Live from World at Work Total Rewards 2026 with Special Guest Sarah Severson

[00:00:08] [SPEAKER_01] Welcome everyone to a very special episode of the HR & Payroll 2.0 podcast. We're live here at World at Work Total Rewards in San Antonio. And as always, I'm joined by the legendary Julie Fernandez. Welcome, Julie.

[00:00:18] [SPEAKER_04] Thanks so much, Pete. I know we talked about whether we needed to do like a wardrobe swap or something because we're doing a whole blizzard of these. But nope, we're going to keep rolling real. And today I want to welcome a colleague that I've gotten to know very recently, Sarah Severson from Medline.

[00:00:36] [SPEAKER_01] Thanks for having me. I'm excited. Welcome. Is this your first World at Work? Second. Second. So my last one was San Diego.

[00:00:42] [SPEAKER_03] All right. We can also blame me for the weather because the same thing happened in San Diego. And then I was on vacation. And it doesn't rain there. Nope, but it did the whole week. But it did that day. And then two weeks ago I was in Florida and it rained until the day I left too. So I'm taking ownership of the weather.

[00:00:56] [SPEAKER_01] Well, the good news is the Spurs won last night. I hear game one. I heard. So congrats to them. So rain, I guess. Rain or shine.

[00:01:02] [SPEAKER_03] Yeah. They partied last night, I think. I heard that. I didn't actually hear it, but I heard people at the hotel definitely heard the impromptu parade last night.

[00:01:11] [SPEAKER_01] How cool. How cool. Well, look, we are. Yeah. Exciting time to be here. This is our first time here, especially as a podcast. But I know there's a lot a lot to talk about in this space. So, yeah.

[00:01:19] [SPEAKER_04] Yeah. So I didn't I didn't do your introduction much justice, Sarah, because I wanted you to just talk a little bit about who you are, where you work.

[00:01:27] [SPEAKER_01] Yeah. And we ask every guest, how did you get into this wacky world of HR and why on earth do you stay? So maybe we could just start there. I stumbled into it.

[00:01:35] [SPEAKER_03] Oh, all right. I was actually started out my career in finance. OK. And early on in my career, did a rotation program where I spent a year in HR as an HR analyst. That's where I realized I am an analyst at heart. But I love it. I don't really care about warehouse productivity and sales and things like that. Like the people side is what I really liked. So comp was a perfect one.

[00:01:58] [SPEAKER_03] Actually, a couple of years ago at the last World at Work conference, Justin Hampton introduced one of his sessions like I love comp because when I want to talk to people, I can. And when I don't want to anymore, I can dig into the data. And I've been saying that ever since because it is so true. And it's like the best part of comp, I think, is the best part of the business partner job without the employee relations is kind of what I always joke. But it's fun. You get to touch so much of the business and just get to know so many different people and learn a lot.

[00:02:26] [SPEAKER_03] You and you see the impact because everyone gets a paycheck. And it's fun to just see your direct impact on that.

[00:02:34] [SPEAKER_01] Yeah, it is rewarding.

[00:02:36] [SPEAKER_04] Hey, see, so payroll, aren't they only nerds? No, yeah. Data nerds out there. Oh, I'm the biggest data nerd.

[00:02:41] [SPEAKER_00] Data queen hats. We need one of those. That's king. You got a queen. Oh, there's a queen. That's the king. What about the queen? Can we have the queen one? Right there in the front of this one.

[00:02:48] [SPEAKER_04] All right. Pete is playing with the swag here to make a point on our point. On our point.

[00:02:55] Yes.

[00:02:56] [SPEAKER_01] Yeah. Here, look, you need this. You need this hat. There you go.

[00:02:59] [SPEAKER_03] Data queen. Oh, I'm, yes, I am. I am a data nerd. Very much so.

[00:03:03] [SPEAKER_01] We're just for those scoring at home, we're looking at the swag here at the booth. So, yeah, you need the data queen hat.

[00:03:10] [SPEAKER_04] I like it. Wearing it proudly. Yeah. Yeah. So, I know you and I had a little bit of conversation just about companies and the different companies you've been at. You've been at a flavor of big and a flavor of small and there's differences and similarities across that. So, I thought we could just start there. You know, what does compensation mean in the context? Was big your first or is small your first? And what are some of those different challenges?

[00:03:35] [SPEAKER_03] Yeah. So, I started out at Uline. I was there for about 13 years, but in comp for, I think, six or so. Time flies. And they were, I would probably, they're large, but maybe medium in the grand scheme of things. But family-owned company, family still involved, grew fast. So, some of the, worked with some of the challenges that come along with that. And then two years ago, I made the jump over to Medline that also had a similar kind of backstory.

