Transcript:

Nick:  Where the misconception is that they may be paid under or over relative to the market. So it's not necessarily an indicator of external competitiveness in the market. And in some cases, people argue that, well, our salary ranges are pegged to this market data and that's how we get to the market. But really, internal equity is the driver of most pay equity analysis, and that's a little bit of a limitation because you may be paying people all fairly within your organization, but you may not be paying fairly relative to the external market.

So I think that's something always to keep in mind as you're talking about pay equity and talking about this, hey, the dollar for dollar doesn't necessarily mean we're being competitive. You may be under competitively, maybe over competitive. And that's just another lens you need to look through when you're thinking about how pay fairness actually works.

Andrea: Welcome to DEI Career Conversations. I'm your host and the DEI career coach Andrea G. Tatum. In this episode, I sat down with Nick Rettenmyer. He's an executive advisor and pay strategist, skilled at transforming compensation and benefits programs. He has successfully solved challenging problems related to attracting, motivating and retaining high performing talent for companies, teams and employees around the world with a strong focus on transparency, fairness and innovation.

His experience spans from startups to some of the world's most recognizable brands, and most recently, he's become a founding partner of Pay Simplicity, a human capital consulting firm focused on taking employee pay strategy, design and communications from routine to compelling. I'm excited for this episode, so let's get into it. 

Hi, Nick, Welcome to the show. I am so excited to have you here with us.

Nick: Hi Andrea. Thanks for having me. I'm really excited to have this conversation today.

Andrea: Well, let's dive in. I think I am really excited to have people learn about your journey and the work that you do in Total Rewards and Compensation. So why don't you kick us off by just telling us a little bit about your journey to where you are now in your career?

Nick: Sure, I I'd love to. It's been certainly an interesting journey. I started out in consulting, compensation consulting. My first kind of real job was with a company called the Hay Group that was acquired by Korn Ferry, but was really one of the early pioneers in job evaluation and compensation surveys and work like that. Lived in spreadsheets supporting compensation projects and analysis and surveys, and really got a good foundational understanding of how data works and how to take information from surveys and from data, make it actionable and make it real for for clients and customers.

So that was, that was fantastic. I went back to business school. I went to the University of Texas at Austin. So go horns for any of the longhorns out there at Austin and, you know, went to business school and tried to figure out what I was going to do next. I didn't think it was going to be compensation and ended up going to Microsoft after, after grad school out here in the Pacific Northwest and loved it, started in their sales compensation group, which was then the sales within the sales organization and had a lot of great opportunities to learn about the business model, how Microsoft work, how Microsoft operated throughout the world, and how you incent sellers and support to be able to make that their vision and their their mission a reality for people around the world. So from there, I stayed in sales compensation, went back to the East Coast where I'm from, and worked at Bristol-Myers Squibb, big pharmaceutical company, doing a lot of sales compensation and sales force effectiveness and stuff like that. That was fantastic and continue to refine a lot of my analytical skills and work across business, work across functions, worked across therapeutic areas to really understand again, how do you use data to drive decision making in big organizations for the impact of customers and patients and doctors and everyone that that Bristol-Myers touched. From there I went to Europe, which was fantastic, just from a from personal and professional perspective.

