Gracious Payroll with Special Guest Danny Schulz

[00:00:07] Welcome everyone to another episode of the HR Ampere 2.0 podcast. I'm Pete Tiliakis and as always, I'm joined by the legendary Julie Fernandez. Welcome Julie. Hey, thanks Pete. And we are excited to actually spend some time today with a good friend of both of ours, Danny Schulz from Kohler. Welcome Danny. Thank you. Glad to be here. Yeah. Yeah. Look, it's a Friday here. I'm fresh back from Vegas. I think I landed just a few hours ago. I'm really burning on fumes. And I have to tell you folks, you don't know what we've gone through to get to this point in this episode.

[00:00:37] We have had everything from construction at my house, to going outside and it raining on me, to Danny having to get congressional approval to get into our platform, to Julie's husband, to the dogs at my house, to everything. We've had every obstacle, but it never stops us. Here we are. We're back. It's the agility of payroll, if anything, right Pete? We're very agile as a group. So just proving the points today.

[00:01:04] Yeah. Overcome and adapt. That's what they teach us in the Marines. So we are overcoming. Danny, we couldn't want to talk to you more. That's what I'm saying. We've been trying to get you on the show since the inception of this show. So it's been hard, but you've been elusive. What have you been up to? Well, we like to hide, right? We're just busy at Kohler. We do a lot of crazy things. Very, very busy with all my family stuff.

[00:01:27] And sometimes I can be a little introverted, believe it or not. And so we have to try to make sure that, you know, it's worth talking to me sometimes. Yeah. Yeah. No, it's good. As we've gotten to know each other, first of all, you're safe to say, right, the right title director of global peril now at Kohler, right? I mean, like I thought I knew what Kohler did. And usually I'm thinking like sinks and faucets and stuff. But the more I know you, the more like Kohler does everything.

[00:01:54] We do. We have a little bit of everything, right? We've got world-class golf with some golf courses here in the Kohler area with Whistling Straits and Black Wolf Run. We've got some hospitality overseas as well in St. Andrew's area, which is fantastic. And then world-class hospitality in the village of Kohler up here in Wisconsin.

[00:02:16] Everything down to, you know, stables and landscaping and, of course, chocolates. We're your favorite chocolate company you've never heard of, right? You mentioned that, man. We dropped the ball. We were going to get some chocolates and enjoy some Kohler chocolates here on the show, but we didn't get that done. But we're going to check it out. So is it basically the Kohler family? Is that like a portfolio of things that they own, essentially?

[00:02:40] Yeah. So a lot of it, I think, originated Mr. Kohler, just a visionary and genius, right? Really loved everything about the village. But the old immigrant housing for the workers that they had brought over was called the American Club. And now we've, Mr. Kohler had a vision that, hey, we could turn that into a world-class resort. Things snowballed. We built the resort. Guests needed something to do.

[00:03:08] And so we built world-class peep-dye design golf courses because we don't really go halfway at Kohler. We go full way. And it's, you know, just a great resort, great spas. Everybody will love it. We get a lot of people here. And then we get to show them some of the fun stuff. A factory tour here is something else. So if you ever make it up, make sure you get to sign up for a factory tour and come see all this stuff. If you ever find yourself in the village of Kohler, you should ask.

[00:03:38] I've never found my way to Wisconsin to begin with, to be honest with you. But if I do, I would love to go. I'd love to go. Yeah, we'll have to get you up there. And since it's all about employees, how many employees does Kohler have? I mean, like you do payroll. Everybody wants to know how many employees usually. Way to go, Julie, to keep us on topic. Perfect. For payroll, we have about 30,000 employees now at Kohler worldwide.

[00:04:01] We pay in, I think it was, I don't know, 65, 70 country company code combinations. So we're very global. We have a good mix between the different regions and we have manufacturing facilities all around the world. A lot of our things, you know, it's hard to ship toilets. And so where they get produced, they sort of stay in region and we work from there. And it's been a great business model. We've been around, you know, 152 years this year.

[00:04:30] And so it's been a great story. And it all came from throwing some feet on a cast iron tub or a cast iron pin calder to make it a tub. It's a great history. Is Kohler or has Kohler kind of gone through any bit of, you know, their own like sort of, you know, there's a lot of push towards smart technology in manufacturing, smart manufacturing. A lot of automation, I'm sure, AI, obviously. But are you guys kind of on a digital journey on the front, on the product side of your business as well?