[00:04:05] [SPEAKER_03] Relatively young company, grew quickly. Family was still involved. We just went public at the end of last year. So, all of the just things that come along with that and navigating, sometimes the comp practices can't keep up with the growth. And so, what happens when all of a sudden you're so big and you, how do you get everything to work from a pay equity standpoint, from all of those things? You see it, I saw it at both places. You want to make music together, right?

[00:04:34] [SPEAKER_03] Getting the job architecture in place, getting the salary grades in place, all of those things that you need once you get bigger. It's just not possible to manage everything individually anymore.

[00:04:44] [SPEAKER_04] So, I had forgotten that both of those organizations are privately held. And I've done a number of, a lot of work with privately held organizations.

[00:04:51] [SPEAKER_01] Tell me what they do, because I'm familiar with the brand a little bit, but I don't know what Uline and Medline do. What is...

[00:04:55] [SPEAKER_04] My husband has the catalogs in his bathroom. Okay. Uline, I will say. He's a trades guy.

[00:04:59] [SPEAKER_01] Okay, okay.

[00:05:00] [SPEAKER_03] So, Uline was a shipping supply distributor. Now, I am at Medline. And we are a manufacturer and distributor of medical surgical products.

[00:05:09] [SPEAKER_01] Okay. So... Are they related, Uline and Medline? No. Just happen to have... Yeah. Okay.

[00:05:12] [SPEAKER_03] All right.

[00:05:13] [SPEAKER_04] And Uline is like, how many employees?

[00:05:15] [SPEAKER_03] It's in the... I don't know where they're at right now, but Uline was around 10, I think. Now I'm forgetting. But Medline is about 40 globally. And I think we're about 25, 26. I should know these numbers off the top of my head by now. But in the bulk of the population is U.S. And we're about 25, 26,000 there. Yeah. So pretty large.

[00:05:39] [SPEAKER_01] Sizable. Yeah.

[00:05:40] [SPEAKER_04] Yeah. So the family-owned was... When I recall vividly, the first company that I went through that was family-owned, it was SJC, which produces like just consumer products and things. And that is a very unique culture. And the first thing that it made me think about, we just had some conversations about the secrecy, right? Or the culture of secrecy around compensation and compensation data.

[00:06:06] [SPEAKER_04] And I'm just curious to get your thoughts on whether that's amplified even more. Like family-owned businesses can tend to be very tightly held in many aspects.

[00:06:17] [SPEAKER_03] Yeah. I don't know if it's truly the family-owned piece because I can only speak for so many companies or if it's more of the just kind of the high growth. But at both places, we had the leaders that have been around forever. And how do you keep that family-owned mentality, that family-owned culture, while also acknowledging that you are not a small company anymore? And so it's interesting then when you have some of the senior leaders that have been around for a while

[00:06:44] [SPEAKER_03] and want to really, really hold on to some of those like old practices.

[00:06:48] [SPEAKER_01] Yep.

[00:06:49] [SPEAKER_03] Combined with external new leaders that may be coming from a public company or maybe coming from something like that where they are deeply budget-held, held to budget, things like that. And just finding that balance on working with both. And you definitely learn how to utilize the external ones that have the experience and have gone through it to help pull the others along. And it's kind of fun because it's a challenge. It's never easy. But, yeah, I've seen it at both places.

[00:07:16] [SPEAKER_03] And I don't know if it's the family-owned or if it's just the small. I don't know.

[00:07:22] [SPEAKER_04] I can hear Pete's head is ringing with diplomacy. Diplomacy has been something we've been talking about a lot lately. You know, just the diplomacy that's involved in navigating different cultures, different perspectives.

[00:07:36] [SPEAKER_01] Especially while they're maturing, too, at the same time.

[00:07:38] [SPEAKER_03] And especially when the original family is still around, too. Like, you want to keep that culture there. That's what made the company great. That's how they grew. So how do you keep that while pivoting where you need to pivot?

[00:07:51] [SPEAKER_04] Yeah. Yeah. And I know you've mentioned actually both, I think, growing pretty aggressively, right? So what does that do to compensation and compensation planning when, you know, you're at a certain size? And I don't know how fast one or both of these are growing, but it certainly has an impact on, you know, you think you get all your stuff together and now you've got a new or a different business or you've got, you know, a different geography.

