huge part in that as well.

[00:21:41] Yes, I love that.

[00:21:42] And I'm seeing that so much more.

[00:21:43] And I'm so glad that more organizations, I think, are starting to think differently about what is our internal data and how do we put that into process with the external?

[00:21:54] Yeah.

[00:21:55] And is that part of the skills conversation, do you think?

[00:21:58] Because when you start to think, you know, we're trying to move down this direction and having better definition of the skills we need in the organization to drive business transformation.

[00:22:07] And then, you know, ultimately, one day we'll get to skills-based pay.

[00:22:11] But I think maybe some of those issues that you're talking about surfacing, Mark, are maybe centered around the need for recognizing skills and skills definition.

[00:22:21] Yeah, absolutely.

[00:22:22] Absolutely. And we also work with JDM a good bit.

[00:22:27] So when we're working with clients on their job descriptions, we are finding a lot of them taking those years of experience or time and see off of those completely and going towards skills-based.

[00:22:37] And I definitely think it's a fantastic way to go.

[00:22:41] It was a question at College of Charleston last week, too, the juniors and seniors.

[00:22:45] They said, look, we have no experience coming out.

[00:22:47] When they ask us what our experience is, I'm a college student.

[00:22:50] Now, maybe they've got some internships or something in their past as well.

[00:22:54] But they said, look, when the job says two to three years experience and I'm at zero, should I even apply for it?

[00:23:00] And I said, absolutely.

[00:23:01] Go tell them what skills you've learned, not just on a job, but from life skills, common skills, skills that you've learned in college.

[00:23:10] Absolutely, all that adds up and skill-based is definitely a good way to go.

[00:23:15] Yes.

[00:23:16] I could help my 23-year-old daughter a while back rewrite her CV.

[00:23:21] And it's interesting, like shifting from what work experience you have done to what skills you can bring to the workplace.

[00:23:28] And that's what your CV should be showcasing or how you're presenting yourself to potential employers.

[00:23:35] It's a real shift of thinking.

[00:23:36] Yeah, my 23-year-old is doing something very similar.

[00:23:41] He's already in the workforce and he works for a large green space and takes care of all the horse trails and running trails and bike trails.

[00:23:48] So he's responsible for 21,000 acres of trails.

[00:23:52] He's out there chainsawing trees and clearing, doing all kinds of stuff.

[00:23:55] And he's taking videos of his skill and using that for his CV.

[00:24:00] It's pretty interesting.

[00:24:02] That's so great.

[00:24:05] And I think, I mean, organizations have to lean in too.

[00:24:08] And I think a lot of them are nervous or anxious about how overwhelming that seems as a project.

[00:24:16] But instead of thinking about job descriptions or job leveling, that is so much of it historically has been task-based.

[00:24:24] And so in order to have trust that somebody can operationally perform this task, we've related that to experience as opposed to going toward what is the financial risk and liability associated with this role?

[00:24:37] What is the autonomy?

[00:24:38] Like, what is the impact of a mistake in this role?

[00:24:41] And then how do we translate that into demonstrable skills or demonstrable experience?

[00:24:47] That could look a lot of different ways.

[00:24:49] And I think there's, from where I sit in the work that I do, that shift is also going to have an enormous impact in the equity space.

[00:24:58] Great. So lots to be said about your session, Mark.

[00:25:01] Now, Elena, yours was all around enabling managers on compensation practices and communications.

[00:25:08] Very relevant in today's world of pay transparency.

[00:25:12] And in our interactions with customers and the audience on our webinars, we are hearing that comms or pay communications is probably one of the big concerns that they have for 2025.

[00:25:28] So do you want to tell us what happened in the session?

[00:25:31] What were the key points?

[00:25:33] What did the audience find exciting?

[00:25:36] Yes, we had so much fun doing this session, I have to say.

[00:25:40] I had two incredible panelists, Maku and Raj, who both lead compensation efforts for very large organizations in their respective spaces.

[00:25:52] And so we started exactly with that conversation about pay transparency.

[00:25:56] And they both shared that, one of them being based in New York, that was really the first big project when she came into the organization.

[00:26:07] And there was so much buildup around pay transparency and pushing this button.

[00:26:12] And she said the biggest thing we learned was that it was such a non-event, that the transparency of the numbers was really the non-event.

[00:26:23] It was everything that came afterwards in educating people to understand what the numbers mean and where they came from and supporting leaders and talking about pay.

[00:26:32] That really ended up being the lift and the learning curve that they're still navigating.

[00:26:39] And so we aligned on the fact that some of our organizations are really focusing on identifying what are all the moments that matter related to pay conversations that might be initiated by a candidate, an employee, manager, or an HR and compensation professional.

[00:27:00] And how do we align those conversations to create consistent messaging in not only what the pay decision is, which I think is that first level of transparency, but why this is the pay decision.

[00:27:15] And this is how we make pay decisions consistently throughout our organization.

[00:27:22] And we talked a lot about that.

[00:27:25] And one of the things, we had this super, super funny aha moment in our session where we were talking about, you know, development.

[00:27:34] And development is really the path to salary growth.

[00:27:39] And whether that is additional scope of work, whether that is promotional opportunities, organizations are all different shapes and sizes.

[00:27:46] And so how do we create salary growth in flatter organizations?

