Season 3 Kickoff with Sean and Paul

This season-opening conversation covers what is shifting in compensation and total rewards heading into 2027, and what practitioners should watch.

Sean shares some exciting news and explains why a career move from building compensation software into association and community work made sense after three decades in the space, what professional communities need to do to actually deliver value to members, and why the methods that worked in comp for the last thirty years are unlikely to carry the next thirty.

Sean and Paul also preview the topics coming up this season, including the state of HR technology, whether merit pay still works, workforce analytics and modeling, EU pay transparency, moving between practitioner and consulting roles, and where AI realistically fits in comp planning.

Chapters 00:41 – Moving from building software into community work
02:45 – What members actually want from a professional association
03:53 – Changing careers after thirty years in one lane
06:10 – How a podcast survives a host's career change
08:19 – Finding unexpected common ground with a co-host
09:33 – What youth coaching teaches about team dynamics
12:14 – Setting goals based on what you can control
15:14 – Topics and themes coming this season
16:41 – The open debate over whether merit pay is dead
21:39 – Why the old compensation playbook is expiring
24:14 – Comp planning as the first real AI test