[00:04:59] We're doing a lot of smart factory innovations and changes as well. We got a whole team that's looking at doing all those things. I'm not as plugged in there as to really answer what we've all been done. I probably couldn't say if I knew anyhow. But I can tell you some cool stuff. But it's still great to do the tours and see some of the stuff that's done by hand. We've got artist edition things and projects like that that are just gorgeous and fantastic and just one-of-a-kind pieces that are made as well.

[00:05:29] So it's the whole gamut of things where it's a really unique place and it's a great history. That's cool. That's cool. Hey, Pete, do you want to do the honors? Since I know Danny and I had a conversation that I'm itching for us to share here in the podcast. So do you want to do the honors you usually give to me? Danny, you know we always ask every guest how they got into payroll and HR. Why do they stay? What's your story? Yeah. So early in my career, I'm an accounting major by trade and marketing degree as well.

[00:05:57] And I was a jumper. I was a two-year and jump guy and tried my way around public accounting. And then I had made it in industry and was really focusing on sales and use tax. And Kohler gave me a call at one point in time to come over and head up their sales and use tax team. And payroll tax was a part of that. And eventually we were down to a point where I thought I'd grown as much as I could doing that role. And I was looking for something else.

[00:06:24] And it was either going into accounts payable or payroll when I was looking at it. I really wanted to stay at Kohler. And so I'd raised my hand for the payroll role. And I got, yeah, they thought that was a good idea. And so that was the year before COVID. And I sort of stuck. It's been great helping transform that. Yeah, we've taken the function from finance over to total rewards and HR. And I think that's been really great. Oh, awesome.

[00:06:54] We just talked about that, Julie, didn't we? Yeah. Yeah. I love that trend. I love it. I think it's just how we focus on it. This is, we're in the people business in payroll, whether or not we want to admit it. Yeah. I think sometimes payroll doesn't really like to be the people, the part of the business. But this is the people business. And it's all about, you know, how can we provide gracious living is a standard phrase we use at Kohler.

[00:07:21] And so we're really trying to make a world-class, gracious payroll experience for all the employees. And really just promising the best we can to provide an accurate and timely paycheck around the world. And that's all we're doing. And so this to me is, you know, I'm a central Wisconsin farm kid. How can we make people's lives better? What can we do to make the experience better? And from a payroll aspect, this all makes sense, right? This treats people right and how can we get paid? Yeah, I love that.

[00:07:51] It sounds like you have a culture that's actually prioritizing you, right? And leaning into that. And I love that alignment to total rewards. Julie and I talked about it on our PayCon debrief episode, some of that trend that we're seeing, you know, executive leaders that are now running payroll and leading payroll underneath the total rewards banner. And I just think it's a perfect, perfect alignment versus in this HR versus finance house, you know, housing of payroll. Yeah, it's a great fit, right?

[00:08:19] We've always had to partner really strongly with the benefits team. We've always had to partner with comp. A lot of synergies there. Yeah, it's a real natural spot. Now we're all leading the same way. And it's been really great for us to be able to be just deeper partners within that part of the org. So that way, if there's a change coming, we're not as blindsided as we might have been in the past. And so that's been great for us, right? We've been able to be a lot more proactive. And that way, when we announce a change to employees, we're ready for payroll.

[00:08:47] And it's not always, hey, why didn't I get this new benefit on my check? And we're like, nobody told us there was a new thing, right? It makes that benefits enrollment experience and the comp cycles and the bonus cycles and all of that much more synergized and much more, you know, effective, I guess you could say, in making sure that the outcomes are going to be solid and correct and everybody's going to be happy because there's nothing worse than getting your bonus and it's got a problem.

[00:09:17] So, yeah. And then all three of those functions are moving in the same direction, which is great, right? You guys are going to work day, right? We are going to work day. We are about 13 months out. We're at July 1, 26th go live where I think we have what seems like 4 million people working on the project. It's a huge project as we're doing a lot of other things. It's very exciting time at Kohler. We just came off another huge project.

[00:09:45] You know, I always look at my career as 10 stake moments and this is just another one that we get to plant and raise the flag up and it'll be fun. It's going to continue to be a challenge. Remember when you started this journey, you and I talked and I think I told you, I said, look, it's going to be painful, but you're going to learn more. You're going to get a degree. Another degree is what I like to say, you know, another master's degree in transformation, man. It's going to make you so much more, you know, just your lens richer as a leader. It's fun watching others grow on the project as well.

[00:10:14] So it's great being able to give your team a chance and watch this thrive and give a little stretch assignment here or there because at the end of the day, this is all about developing people and making it the best we can. Yeah, I've seen a lot of people really, really bolster their careers through these sorts of transformations where they had an opportunity to lead some segment and that led to something else for them. So it's a chance that you're right to come out of your shell and stretch a little bit.