[00:27:50] And so one of the things that we really talked about was the role that managers don't necessarily understand that they play in an employee's earning potential.

[00:28:01] And that if they are supporting and promoting skill development, experience, exposure to new and different things in preparation for more or higher level or different responsibilities, they are one of the leading influencers in equitable salary growth.

[00:28:21] We kind of had this aha moment about like, I'm not sure managers realize, you know, how much, I don't want to say power, but influence they have in that long-term trajectory for their staff.

[00:28:34] And that in addition to just educating them on kind of compensation 101, this really also needs to lead into a performance and a scope and a development space for them to make, to really have a lasting impact across their team members.

[00:29:21] And that's interesting.

[00:29:32] So, yeah, I'd really love to lean into more transparency, which I think drives more trust.

[00:29:40] Great. Thank you.

[00:29:41] Well, you were both sponsors of conference as well.

[00:29:44] So I'd like to say a wholehearted thank you from Payscale for sponsoring.

[00:29:48] It's not often that you can get to a free event with the quality of sessions that we had.

[00:29:53] So it wouldn't be possible without support from Exude Human Capital and Payformance Partners.

[00:29:58] So thank you again for that.

[00:30:00] For listeners, you'll see we've included the links to both Mark and Elena's companies in the show notes.

[00:30:07] And you can go there and check out those providers and what they can do for you.

[00:30:11] Now, to wrap things up, I'd like you to maybe look into your crystal balls, maybe help us in our planning for next year and predict what sessions you think would be valuable for Conference 25.

[00:30:24] What do you think are going to be the hot topics in the whole compensation and reward space in 25?

[00:30:31] Mark, do you want to start us off?

[00:30:34] Yeah, maybe not specific things, but I think, you know, spotlighting more innovation and diversity of thought.

[00:30:42] I think, you know, we did have some of that this year, continuing that.

[00:30:46] It's this is going to be an ever evolving thing.

[00:30:49] Compass changed more in the past five to seven years than it did in the first 15 years of my career.

[00:30:54] So I think that's going to continue.

[00:30:57] So spotlighting innovation and diversity of thought is, I think, key.

[00:31:03] Not forgetting, though, that that we have we have to do the tactical things.

[00:31:08] Right.

[00:31:08] I mean, there's tactical blocking and tackling we have to do.

[00:31:13] And I think AI, of course, that's going to be a huge topic.

[00:31:18] It's going to be a huge topic for a while.

[00:31:20] I think it's important to understand, though, that that AI is it's not really here to do our work.

[00:31:27] It's here to enhance our work.

[00:31:28] So we'll I'm sure get more into that next year at conference and more by then we'll be we'll be out there about AI.

[00:31:37] So we think about two things at Payformance, basic blocking and tackling for our clients and as as a foundation for compliance and other blocking and tackling.

[00:31:50] You know, foundational things, but also innovative ways to to reward talent and strive to be the best employer or an employer of choice.

[00:32:00] So those are the things I would look forward to.

[00:32:03] Right. I made some notes there.

[00:32:04] What about you, Elena?

[00:32:06] I think I have two things that kind of go together.

[00:32:10] I think the first would be leaning in and providing more guidance and support and strategies around doing the hard work to move towards skills based and to do job leveling and to have all of those foundational building blocks to be able to build career, salary, growth, transparency.

[00:32:32] In addition to just what the way that we traditionally think about transparency.

[00:32:37] And since I do a lot of work in the equity space, I think a lot of organizations get overwhelmed by this because we now have these fantastic tools that give us data.

[00:32:46] But I don't necessarily know how to solve for some of those problems.

[00:32:52] And so I think there is such opportunity to lean into some of the human behaviors that are as a result of, I think, just, you know, long term historical practices.

[00:33:05] Right, wrong or indifferent.

[00:33:07] That's kind of, you know, how we learned in this space to conduct some of our traditional activities and traditional spaces related to employees and jobs.

[00:33:17] And so I would love to see more organizations and have some content and some suggestions around leaning into how do we change those behaviors to build and grow our way toward more equity in our real life experiences and conversations that ultimately would be reflected in the numbers.

[00:33:42] Great, thank you.

[00:33:43] Well, so that's what Mark and Elena think we should have included in Conference 25.

[00:33:48] What do you think, audience?

[00:33:49] You can email us at coffee at payscale.com.

[00:33:53] Is there something that you thought was missing from this year's agenda and you'd like us to focus on next year?

[00:33:58] Let us know there.

[00:34:00] And if you weren't able to attend, we will include the link to register to view the Conference 24 sessions on demand in the show notes.

[00:34:09] So if you missed Elena or Mark's session, you'll be able to go in there and see those there.

[00:34:13] So thank you, Mark.

[00:34:14] And thank you, Elena, for joining me today on Comp and Coffee.

[00:34:18] Really appreciate that recap on Conference.

[00:34:20] And again, thank you for partnering with us this year.

[00:34:24] Thanks so much, Ruth.

[00:34:25] Pleasure to be with you, Elena.

[00:34:26] Thank you.

[00:34:27] Thank you very much, everybody.

[00:34:28] And we'll see you on the next episode of Comp and Coffee.

[00:34:31] Thank you.

[00:34:31] Thank you.