[00:08:14] [SPEAKER_03] Yeah, that's the part that's been newer for me with Medline is just the additional in the M&A space is you're getting the other companies with their set practices in place. How are you getting them merged with ours? We're kind of doing a pseudo thing with just a workday implementation, getting all of our countries onto the same system. We're the same company, but there's still those challenges that come into play with that. And even the little things like the culture differences when it comes to a job title or things like that.

[00:08:45] [SPEAKER_03] What is a coordinator? Apparently a coordinator is a high level in one country, whereas for us, it's typically an administrative role. So it's been interesting to learn some of those things and kind of work through that. And especially on the, for us currently, like we're feeling it with the own, the system implementations are bringing some of those things out, but also in a good way because it's good to start streamlining some of those things.

[00:09:08] [SPEAKER_01] Yeah, those things always expose the bones in the closet, these processes that you didn't know anybody was doing. Like, wait a minute, what is this? Yeah. Yeah, yeah.

[00:09:15] [SPEAKER_04] So as a part of that activity, do you have a good solid compensation structure or are there things that you need to change or tweak about your basic job architecture and compensation structure?

[00:09:26] [SPEAKER_03] Yeah, I think we're going through what a lot of people are going through is just the job catalog. We have so many job titles and, but when you really, really dig down into it, they're the same. Right. And then when it comes to looking at your like pay equity or just like, are these jobs value, like how are they valued? Just looking at all of that, it becomes a little bit challenging. So doing a lot of job reviews, we have the set job architecture in place. We have our salary structures. We have all of that.

[00:09:55] [SPEAKER_03] But now let's like really dive into those jobs because like a lot of comp teams out there, the teams are only so big. You can only, you know, review those job descriptions so frequently and just kind of working through that. And then for us, again, it's really the merging all of our country's practices together where we all have the same core structures. It's just getting them, getting them aligned and speaking the same language is sometimes the hardest part where we're saying the same thing. We're just using different words.

[00:10:24] [SPEAKER_03] You guys aren't that different than what we're doing right now. We just got to talk about it the same way. Yeah.

[00:10:30] [SPEAKER_01] No, that's important.

[00:10:31] [SPEAKER_04] That's never a popular message to deliver, right? No matter how many companies I talk to saying, yeah, you're special, but not really. Okay. Maybe you're a little special.

[00:10:41] [SPEAKER_01] Yeah. Do you guys make a lot of acquisitions or are you grown organically?

[00:10:44] [SPEAKER_03] We've had a decent number of acquisitions over the years. Because that complicates things. Yes. And I'm relatively new, so I don't want to speak too much about it because I just truly have not been through too many of them. Yeah. But most of the growth or some of the growth has been acquisition. Yeah. Obviously, some organic growth as well. At Uline, it was strictly organic. They didn't have any of the M&A, so that was a new experience for me as well. But yeah. That's a great experience for HR.

[00:11:08] [SPEAKER_04] Is the global new too with Medline? Or I don't know if you're going to work. Yeah.

[00:11:12] [SPEAKER_03] So we've always had the international business. It's just been kind of like they've operated as their own. And it's just the system implementation is now bringing us together. So for most of the business, literally nothing will change. Just a couple, you know, HR functions will have some little bit of differences. But just because now we can see everyone. So, you know, as an example in compensation, do we just centralize all of our salary survey submissions? Like it's those little things that you were looking at from a process efficiency.

[00:11:42] [SPEAKER_03] How is AI helping us? All of that. So, yeah. Yeah.

[00:11:45] [SPEAKER_01] Are you guys like a shared service type environment for your HR?

[00:11:49] [SPEAKER_03] No, not today.

[00:11:51] [SPEAKER_01] So you're decentralized at this point. Do you think that'll change?

[00:11:54] [SPEAKER_03] I don't know.

[00:11:54] [SPEAKER_01] Yeah.

[00:11:55] [SPEAKER_03] I don't know. So.

[00:11:56] [SPEAKER_01] Yeah. Interesting. Well, sometimes, I mean, look, sometimes there's the way businesses and cultures of the companies are. It makes sense for them to stay autonomous.

[00:12:05] [SPEAKER_03] Yeah. I think there will be certain things that it's like, no, let's get aligned. But let's also keep our identity and keep like. That autonomy. Yes. And make the. I'll call them the exceptions, like where it makes sense. Yeah. And like one example is, OK, this job title literally does not exist in this country. Like we're not going to force them to use it. Like those type of things. Definitely trying to. Yes.

[00:12:29] [SPEAKER_04] The common sense stuff.

[00:12:30] [SPEAKER_01] Yeah.