[00:10:38] Hey, I'm going to start to wrangle us in a direction because Danny and I had a chance just a week or two ago at PAYO to really trade some fun stories and some really cool things that I think he's been doing that I think a lot of our listeners would really love to hear about. We started in the direction of conversations that everyone was having there about having five generations in the workplace and knowing that we have a crisis in payroll coming.

[00:11:05] I know, you know, different stats and things have said that, you know, by 2030, which is only five years from now, all baby boomers are going to be 65 or over. And we know that that generation makes up a pretty big portion of the payroll workforce.

[00:11:23] And we I think we hear from many, many sources that that are part of our industry and payroll that that there's a crisis coming in payroll talent and a labor shortage with the vacancies and and turnover and things. So so, Danny, anything in particular? Like, I know that's that's what got our juices rolling and got us into a great conversation a week or so ago. Yeah, that's something we've spent a lot of time at Kohler. We're just looking at, you know, first and initially our U.S. team.

[00:11:51] We have had just the privilege of amazing tenure at the organization. When I look at our U.S. team, there's there's 12 of us. And we had, you know, a couple of years ago, average tenure was over 25 years. We've had some retirements and things come through in the last couple of years. We had two people retire. But we're able to really take that and and plan for the organization.

[00:12:20] I'm looking at, you know, we have, you know, still 18 years. Average tenure is fantastic. But we're we're kind of top heavy. We got we've got a guy who's been on the payroll team for 49 years. And wow, wow. He's going to he's retiring next year. He's going to get a 50 year plate from Kohler. And wow, we're so excited to have that celebration and wish him the best.

[00:12:46] But some of the things he's seen in his career are just amazing. Right. I work with some of those folks. Yeah, the information they have. And so we've we certainly have done a lot of pre-planning and a great partnership with HR as we look at, you know, we've got, you know, four people that are probably nearing retirement as they're, you know, 60 or above. And we've got some teams that teammates that are down under that are, you know, just hit 30 this year. And so it's it's really as a leader.

[00:13:16] And I'll be 43 this year. And so for me, one of the things is how do you lead across this from an organization perspective? And it's certainly different views. And you really have to look and learn and and and understand how people want to be seen, how they what kind of things they want to do. Certainly there are some people that, you know, just are might be just perfectly happy individual contributors. And you've got to know who wants to stretch assignment and who can you push and and how do you play those buttons?

[00:13:45] The different generations, it's it's something that I've been just I've loved to learn over the years and certainly not with five, Julie. I when they said when they said that my job was one of those people that job hit the it hit the table and just I guess there are right. And, you know, it's it's understanding the wants and the needs. Right. And that's where, you know, EWA came about. And.

[00:14:10] You know, from a core aspect, when I started here, we were still sending paper pay statements around to everybody in the U.S. And so that's not a thing anymore. We've got ESS and mostly everybody's direct deposit. And it's been great. And it's been great to see the changes that we've made just in the short 13 years that I've been at Kohler. But it's been. Some of the other changes that we're going to see in the next two, three years are going to be astronomical. We're very excited for a lot of it. It's going to be fun.

[00:14:39] Yeah, I pull the stat again from the Bureau of Labor that the payroll industries labor shortage, just quantifying it, that there's an average of three hundred and eighty four thousand job vacancies per month in 2023 related to payroll. Yeah. And that that's just going to keep going. And and I know shortly after my conversation with you, Danny, a woman from a Midwest bank, a large Midwest bank organization came up to me and said, you know, we have a very senior

[00:15:08] staff and and one of my key contributors is 71 years old. And, you know, and I love her and she's super valuable and I hope she's around forever. But honestly, you know, like, OK, at some point in time, she might want to break. Based on the payroll profession confidence index, 49 percent of the sample we took of five continents, 28 countries was 20 years or more. So half of the global.

[00:15:35] I mean, the next band was pretty big, too, is like 27 percent or so of the rest. So you got about 60 to 70 percent that are actually in that sort of, you know, next 10 years window of potentially retiring or thinking about retiring. So we've got a lot. And that's where payroll really needs to become the storyteller, right? This isn't. Yeah. This isn't payroll of 1996 or 2006 anymore. We are. Exactly. We're a group that, you know, deals with RPA.

[00:16:01] We're a group that is going to be on the front lines for AI and all the different tools. And Julie, your presentation at Congress was fantastic, right? From a pay con perspective. This is this is what people want to get into. You can, you know, dip your toe into so many different areas and touch so many different things without fully committing right away. And I think that's going to be the fun part from a talent perspective is, you know, maybe

[00:16:27] as we're looking from a payroll aspect and I've seen success with I think Emory and V was one of the ones who we were talking with and she's had very good success when they're hiring from a payroll aspect. And I do the same thing. I don't necessarily, depending on role, you don't necessarily need to know payroll. We can teach you payroll. But we need you to learn the analytics piece, right?