You know, one of the things I tell people, especially Americans, is that if you ever get the opportunity to live and work abroad, take it because it's, it's a great opportunity to be able to understand and live in a culture that's not your own. And it does a couple of things. I think one of the things that's really important is a, it lets you understand that things work differently around the world. So when you're in global organizations, having that on the ground experience is really helpful to be able to know or to recognize that there are differences around the world in terms of how people live, how people work, how people operate, rules, regulations, and it gives you a greater appreciation for people that you have to work with here in the United States that may have come from other places because the challenges are real, you know, particularly on the personal side, to be able to understand how do you live and operate in a culture different than your own. And then you also appreciate a lot of the things that you take for granted as, as an American or living in the United States. And I think that was wonderful. And I worked at different industry manufacturing work for a company called Tetra Pak, which is not as popular in the United States, but it's the company that makes the machines and the materials that a lot of beverages go in. So if you think about in the United States, hemp milk and almond milk, they come in those boxes. That's the boxes that Tetra Pak makes. And this water, it's all kinds of different foods and beverages. So fantastic opportunity. And then when that was complete, you know, came back to the U.S. and came back to Microsoft, which was a fun journey to take two Microsoft. And I led global compensation programs there, which meant everything from salaries and bonus and equity and all of the annual review cycles and promotions. And, you know, a lot of, a lot of heavy lifting on the analytical side. And again, did some really fantastic work with my team there. I had a great team and we were able to drive some big, big projects at Microsoft, including moving away from ratings. How do you pay without ratings? You know, how do you tell the story in a different way so that employees understand the investment that's being made in them? And I think one of my kind of proudest moments from as a as a compensation professional was implementing a total rewards portal that we rolled out globally to really be able to illustrate the investment that Microsoft was making and people around the world in a consolidated fashion.

And it's been interesting because over time I've seen other versions and I still think it's it's one of the best bets out there now. And then from Microsoft, I went to Nike, so I was a lifelong athlete and continue to enjoy sports and love sports. And Nike is just one of those companies that from a values perspective and from a just an overall mantra perspective, I really, really enjoyed. And I led compensation team compensation benefits teams there, you know, globally to be able to really deliver the message from Nike in terms of the investment that they were making in people. And really help people use the different levers that were available to them on the compensation side, on the mobility side, and on the benefit side to be able to attract and retain and motivate the people they needed for their, you know, for their mission.

And then from there went to Tableau. And Tableau is where you and I worked together, obviously. And that was, again, one of the one of the most exciting times in my career and really interesting because it very much felt like drinking from a fire hose. You know, we were doing a lot of really cool stuff. And then obviously got bought by Salesforce and my role was much broader there. I led all total awards. I led hr operations. I led hris, I led people analytics. So a little bit of everything there from a scale perspective and obviously work cross-functionally with you and with the Salesforce teams. And then, you know, as we went through the acquisition, a lot of work in partnership with Salesforce. And then once that closed and we got through all the harmonization, took a little break and then went out on my own and been consulting ever since little detour into the startup world and worked for a company called Air Table, which has a fantastic collaboration tool, built a lot of their foundational compensation and benefits stuff, and then continued consulting, which is what I'm doing today. So that's a little bit of my journey, a lot of analytics, a lot of cross-functional partnerships and a lot of work across the business. I'm trying to help people deliver the best employee experience possible.

Andrea: Wow, there is so much in that.  I think it's one of those areas where everyone's aware that there's benefit. Everyone knows they're going to get paid, you know, expectation. But the reality is most people aren't really involved in those processes, right? Like you go to a new job, they're like, here you go. Here's the benefits that we already have, right? They're pretty well established. Here's how much you're going to get compensated. Sure, there's a little bit of room for negotiation and I think people are getting way more hip to the idea that at least there is wiggle room for that. But talk us through like, what does that look like? And I love the perspective, especially from kind of the two, the couple of different things I heard you mentioned.

One, like what's it like to kind of think about total rewards compensation benefit as you're building something like a startup kind of ground up and you're establishing those policies and benefits for a company versus going into a big behemoth like a Salesforce where a lot of those things are already established, right? But that doesn't mean they're perfect and you're having to go through it.

So talk me through a little bit of like day in the life and what different forms of total rewards and compensation looks like.

Nick: Yeah, great, great question. And I think the I love to be able to say that is a typical day, but there's not a typical day. It's, you know, it varies a lot and there's a lot of there's a lot of variation in terms of the kind of work that hits the total reward space. What's interesting about Total Rewards is generally very cyclical in terms of activity.