[00:12:31] [SPEAKER_04] Yeah. And ultimately, I mean, in your overall HR org structure, isn't that the way it's supposed to be, right? You're supposed to make things administratively harmonious. Right. And yet you're supposed to have business partners that are telling you, no, this part of the business or this country or this region has these unique needs because it just is different than the U.S. or North America. I think you have to be.

[00:12:52] [SPEAKER_01] You know, we talk about, you talk about the agility thing on the last few episodes. That's part of being agile, right? Is being able to have, again, that autonomy where you need it, harmonization where, you know, where possible and then work within, you know, work around that. So, yeah. Yeah. No one size fits all.

[00:13:07] [SPEAKER_03] No. And I think compensation sometimes feels it a little bit more because we quite often own the job catalog. Right. And the job catalog is the basis for everything else. So we sometimes feel some of those pains a little bit more than some of the other HR functions will just because we are the holders of the job.

[00:13:24] [SPEAKER_01] Do you guys see skills the same way, at least from a baseline organization? I would imagine that's pretty standard right across companies. Yeah.

[00:13:30] [SPEAKER_03] Yeah.

[00:13:30] [SPEAKER_01] I mean, at that point, you're building off of that, you know, for your comp anyway. Yeah.

[00:13:34] [SPEAKER_03] And that's where it helps having that set structure in place. Yep. That it's like the more I'm seeing, it's more about just how we're talking about it. And it's the language that has to change versus the actual, like, we're looking at things the same. We have the same end goal. We're just talking. We're just using different words. Yeah.

[00:13:51] [SPEAKER_04] So, yeah. I think it's interesting. I don't know that we've ever dove, dived, dived, not get into this with anybody before, Sarah. But I think I know at both organizations, you were Workday users, right? Yep. And Workday has basic comp and then they have advanced comp. But I think you also used a comp analyst tool at both organizations. And there are myriad ways that companies, based on their own needs, use Workday, supplement Workday.

[00:14:21] [SPEAKER_04] You know, they might use some of the Prism or some of the reporting, extend modules. Like, I don't know if both of these organizations that have almost the same name, but they're very different businesses, you know, happen to lean into it the same way. Or how's that unfolded in your experience anyways with a couple of different companies?

[00:14:40] [SPEAKER_03] Yeah. My experience has actually been very similar for both of them. When I was involved in the implementation at my previous company for both systems and then coming here, we went live with Workday like two months before I started. We had salary.com. But now it's like, how can we make our jobs easier? What can we do differently? Where, what tools? And so it's a lot of really the work we're doing is the same. How we're using the systems is the same. But it's how can we make it easier?

[00:15:10] [SPEAKER_03] So like, what additional reporting is out there? And we're trying to get into, you know, just really thinking more influencing consulting the business versus just, okay, here's your answer. That's it. And doing a lot of education for managers is a big thing with pay transparency. Just working through all of that. Yeah.

[00:15:28] [SPEAKER_04] Yeah. Are you finding, you know, that you're leaning into new features or new modules that Workday has in order to do more of that? Or there's a lot of point solutions cropping up all over the place as well. Like, what are you finding as you try to stay out of the curve?

[00:15:45] [SPEAKER_03] Yeah. I'm the, when we talk about the data nerd in me, that is me. And so I'm constantly like, periodically I'll play around like, just the stuff that isn't as well known. Like, oh, what's this new widget? And then I'll start going down that rabbit hole and completely nerding out. My team will make fun of me for it. But that's how I naturally work where I'm just going to start like, oh, what is this? Oh, you follow your curiosity. Can I touch it? Yeah.

[00:16:10] [SPEAKER_03] It's like, oh, there's a report in here to help me with some geographic differentials. Why am I doing this manually? Like those type of things. With Workday, we've now been in for a couple of years. So doing like most companies do, it's like, okay, now let's reevaluate what we built. Where can we make the improvements? Approval workflows. All of those things that like everyone goes through. Yeah. And then we're also kind of starting having those conversations about AI. I think every comp person is a little bit hesitant with comp or with AI.

[00:16:40] [SPEAKER_03] And we have some that are a lot more comfortable with it. Some that are a little bit more, I'm probably somewhere in the middle, starting to learn how it can make my job easier and kind of help in some of the weakness areas even to help with that.

[00:16:53] [SPEAKER_01] Is AI something like what's sort of the tone of AI in your business overall? Is it being governed at the top and then pushed downward? Are you guys kind of doing it in silos?

[00:17:03] [SPEAKER_03] No, I would say it's governed at the top. That's where it's kind of been interesting is trying to make sure that everyone's not using their own little tools that are contradicting each other.

[00:17:13] [SPEAKER_01] So you have a strategy.

[00:17:14] [SPEAKER_03] Yes, we do. And it's how to balance all those.