[00:16:53] We need you to learn and have teams that can, you know, Deanne Doonan's doing great things with RPA and her team is building bots. The bot building aspect, who would have thought, you know, 10 years ago, 20 years ago that there'd be automation processes being programmed within the payroll department. Nobody would have thought that, right? Remember when OSV brought out their BPAS model for that, what, five years ago? I helped them launch that. That was really ahead of its time. But it is, you're right.

[00:17:22] You know, Julie, we were talking about this when you go around just at this sample of folks. I mean, I do a lot more conversations beyond PayCon, but at PayCon, it was easy to find folks that were doing just this, right? Becoming really data scientists and risk managers. You know, finding that we're seeing more senior vice presidents that are reporting into and leading payroll and reporting into the comp side of business. And a lot, just a maturation, I guess you could say, of all of this coming together,

[00:17:51] I think is really, really exciting. But what the problem is, is still, how do you get people to start? I think that's a great opportunity. I think that's a great opportunity for looking at Payroll as a place I want to go start. I mean, I'm running into some young leaders now that are really refreshing. And they're starting their career there, but not everybody ever did that. And they're definitely not doing it now with the AI being sort of pulsed out there to say, look, we don't, you know, Payroll's gone. HR's gone. You just need to be, you know, doing something else. But the reality of it is what we need is very technically proficient compliance experts.

[00:18:21] And that's where I think Payroll can really, really shine. It's a great opportunity. I hope you don't mind, Danny, if I say like you just shared some, a fascinating approach and something really pragmatic that you did at Kohler as you, you know, started looking at talent and even succession planning. Right. And it's very open and transparent, I think much more so than many organizations or many leaders are going to be comfortable with.

[00:18:49] And I wanted to see if we could talk about that a little bit, because I think there are other leaders that are just dying to know, what do I do when I look out? And I'm so grateful that I have this senior talent and experienced team. And yet I'm also terrified that, you know, I could be, I could be the only, the last guy standing, you know, and not be able to handle this. And, and you've done some really creative and hands-on things and dug into it. And I'm wondering if we could talk a little bit about that. We certainly can.

[00:19:17] I can, you know, when we were looking at this a couple of years ago, I looked at the structure of the team. I'm like, oh, in the next five years, half the team could be retired. That's a red flag to me as a manager. And I know HR is super busy. So we had to make sure I'm like, hey, friends in HR, we might have a problem here. In a couple of years, how do we work about team together? And we create a plan for turnover.

[00:19:45] And, you know, they, they were really supported and we helped build a plan. And it's one of these things where in payroll, just like HR, you have to be agile. Things change, employees change. And we were able to also then take advantage of, we had somebody retire and we're able to promote within, but then we were also able to repurpose some other jobs in, in the group and provide a more firm career path for those coming up.

[00:20:11] Because the one thing, if you've got great talent in your org, the one thing that you want to do is you don't want to lose them. Right. And you might not always have clear defined opportunities to give them. And so you have to make sure that you path it and you have those hard conversations and you really build that path. So they know, Hey, like you're really, we really think you're a great employer doing great things.

[00:20:36] Here are some of the things in the next 12 months, 18 months, three years that we see as big projects and milestones coming down the way. And then you're able to surprise sometimes and say, Hey, by the way, we want to promote you into this role. We want to change your focus a little bit. We want to take you maybe out of some of the day-to-day processing pieces that we have in payroll and really use your project management skills and help us guide through on some of these other places.

[00:21:03] While at the same time, then learning from those that have been here for 49, 38, 26, 30 years and really provide support from an organization. There's been times where I've heard colleagues and they're like, Oh, we had somebody leave the organization and nobody else knew how to do their work. Like there's ties or our payroll Congress. And you've got people who are out missing sessions and they're running payroll because they don't have backup.

[00:21:33] And so that's the one of the things super lucky to have a good size team at Kohler where we've got backups and you really look through all that, but you have to be proactive. You have to look at your team and you almost have to anticipate who could leave and win. And I certainly have a backup plan for everybody if they leave on what my action would be on all of them. That's something that I just feel like you need. It's like every industry is going through a knowledge transfer exercise right now.