So when you think about things like annual review, you think about mid-year cycles, you think about benefits, open enrollment, you think about those kinds of things. They generally happen at certain times of the year for different companies. So a lot of work in the total reward space kind of focuses on those key recurring events to make sure that you can you can touch the employees in a way that it's empowering and engaging to them so that they understand, hey, we're going to do a salary review, we're going to do a mid-year review, we're going to integrate with performance, we're going to open enrollment so that if you need to make changes to your benefits, things like that, you know, and that's where a lot of the recurrent event or recurring events in the workload comes into play for people. So compensation and benefits teams are buried during those times. And then outside of those times, there's a lot of ebb and flow depending on what the priorities are. 

But to your question around the difference between kind of big and small companies, it's literally night and day in terms of both the companies I've worked for and some of the companies that I've done consulting for, small companies generally don't have the same infrastructure, the same frameworks, the same things in place just to be able to support compensation benefits in the same way. So a lot of startups in earlier stage companies, smaller companies will use external vendors and brokers to be able to manage a lot of those benefits. So, you know, you think about the basic stuff like health insurance and dental insurance and leave programs, and all of that generally is wrapped up in kind of an entire suite that the small companies will work with third parties or a broker to be able to manage in a consolidated way. Bigger companies have people that are dedicated often to each of those programs. So Microsoft's a great example. You know their health care is one of the best in the industry, and they have a team that's fully dedicated to healthcare and medical insurance and things like that. So they're always staying on top of what's happening in the legislation space, what's happening on the provider space. How do we make sure the benefits that we have are appropriate for our population and so forth. So that's kind of how it works on the on the benefits side for for big and small companies. On  the compensation sides, again, you get a lot less structure and and kind of formal frameworks in place when you're in smaller companies than in bigger companies, because bigger companies a lot of times are built to be able to scale and bring people on very quickly, you know, high growth companies to want to have frameworks. So there becomes a point when you're a small company that you're growing fast enough that you need a framework, you need salary structures, you need guidelines so that you're paying fairly and you're paying appropriately relative to the market. So there's a lot of engagement with survey providers to understand, like, hey, what are people paying? And now as you as you describe, there's there's been a big push in the in the marketplace where more information is starting to become available. Pay transparency is starting to become a bigger thing. And one of the interesting things is, you know, salary ranges are required to be published in a lot of states now. The EU just passed the directive that's around compensation and pay transparency and some of the things like that. So you're starting to see more on the legislative side and the governance side for compensation to open some of that up and move away from the black box mentality that I think people feel pay has been in, you know, historically.

Andrea: Yeah, and all of that is so relative, which is why I was really excited to have this conversation with you because as you mentioned, we work together at Tableau and I think right around the time we started to collaborate was in the middle of a pay equity study, and kind of going through that process. But it was so fascinating to me to really think about all the things you just talked about from a small company to a big company. And at the end of the day, the goal is to pay people fairly. Yeah, we talk about DEI, that's this E like, what are all of the things that are going on to create, you know, an equitable workplace for everyone. And when I talk about DEI, it's so easy for people to be like, Well, you're only talking about it for… you know, like when we do a pay equity study, and I'd love for you to kind of talk to me about maybe some of the misconceptions in the study. It's not only benefiting one group, oftentimes it really is looking at every person, every level and, you know, kind of right sizing. So talk to me a little bit about that process for you in thinking about how you can create equity within these organizations through something like a pay equity study.