[00:17:17] [SPEAKER_01] Because there's a lot of ready fire aim going on. A lot less ready aim fire going on. So, yeah.

[00:17:23] [SPEAKER_03] I think where it's been interesting is just there's not like that big push to like everyone needs to do this. It's how can we use it to make sense? Yeah. So kind of playing around with it. But it's great.

[00:17:36] [SPEAKER_04] We've actually been hearing that at this conference. There are quite a few forums or workshops or, you know, talks available to practitioners to just really kind of talk about some hands-on pragmatic stuff that compensation specialists or comp and bend total reward specialists are hoping to share with each other. And that that's maybe a diversion from prior years where you're just going, oh, shit. Here it comes.

[00:18:01] [SPEAKER_01] AI literacy is such a gap for all of us, I think, especially HR. One of my peers over at Kyle & Co., Kyle Lagunas put out some great research recently on this. And that's a major gap is there's a lot of ambition and a lot of doing, but there's not a lot of literacy in between that fueling any of that, you know, and a lot of case making organizations stall and get frustrated and all of that. I would imagine it's bigger than just HR. Yeah.

[00:18:24] [SPEAKER_03] And then there's also like when you are using it, making sure that you know what it's giving you and not just taking it for. Yeah, that's right. That's what critical people. Yes. Some people miss that of like, well, this is what the answer is. And I'm like, OK, bye.

[00:18:37] [SPEAKER_01] Yeah, I'll give you a great example. You know, the three articles that we did on the one episode, I asked AI to summarize those just to see what it said about its main points, because I had my bullets and I just wanted to see. And it completely overlooked this one thing that was really, really. And I said, why did you admit that of all things? That seems like a really important piece. And it was, oh, yeah, yeah, you know, whatever the excuse was. But had I just taken that, I would have left out a really important whatever. So, yeah, you've got to have that, you know, human oversight.

[00:19:06] [SPEAKER_04] I feel like AI is perfectly adapted to me because I'm such a cynic. And so I love I love data. I love digging into it. But I also like to just kind of test it. Like, are you are you shitting me? Yeah.

[00:19:19] [SPEAKER_03] I'm smarter than you right now. I know you're not right. Yeah. But it has helped even in like the little things. Like I was asked to just, you know, some of our different start rates, geographic start rates, plot those within the range. Yeah. And I'm not the strongest with Excel charts and visuals. I'm not a creative person. There's a reason I'm in Excel all day. So I asked Copilot to help me. And I was like, I don't even know what to ask. And so I asked for the basic. And then I was like, oh, can you add this line in here?

[00:19:49] [SPEAKER_03] Can you like change this colors? Can you do this? And like, once you start using it, it really helps. Yeah. So I ended up with quite a few versions of that chart. And then it started going downhill when I was like asking a little too much, but I didn't know what I was asking for. But it also just helps even in Excel when I'm like, what is this formula? I know. I know this can be done. But when you Google, you kind of need to know the name of the formula. Yeah. And so it's even those little, little things that are just making things easier for me that, yeah, I could Google it or I could do this.

[00:20:18] [SPEAKER_03] But just thinking, once you start thinking about it, you start using it more. Yeah.

[00:20:23] [SPEAKER_01] Context is key too, right? Yeah.

[00:20:25] [SPEAKER_04] I thought that would be a fun thing to just dive into for a minute because we were talking a little bit about dabbling in AI, right? Like we're all trying to learn and grow our AI skills personally. And so you're, of course, dabbling directly in compensation related AI features, which might not be the first place that I would start dabbling. And so, you know, you want to share a few of those like dabbles and the things you've been doing?

[00:20:48] [SPEAKER_02] Yeah.

[00:20:49] [SPEAKER_03] Yeah. I mean, the two I just mentioned, those are the very, very basic, basic ones. But I've even just done, you know, when we're working with the business on an org design, like what does this department look like in a typical company or of one this size, this industry? And it just helps narrow down the search because sometimes that's the most intimidating part too. It's like, just help me narrow this down. Give me some good resources that I can use. And then I've done it for like the visuals help.

[00:21:16] [SPEAKER_03] I've had it help a little bit with manager kind of training communication type things on. I plugged in like, Hey, I'm a senior comp manager. I'm presenting this training on XYZ for managers of this group. I'm trying to explain this particular concept that they tend to not understand in the same way. Like, help me frame it in a way that makes sense. And it did. It gave me a good analogy to use.

[00:21:43] [SPEAKER_03] And it was received a lot better than using the comp terms, the comp technical words and all of that. So, yeah. Right.