[00:22:02] You know what I mean? Like really trying to, I wouldn't hopefully document, but draw out all that expertise from the past generations so that the future generations can learn from it. So hopefully. What I thought was really cool about your approach, Danny, is you actually decided to just, you know, go person by person and have conversations, right? And cue up and, you know, ask them and ask them where their, what their ambitions were,

[00:22:30] you know, like where, what they, what their interest was. And I'd love to know, I'm sure everybody who's listening would love to know, like, how the heck did that go? I mean, did people share openly with you? Like, I hope to be out of here in a few years or I really don't like it here. I'd like to be over there. Or yeah, I want to, you know, I want to grow here and I really don't want to go. Like, how, how did that come about and how did that work? I think some of it might be the, the Wisconsin in us all coming through where we're a Wisconsin based group.

[00:22:59] And I certainly didn't do it on day one in the payroll department. I was a couple of years in, we had gone through COVID and, and some, some reorgs at Kohler. And so I think by that time we, you know, we had had the team's trust. And so we just sat down and was like, Hey, like we got to just trying to plan out where everything's going. And they went surprisingly well. Like most people, I can tell you sort of what day they plan on retiring.

[00:23:28] And that gives you an idea, right? So like, you know, Hey, we're going to have turnover about here. And then when budget discussions come, because I want a budget here at Kohler, right? I also know that I got somebody retiring this year. We'd maybe like some backfill and some shadowing for a few months. And so you can build that into your book.

[00:24:01] Hey, thanks Pete. And we are excited to actually spend some time today with a good friend of both of ours, Danny Schultz from Kohler. Welcome Danny. Glad to be here. Yeah. Yeah. Very excited to be on with you, Pete. Yeah. Hey, Danny, when we were at, when we were at PayCon, you know, we were talking about your, your vision, right? You have a vision for your, for your future organization, which I know is getting more global. You're obviously expanding. You're looking at your succession.

[00:24:29] Like how, how much of that? I mean, obviously significantly, I know that's sort of a rhetorical question, but like where, how did you weave this part into that, right? Into that vision and plan to say like, look, I know what my team's going to need to do. To look like the skills we're going to need. The types of resources. Like how much is that succession woven into what you want the department to look like? Yeah. Danny, we couldn't want to talk to you more.

[00:24:58] That's, that's what I'm saying. Mm-hmm. Well, we like to hide, right? We're just busy at Kohler. We do a lot of crazy things. Very, very busy with all my family stuff. And sometimes I can be a little introverted at, believe it or not. And so we, we have to try to make sure that, you know, it's worth talking to me sometimes, once in a while.

[00:25:25] Hey, Danny, as we've gotten to know each other, first of all, you're safe to say, right? The right title, Director of Global Peril. Now at Kohler, right? Yeah, we thought that was a good idea. And one, one thing that I've learned is just what, I mean, like I thought I knew what Kohler did. And usually I'm thinking like sinks and faucets and stuff. But the more I know you, the more like Kohler does everything. We do. We have a little bit of everything, right?

[00:25:49] We've got world-class golf with some golf courses here in, in the Kohler area with Whistling Straits and Black Wolf Run. Good for her. We've got some hospitality overseas as well in, in Scott, in St. Andrew's area, which is fantastic. And then world-class hospitality in the village of Kohler up here in Wisconsin, everything down to, you know, stables and landscaping. And of course, chocolates. We're your favorite chocolate company. You've never heard of, right? Well, that's.

[00:26:19] Yeah. Yeah. I love that. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Oh, for sure. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So a lot of it, Mr. Kohler, um, it just a visionary and genius, right? Really loved everything about, about the village, but the old immigrant housing, um, for the

[00:26:47] workers that they had brought over, um, was called the American club. And now we've, Mr. Kohler had a vision that, Hey, we could turn that into a world-class resort. Things snowballed. We built the resort. Guests needed something to do. And so we built world-class peak dye design golf courses because we don't really go halfway at Kohler. We go, we go full way and it's, you know, just a great resort, great spas. Everybody love it.

[00:27:15] We get a lot of people here and it's, and then we get to show them some of the fun stuff. A factory tour here is something else. So if you ever, if you ever make it up, make sure you get a signed up for a factory tour and come see all this stuff. Just an hour north of Milwaukee. Wow. Yeah. We'll have to get you up there. Yep.

[00:27:45] Yep. Business continuity. It's not too bad. Yep. Go see you. And since it's all about employees, how many employees does Kohler have? I mean, like you do payroll. Everybody wants to know how many, how many employees usually. Way to go, Julie, to keep us on topic. For payroll, we have about 30,000 employees now at Kohler worldwide.

[00:28:12] We pay in, I think it was, I don't know, 65, 70 country company code combinations. So we're very global. We have a good mix between the different regions and we have manufacturing facilities all around the world. A lot of our things, you know, it's hard to ship toilets. And so they, where they get produced, they sort of stay in region and we work from there. And it's, it's been a great system. We've been around. Are you, are you guys still working towards that? 52 years.