Nick: Yeah. So great question. And one one of the things that I really enjoyed working with you on at Tableau was being able to do more cross-functional work and get feedback from urges and from different people that aren't necessarily typically involved in that. And it's interesting because I've been involved in pay equity at a number of different companies over the time, and I think at Tableau, one of the things that was really great well, there were two things that stood out to me. One, leadership was fully bought and supportive and engaged in the entire process. And that in and of itself is really fantastic and leads you to a much greater opportunity to have impact that a company. That was the big one. And then the second one, Tableau, obviously data visualization company. So, you know, I think they wanted to see the data. They wanted to understand kind of what it meant. And I'll give a quick synopsis in terms of how traditional pay equity studies work. They they in essence, look at all the characteristics and all the variables you have on employees and looks at how do those drivers influence pay. So things like experience, things like roles, things like location, there's a whole bunch of variables. The things that you're looking for in particular that you don't want to pay to influence pay are things like gender, things like race, things like ethnicity. Those kinds of things are things that obviously no one wants to have an influence on pay. But what we've seen in the marketplace is that in a lot of cases they do. And one of the things that I think is really important to note, when you're going through these kinds of processes, there's as much if not more impact from things like promotional opportunities and you think about how does the opportunity and the representation at different levels impact what different groups are being paid. So there are underrepresented groups that aren't necessarily at the same percentage higher in organizations, which leads to a lot of the pay gap. And I think one of the things that's really important for people to notice that when you're doing these pay equity studies, it has to be more than just pay because pay is one driver. But there are a lot of other areas and a lot of other touch points across the employee lifecycle where fairness or unfairness in this case can creep in. So when you think about when people join, big one, how we're offers set, how are negotiations set, how are they handled, what are the guidelines that are used in terms of how you bring people on? When people move jobs, you know what happens there? Do you make an adjustment? Do not make an adjustment when people are promoted. How do you handle the promotion process? Are there guidelines in place that impact you know potentially, positively or negatively the experience people have relative to the fairness of pay for that role? And then even as people change jobs, leave jobs, things like that, the organization's constantly changing. So one of the things that I like seeing is that hr technology has really started becoming more and more of a trendsetter in terms of being able to get out in front of that. So historically, pay equity studies are very much a look back like they take a snapshot at a point in time and say, hey, this is our organization on where and we're in May right now, or I guess June, June 1st. So let's say we took a snapshot in May. By the time the pay equity study is done, you may be into the summer, you may be into the fall, and the organization may have changed people's comp. People have gone. Some of the new technologies out there. And there's there's there's providers like Pay analytics. And Syndio, is here in Seattle that are really doing a lot of great work on being able to provide real time snapshots into pay equity and what certain decisions that you're making are driving as it relates to fairness and pay at your organization.

Andrea: I love it, I so appreciate that. Keep going. We're going to add something else.

Nick: Yeah, I was going to say, the one that you asked about, misconceptions. I think one of the misconceptions or misperceptions that exist within pay equity is that pay equity. Pay equity is generally a measure of internal equity of a role. Pay pay for a role. So what that means is that, you know, I'll use an extreme example and say you have you have everybody with all of the same factors. You have 100 people that have the same exact factors, do the same exact job, and they're paid all the same, you know, no deviation that's equitable, right? 100%. There's no gap. All women, all men, all races, all ethnicities, all paid the same. No gap where the the misconception is that they may be paid under or over relative to the market. So it's not necessarily an indicator of external competitiveness in the market. And in some cases people argue that, well, our salary ranges are pegged to this market data and that's how we get kind of to the market. But really internal equity is the driver of most pay equity analysis, and that's a little bit of a limitation because you may be paying people all fairly within your organization, but you may not be paying fairly relative to the external market. So I think that's something always to keep in mind as you're talking about pay equity and talking about this, hey, the dollar for dollar doesn't necessarily mean we're being competitive. You may be under competitive, maybe over competitive. And that's just another lens you need to look through when you're thinking about how pay fairness actually works in the real world.

Andrea: And it is so complicated. It feels complicated as someone who's like going in jobs. It’s like, I don't know, how much more should I negotiate? You know, what am I considering? I don't know this company. So I love the more transparency that is coming, as you note, as like putting out there kind of a range. And I mean, I've seen some things. I love your thoughts on this. I mean, I've seen some interesting things as people are starting to post these ranges. What creates these really wide ranges? I'll see a job for a DEI manager, and I will say something from like $60,000 to $200,000. Yeah, that doesn't help me in terms of figuring out how I'm going to be like, here's this title, here is this job. So how do companies come up with these really wide ranges when it comes to a singular job title? And what are they? What are all they basing that on?