[00:21:49] [SPEAKER_01] Interesting.

[00:21:59] [SPEAKER_03] Doing just market cleanup, you know, doing a lot of digging into our jobs. And it's like, okay, I could go one by one and re like, look at all of these jobs. So I took my whole list of market data, my, my structures. And I said, give me the proposed grade on all of these. And it, it did it. It helped. It's like, it's just those little, it's those little things that just make things easier. I could do that on my own, but this is going to be a lot quicker.

[00:22:24] [SPEAKER_03] Um, and then from there, then we make the decisions on what are we going to do all of that. But it just helps narrow things down for us and identify some of that.

[00:22:33] [SPEAKER_01] Speed.

[00:22:34] [SPEAKER_03] Yeah. Um, one of my colleagues is on a mission to build his own agent for job matching and he kind of got it working, but apparently it said it would take it like two days to run. So he's now still tweaking it. Yeah. So I was excited for one of the sessions this morning. There's a lot of that out there in the market. There is. And that's what I told him. I was like, don't go too far before I can show you what's available in some of our tools. I was going to say the same thing. I think it's part of it is, uh, no, I'm determined to figure this out. Um, yeah. So yeah.

[00:23:03] [SPEAKER_01] I love that though. I like that people can solve problems now with technology and not have to be a super duper backend programmer.

[00:23:09] [SPEAKER_04] And listen, the whole point of that might not be the actual agent he creates. It might be that he's learning how to take a use case that he really understands and is passionate about. And that affects our day to day. Yeah. And then putting that through the rigors of, oh, how would I do this with AI?

[00:23:24] [SPEAKER_03] Help me.

[00:23:25] [SPEAKER_01] How could this work differently?

[00:23:26] [SPEAKER_03] And sometimes when you're trying to train technology, you start thinking about the questions that you may not have thought about in the past that like, oh, wait, no, maybe I should think about this. And it just makes you start thinking about the different pieces. Yeah.

[00:23:39] [SPEAKER_01] Yeah. Yeah. Totally. Totally.

[00:23:41] [SPEAKER_04] So I wanted to go back to something you said earlier about the workday implementation and then, you know, like revisiting some things. I am curious to know because I personally believe a lot of folks, especially early adopters of workday set up things like the roles-based access and the underlying job architecture without the benefit of, you know, really well-developed comp structure. And so I work a lot with a lot of clients that are getting back to that and linking it to

[00:24:09] [SPEAKER_04] job architecture precisely because the roles-based access doesn't align. And so they're really not using the power of who can see what in the dashboards or who can see what in there. Is that some of what you're seeing when you're revisiting things or is that less your case?

[00:24:26] [SPEAKER_03] Not too much, but that's because in my current role, we had a well-based architecture out there. So it's more just like, okay, are all of these jobs really different? Let's just consolidate the titles. Just like things make it a little bit easier. So I haven't personally had that. But I know at my previous company, though, we did have to, as like pre-workday, we use

[00:24:51] [SPEAKER_03] that to build out the architecture and get that in place so that it was ready to go for workday because it does make things a lot easier to do that. Even the simple things like, what is a manager? I know. I guess because I haven't had the experience of not having that architecture in place, I just can't fathom how it's being managed without it.

[00:25:15] [SPEAKER_04] That to me is the mind-blowing part of it, right? Is when you see folks that quickly put in workday, and that was a mandate for a number of years, just get it in as quick as you possibly can. And they end up having all these constraints around whether or not you can use reporting or they don't open up reporting because they don't have the underlying job architecture proper. And so people will see willy-nilly anything. And so there are an awful lot of organizations that were early adopters that have found

[00:25:42] [SPEAKER_04] themselves just kind of customizing reports, not using reports, not using workflows, customizing workflows. And that's not sustainable long-term any more than anything else is.

[00:25:52] [SPEAKER_03] And I think, too, some of the stuff that we're working through is more like, okay, this did make sense at that time, but is that still how we're utilizing the data? So job families, job family groups is a great example of like what we built. It made sense. But are we still thinking about jobs with those groupings? And in some cases we're not because we've kind of broadened our similar jobs and things like that. So that's probably where I see it more than just like trying to rebuild things. Yeah.

[00:26:19] [SPEAKER_01] It's like maturing your aperture of lens. Yeah.

[00:26:22] [SPEAKER_03] I say all the time, like what is in place made sense at some time. Yeah. It made sense to somebody. Usually. Almost always it made sense at that time.

[00:26:31] [SPEAKER_01] How many due diligences have you worked on in transformation projects and reports are always like the, it's like the land grab when everybody, we need that report. And then you go dig around like nobody's using it. Yeah. Nobody. No.