[00:28:41] So it's, it's been a great story. And it all came from throwing some feet on a cast iron tub or a cast iron pit calder to make it a tub. It's a great history. Yeah. It sounds like you guys are collaborating really well. So maybe, I mean, even absent that yet. So maybe that structure would, you know, even bring it together. Yeah.

[00:29:09] They're doing a lot of smart factory innovations and changes as well. We got a whole team that's looking at and doing all those things. I'm not as plugged in there as, as to really answer what we've all been done. I probably couldn't say if, if I knew anyhow, but I can tell you some cool stuff, but it's still, it's still great to do the tours and see some of the stuff that's done by hand. We've got artist edition things and projects like that, that are just gorgeous and fantastic and just one of a kind pieces that are made as well.

[00:29:39] It's, it's the whole gamut of things where it's a really unique place and it's a great history. Hey Pete, do you want to do the honors? Since I know Danny and I had a conversation that I am itching for us to share here in the podcast. So do you want to, do you want to do the honors you usually give to me? Yeah. So early in my career, I'm an accounting major by trade and marketing degree as well.

[00:30:07] And, um, I was, I was a jumper. I was a, a two year and jump guy and tried my way around public accounting. And then I'd made it in industry and was really focusing on sales and use tax. And Kohler gave me a call at one point in time to come over and head up their sales and use tax team. And payroll tax was a part of that. And eventually we were down to a point where I thought I'd grown as much as I could doing that role. And I was looking for something else.

[00:30:35] And, um, it was either going into accounts payable or payroll when I was looking at, cause I really wanted to stay at Kohler. And so I raised my hand for the payroll role and I, I got, they thought that was a good idea. And so that was the year before COVID and I sort of stuck. It's, it's been, it's been great helping transform that. We we've taken the, the function from finance over to total rewards and HR.

[00:31:03] And I think that's been really great for us at Kohler. Um, I think it, you know, I, I, I love it. I think it's, it's just how we focus on it. It, this is, we're in the people business in payroll, whether or not we want to admit it. I think sometimes payroll doesn't really like to be the, the people, the part of the business. Um, but this is the people business and it's all about, you know, how can we provide

[00:31:30] gracious living is a standard and phrase we use at Kohler. And so we, we're really trying to make a world gracious payroll experience for all the employees and really just can to timely paycheck around the world. And that's all we're doing. And so this to me is, you know, I'm a central Wisconsin farm kid. How can we make people's lives better? What can we do to make the experience better? And from a payroll aspect, this all makes sense, right? Just treating people right and helping get paid.

[00:32:00] Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. It's just, it's just logical. Yeah. Yeah. It's, it's a great fit, right?

[00:32:27] We've always had to partner really strongly with the benefits team. We've always had to partner with comp until it's, it's a, yeah, it's a, it's a real natural spot. And now we're all leading the same way. And it's been really great for us to be able to be, um, just deeper partners within that part of the org. So that way, if there's a change coming, we're not as blindsided and be able to be a lot more proactive and that way, when we announce a change to employees, we're ready for, for payroll.

[00:32:53] And it's not always, Hey, why did, why didn't I get this new benefit on my check? And we're like, nobody's told us there is a new thing, right? It's sometimes all. Yeah. Come to payroll. Yeah.

[00:33:22] Yeah. And then, and then all three of those functions are moving in the same direction, which is, which is great. Right. Yeah. Yeah. We are going to work day. We are a, about 13 months out. We're a July one, 26 go live where I think we have what seems like 4 million people working on the project. Probably not even thinking it's an option, right? As we're doing a lot of other things. So yeah. But the perfect thing, I mean, this came off another huge project. And for, you know, I always look at my career as 10 stake moments.

[00:33:52] And this is just another one that we get to raise the flag up and, and it, it'll be fun. It's going to continue to be a challenge. Yeah. But it'll be great. Yeah. Yeah. It's an investment area. It really is. That's one of the narratives I'm hoping to try and change.

[00:34:21] So it's great being able to give your team a chance. We've got to stop. We've got to stop looking at this as an opportunity to just cut costs and heads. And give a little scratch assignment here or there. Because at the end of the day, it's all about developing people and making it the best we can. Which it sounds like Kohler is very much doing. Yeah. Yeah. Congrats.

[00:34:48] Hey, I'm going to, I'm going to start to wrangle us in a direction because Danny and I had a chance just a week or two ago at pay to really trade some, some fun stories and some really cool things that I think he's been doing that. I think a lot of our listeners would really love to hear about. Um, we started in the direction of, um, conversations that everyone was having there about having five generations in the workplace and knowing that. Congrats, man.

[00:35:14] I know, you know, different, different stats and things said that, you know, by 2030, which is only five years from now, all baby boomers are going to be 65 or over. And, uh, we know that that generation makes up a pretty big portion of the payroll workforce. Um, and we, I think we hear from many, many sources that, uh, that are part of our industry and payroll that. I'd be curious to know if they did that now, if that would be the case, because there's

[00:35:44] a, there's a lot of trends around people staying in jobs and putting up with things because they're worried about security. You know, first and initially our U S team, we have had just the privilege of amazing tenure at the organization. When I look at, uh, our U S team, uh, there's, there's 12 of us and we had, you know, a couple of years ago, average tenure was over 25 years.

[00:36:12] We've had some retirements and things come through in the last couple of years. We had two people retire, but we're able to really take that and, and plan for the organization. I'm looking at, you know, we have, you know, still 18 years. The average tenure is fantastic, but we're, we're kind of hot top Henry. We got, we've got a guy who's been on the payroll team for 49 years and ask Australians. He's going to, he's retiring next year.

[00:36:41] He's going to get a 50 year plate for that celebration and, and wish him the best. But some of the things he's seen in his career are just amazing. Right. And yeah, the information they have. And so we've, we certainly have done a lot of pre-planning and a great, but, you know, we've got, you know, four people that are probably nearing retirement as they're, you know, 60 or above. And we've got some teams that teammates that are down under that are, you know, just hit 30 this year.

[00:37:11] And so it's, it's really as a leader and I I'll be 43 this year. And so for, for me, one of the things is how do you lead across this from an organization perspective? And it's certainly different views and you really have to look and learn and, and, and understand how people want to be seen, how they, what kind of things they want to do. Certainly there are some people that, you know, just are, might be just perfectly happy individual contributors and you've got to know who wants to stretch assignment and who can you push

[00:37:41] and, and how do you play those buttons? The different generations. It's, it's something that I've been just, I've loved to learn over the years and certainly now with five, Julie, I, when they said, when they said that my job, I was one of those people that jaw hit the, hit, hit the table and just, I guess there are right. And, you know, it's, it's understanding the wants and the needs. Right. And that's where, you know, EWA came about and, you know, from a core aspect, when I

[00:38:10] started here, we were still sending paper pay statements around to everybody in the U S and so that's not a thing anymore. We've got ESS and great. And it's been great to see the changes that we've made just in the short 13 years that I've been at Kohler, but it's been, they're going to be astronomical. We're very excited for a lot of it. It's going to be fun. Yeah. I will, I pull the stat again from the Bureau of Labor that the payroll industries labor

[00:38:39] shortage, just quantifying it, that there's an average of 384,000 job vacancies per month in 2023 related to payroll. And that that's just going to keep going. And, and I know shortly after my conversation with you, Danny, a woman from a Midwest bank, a large Midwest bank organization, came up to me and said, you know, we have a very senior staff and one of my key contributors is 71 years old. He did that.

[00:39:07] He was, uh, the executive VP of accounting. I love her and she's super valuable and I hope she's around forever. And he stepped forward and said, Hey, you know, like, okay, at some point in time, she might want to break something much more than it is. Um, and he's owning the transformation and all of that. But I thought that was really, really cool. Yeah. And look, I, I've said this before. I, I've, I've, I've at some very big companies in my career, Google, Disney, um, and some others,

[00:39:35] I've come across some leaders that had no payroll experience, but took the role as an opportunity to go to a higher executive level and just thrive and did some amazing things. And that's where payroll really needs to become a storyteller, right? This isn't, um, and most, this isn't payroll of 1996 or 2006 anymore. We are, you know, a lot of folks like to rotate around some bigger companies. You know, deals with RPA. They make thriving careers. They make impact. And they're folks that you would never have thought to even go into. Your presentation at Congress was fantastic.

[00:40:05] Outstanding job. From a pay con perspective. There's talent out there. This is, this is what, it's like getting payroll to meet the talent. You know what I mean? You've got to get them together. You've got to get them together. You've got to get them together. You've got to get them together. You've got to get them together. You've got to get them together. Um, because I think there's this sort of, like, they're looking past each other. Without fully committing right away. I think that's going to be the fun part from a talent perspective. Yeah, most people don't. You know, maybe as we're looking from a payroll aspect, and I've seen success with, I think Emory and V was one of the ones who we were talking with.