[00:26:42] [SPEAKER_03] But we've probably been updating it for like weekly for like three years.

[00:26:47] [SPEAKER_01] It's someone's job. Yeah. And it's like no one's even reading it. Yeah.

[00:26:50] [SPEAKER_03] That's where that stop, start, continue exercise is always nice. Like do we really need it?

[00:26:54] [SPEAKER_01] That's why I love the self-serve nature of all the cloud solutions now. It's like anybody can, should, shouldn't, should be able to go in and especially even now conversationally, right. With, with Workday and even their peers to be able to go and access a report very easily. Whereas in the past it was like, I remember when we implemented SAP on-prem years ago, it was the latest and greatest thing. And anybody asked me for a report, I used to just cringe like, oh, I got to go ask IT to pull a thing. And then by the time I got it, it was like, I was fired. You know what I mean? My boss needed it a week ago.

[00:27:24] [SPEAKER_01] You know, but now it's like, it's on demand for even the frontline manager. That's a, that's a really cool thing. It's probably under you a lot.

[00:27:30] [SPEAKER_03] It's cool. And it's a challenge because they're also have access to data that like, if you haven't trained them and they don't know what they're looking at, it can also cause problems. And so that's where a lot of the education comes into play because like, we want them to be empowered. We want them to have the data, but we also want them to know what they're looking at.

[00:27:45] [SPEAKER_04] So like, how do you do that? Like just practically speaking, do you have regular, you know, like training sessions or managers?

[00:27:52] [SPEAKER_03] You know, we have, we've built out our compensation training, you know, prior to paid transparency kind of like drove a lot of that. And then we partner really closely with our HR business partners to make sure that managers are comfortable and then, you know, have the resources and multiple versions of things like the one pager and also an e-learning and also this and also that. Yeah. And really just partnering with the business. And I think where it gets challenging for the comp teams is to develop something that

[00:28:21] [SPEAKER_03] works for everyone, knowing that in certain pockets, like they might be slightly different for a valid reason, but like, we don't want to call out every single exception in every single training, like that type of thing. So it's interesting. It's been challenging to figure out the right level of detail to give them.

[00:28:40] [SPEAKER_04] Yeah, sure. Or what, how frequently or refresh like anything if you don't use it, right? You're never going to remember it. Yeah. Hey, so we're here, you know, and all of total, the total rewards ecosystem is really kind of focused on how to incent employees. Right. And I think, I forget, but I think I shared with you a funny story. Yes. And I'm sure you've got a ton of them because I am not a compensation expert, but I ran across

[00:29:05] [SPEAKER_04] an instance where a smaller company growing was trying to incent behavior with stock bonuses.

[00:29:13] [SPEAKER_02] Yeah.

[00:29:13] [SPEAKER_04] And so annual bonus payout time came around and it was actually one of my Gen Zers and that we know, and we have been networking with. And he got his stock payout award, which was intended to incent his behavior. And he said, mom, I can buy a, I can buy a cup of Starbucks with this. But you're a shareholder. But you have skin in the game, my friend. You have skin in the game. So.

[00:29:40] [SPEAKER_01] Cup half full, young man. Cup half.

[00:29:43] [SPEAKER_04] You have a funny story as well.

[00:29:45] [SPEAKER_03] I mean, what else have you seen like that? I think you see that in, a lot of times you see it in the productivity bonuses, just in that space. And like, is that really driving the behavior? Like if I've seen it where like, if you get X amount over your quota, X amount of whatever, it's like an extra penny or something per thing over, which results in like a dollar a week. And it's just like.

[00:30:08] [SPEAKER_01] Sounded really good though.

[00:30:09] [SPEAKER_03] Yes. And it's like, especially you like in the productivity space, you'll typically see it in more of that hourly space where typically I was like joking that their paycheck is going to fluctuate a lot more than in the salary. So they probably didn't even know they got it. Yeah. So is it really doing things? And then on the flip side, your high performers that are hitting it every single week or every single month or whatever, are they just a good performer and they're going to do it regardless?

[00:30:35] [SPEAKER_02] Yeah.

[00:30:36] [SPEAKER_03] And then that's a different conversation about, you know, promotions and things like that. But yeah, it's thinking through, is it really incentivizing what you think it's incentivizing? And that's always a fun debate between us and leaders of like, no, that absolutely is. And we're like, well, is it though? Yeah.

[00:30:54] [SPEAKER_01] Is it material? Yeah. Yeah.