[00:40:31] And she's had very good success in their hiring from a payroll aspect. And, and I do the same thing. I don't necessarily depend. Yeah. You don't necessarily need to know payroll. We can teach you payroll. Can I ask you this? Just with all the kind of stuff, I've been studying the manufacturing space for a bit. I've done some, I did a lot of, you know, consulting in that space in the past. You know, DL Dunin's doing great things with RPA. You know, with all the movement, right? We've seen a lot more nearshoring of manufacturing.

[00:40:57] Are you guys in a state where, are you from a payroll and HR perspective kind of, there'd be automation processes being programmed in the payroll department? Are they moving some of their manufacturing around and rethinking their, their supply chains or are you kind of pretty stable that way? Or is, is your growth, is your, is your expansion more growth oriented than, than just sort of removing the chips, if you will.

[00:41:43] Yeah. They're heavy. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. You have a very good reputation too. Brand reputation. Yeah.

[00:42:18] Yeah. I hope you don't mind, Danny, if I say like, you just shared some, a fascinating approach and something really pragmatic that you did at Kohler as you, you know, started looking at talent and even succession planning. Right. Danny, here's the thing. I think manufacturing has got to deal with too. But then many organizations or many leaders are going to be comfortable with.

[00:42:44] And I wanted to see if we could talk about that a little bit because I think there are other leaders that are just dying to know, what do I do when I look out and I'm so grateful that I have this senior talent and experience team. And yet, I'm also terrified that, you know, I can be the last guy standing, you know, and not be able to handle this. The manufacturing was elsewhere. And you've done some really creative and hands-on things and dug into it. And I'm wondering if it's a talent. We certainly can.

[00:43:12] And he explained it very, very pragmatically. And he said, you know, this is going to be a real challenge for manufacturers to now come up with the talent to actually meet the opportunity. And we already have a talent gap. So how are we going to do that? And I'm just curious to see how manufacturers, I think you're going to have to be really investing in skilling their people themselves versus going out and just finding it, you know?

[00:43:39] And, you know, they were really supported and we helped build a plan. And it's one of these things where in payroll, just like HR, you have to be agile. Things change. Employees change. And we were able to also then take advantage of, we had somebody retire and we were able to promote within. But then we were also able to repurpose some other jobs in the group and provide a more firm career path for those coming up.

[00:44:06] Because the one thing, if you've got great talent in your org, the one thing that you want to do is you don't want to lose them. Hopefully what we're going to see is robotics and AI. You might not always have folks managing that at more of an exception-based model, right? And you have those hard conversations. But again, manufacturing is often 24 by 7 in some places. Like, you're really, when I think it's exciting to know all around because it's going to bring innovation for sure back in more jobs.

[00:44:33] But hopefully, the question is through the generation that we see as big projects and milestones coming down the way. Right? And then you're able to support sometimes and say, hey, by the way, we want to promote you in this role. We want to change our focus a little bit. And that will attract that generation. Maybe out of some of the data processing pieces that we have in payroll and really use your project management skills and help us guide through on some of these other places.

[00:44:57] While at the same time, then learning from those that have been here for 49, 38, 26, 30 years and really provide support from the organization. There's been times where I've been there like, oh, we had somebody leave the organization and nobody else knew how to do their work. There's times where I'm in Congress and you've got people who are out missing sessions and they're running payroll because they don't have backup.

[00:45:26] And so that's one of the things. Super lucky to have a good size team at Kohler where we've got backups and you really look through all that. Payroll's got to stay agile. You have to be proactive. You have to look at your team and you almost have to anticipate who could leave and win. And I certainly have a backup plan for everybody if they have something that I just feel like you need. Yeah.

[00:46:01] What I thought was really cool about your approach, Danny, is you actually decided to just go person by person and have conversations and queue up and ask them what their ambitions were, what their interest was. And I'd love to know. I'm sure everybody who's listening would love to know, like, how the heck did that go?

[00:46:30] I mean, did people share openly with you? Yeah. Well, cheers to you and Kohler, man. You guys are killing it. I really don't like it here. I'd like to be over there. I know you're doing a lot of cool things. I love every time we talk, man. I really don't want to go. I'd like to be more about how you're thinking about it. And how did that happen? Yeah, I think some of it might be the Wisconsin and us all coming through. We're all Wisconsin-based. You know, if you're on the same journey, you just want to have a shoulder to cry on. I certainly didn't do it on day one in the payroll department. I was a couple of years in. But on the other side is the opportunity. And you're doing better for it in every way possible. And some rewards at Kohler.

[00:46:59] Keep doing it, man. Keep doing it. So I think by that time, we had had the team's trust. And so we just, yes, good having you on. And we will talk to everyone soon.