[00:30:56] [SPEAKER_04] I have a lot of those conversations with the rewards and recognition platforms too, right? Kind of thing. And I can't help but think about, you know, the recent U.S. government discontinuation of the penny because it costs more to create that penny and just stick it on the check than it ever would to incent somebody with it.

[00:31:13] [SPEAKER_01] That's funny.

[00:31:14] [SPEAKER_04] Yeah. So what are you looking forward to seeing? Or maybe you've already seen and heard some topics, some themes, like what's on your hit list, the things that you really want to hear more about or learn more about?

[00:31:23] [SPEAKER_03] I'm honestly, a lot of the AI stuff, which is a lot of the sessions, but just how can it help? And just like, it's really a lot of the AI stuff, if I'm being honest, a lot of the data reporting and some of the couple sessions about communication and influence and how like kind of it all comes out to like almost managing up and how like comp is, we're becoming more consultants even like in our day to day. Like that is our job. We're not just providing the data anymore. Yeah.

[00:31:53] [SPEAKER_03] And so how can we provide the data in ways that make sense and that will actually help the leaders do their, like what they need versus just, okay, here's the data. What's that? Yeah.

[00:32:04] [SPEAKER_01] I really believe so much of HR and payroll is going to become strategic advisory. It really is. You're going to have to be big for consultants in your business, helping your business win. Yeah. And from the people up.

[00:32:15] [SPEAKER_04] That's the part that AI and reports aren't going to deliver, right? So it is the soft skills that are, yeah.

[00:32:21] [SPEAKER_01] And AI to me, I mean, AI is just a superpower, right? It's a performance enhancing drug for the lack of better terms.

[00:32:27] [SPEAKER_04] It's a steroid. No, it really is. It really is. That's what I'm going to think of every time I use it now.

[00:32:30] [SPEAKER_01] I've been whipped in HR for years, do more with less, do more with less, provide more strategic output. Like now this is it. This is, if we can't do it with this, I mean, it's game over, right? Yeah. And I think that the folks that are getting like yourself, I can hear the excitement and the want to lean into that. And I think it's great. Ride that wave, you know, don't get hit by it. Use it to help you. Exactly.

[00:32:50] [SPEAKER_03] Like I know my weaknesses, so I'm using it to help me in those areas.

[00:32:54] [SPEAKER_01] It's a moment of reinvention.

[00:32:55] [SPEAKER_03] Yes. It doesn't mean that you're doing something and if your like email communication isn't the strongest, plug it into there and help it write it for you. Like it's just better than not using it. So. Yeah.

[00:33:06] [SPEAKER_01] No, I agree. Yeah. I think selfishly you have to look at it and say, how do I make this work for me? Yeah. You know what I mean? Because if you don't, someone else is right. And that's the difference. I mean, if we're all equal now with AI, that's going to be the difference of how well you can play with it and use that play, but use it. Right. Yeah. So.

[00:33:24] [SPEAKER_03] Yeah. Yeah.

[00:33:25] [SPEAKER_01] Engage it.

[00:33:26] [SPEAKER_03] I will say, I'll show you guys my favorite, favorite prompt. We talk about all the ways to use it in work, but if you've never done so, you need to ask it to summarize your week in the style of a comedy roast. You can thank me later. It is the funniest thing you will ever read. I am in tears every single time. So yes, summarize your week in the style of a comedy roast, especially if it's integrated with your calendar and your emails and all of that.

[00:33:47] [SPEAKER_01] Yeah. Mine's going to advise me to sleep, I think.

[00:33:50] [SPEAKER_03] It is hilarious. It is so funny. It gives me shut down. Yeah.

[00:33:54] [SPEAKER_01] What are you doing? Yes. It is so funny. Can you sell me some of it? Yeah. Someone said that to me about my energy level. I was like, it just comes naturally. I don't know. Here it is.

[00:34:04] [SPEAKER_03] It's not Red Bull or anything. I said that about my six-year-old. Like, how can I get some of that? Like, I just need some of that. Yeah.

[00:34:10] [SPEAKER_01] Yeah. I love it. I love it. Well, where can we connect with you? Where would folks reach out to you and get in touch?

[00:34:16] [SPEAKER_03] Yeah. I mean, I'm on LinkedIn. Sarah Severson. All my contact stuff is on there. But yeah. We'll put that with our show notes.

[00:34:24] [SPEAKER_04] We will. Yeah. It'll be there so that people can reach out to you. And thank you. Thank you so much.

[00:34:29] [SPEAKER_01] Thank you so much for having me. Yeah. Enjoy the rest of the show. And yeah, we appreciate you. And we'll be back with more. Okay. Thank you.