Nick: Yeah, that's it's a great observation, something a lot of people have raised to me where you look at some of the ranges that are being published in there, they're massive like that. It's like, Where do I fall in that? How do I think about that? And again, I think we're making baby steps in terms of moving to a more transparent world where some pay is more prevalent and more out of the black box that I talked about before, where I think historically it's been. That being said, you know, my recommendation is always for people to try to get multiple sources. So there's a lot of sources online now that provide different ranges and so forth to understand your value and your position in the marketplace. One of the things that I think has been really progressive, a lot of states have have banned asking salary history because obviously, as you can imagine, that just perpetuates any inequities that may have existed in previous pay. And a lot of times rules are fundamentally different. I think, you know, I know your background. I know you've done different kinds of roles. And as you change roles, the pay for different roles may be different. That's just the reality of the nature, both from the marketplace as well as the value to the company where they want to focus and really either pay a premium or not pay a premium. So that being said, I think the salary range is our starting point. Don't take those by any stretch as like, Hey, this is the end all deal and use multiple sources is always the recommendation that I give people. So you may be looking at a specific job that has a range of, you know, $60 to $200. Look at other jobs that are similar to that in places that have requirements for salary range transparency to get a better sense of like, hey, here's what I'm seeing in the marketplace and here's what I'm hearing from either peers or other colleagues that I know are working in this marketplace to get a better sense and then understand your value within that organization or within that marketplace, because somebody may have a ton of experience and a lot of really great work and would be presumably towards the higher end of that range versus somebody that, hey, this is a step up, this is a new job for me. It's going to be a stretch opportunity. It's going to be something that I'm going to have to learn and continue to grow into where I may be more in the lower end of the range in salary range management is something that I think is really important for companies to be able to communicate and managers to be able to own, because people always have questions, and especially now that salary ranges are getting published, the question always is why am I at this point in the range, like help me understand that. And the problem is a lot of managers just aren't equipped at this point to be able to have those conversations in a deep, meaningful way. And a lot of the clients that I work with, even they say my managers aren't capable of carrying this message and now we have to because salary ranges are being published. So I think the the important piece is to know that there's an expected variation of pay that comes in any job based on things like experience, based on things like performance, based on those kind of drivers that are going to put people in different positions in the range. And for managers to be able to communicate, that is really important to be able to have a workforce that feels engaged and feels confident that the organization is doing the right thing on the pay side.

Andrea: I say it all the time. Middle managers truly have the ability to make such a major impact in individuals lives when it comes to how diversity, equity and inclusion, compensation, all of those things are truly viewed. And, you know, I think it it is so important for organizations to continuously upskill their managers in all aspects. Like when I talk about upskilling in DEI, I am not just meaning, hey, like take your managers through more training on unconscious bias. Like yes, please do that as well. But how are you teaching them to be really good leaders who can communicate and like who can understand what's really going on and what I see a lot of times is like managers get put into those positions and versus level up into them honestly. And so they haven't necessarily gotten all the adequate education and training that they need to be able to have this kind of a conversation about pay. They're figuring it out themselves because now especially, you know, I would love to hear your opinion from a global standpoint, like how is how is talking about pay pay equity viewed with a global lens versus what it how it is in the U.S.? Because I know we talk about it. It is a hot topic. It is always out there. Do you have the same kind of constant conversation around pay, pay equity and fairness when you're looking at places like Europe and other countries?

Nick: Yeah. So again, fantastic question. And I think just to reiterate, I think managers are really the primary driver in people's level of engagement, their career progression. You know, you can be at a big company, but your experience is very strongly dictated by your manager employee relationship, which is why, to your point, I think we need to equip them to be able to have these conversations and really meaningful way. That being said, the conversation in the United States I think is fundamentally different than a lot of other places for a couple of reasons. One, where an employment at will countries. So what that means is, as you know, people can be hired, fired for pretty much no reason and you don't have a lot of the same protections, both from a social, social structure side as well as from an employment side. So Europe in particular has a lot of things like works councils and things like unions that negotiate. And there's negotiated agreements in place in a lot of countries in Europe that drive, I think, less variation in terms of what you see, in terms of, you know, different roles being paid differently, different companies paying, being paid differently. And there's just more variation in the United States and more flexibility and not as much oversight on the governance side that you have. Some places in Europe, in particular, Asia probably has a little bit more variation depending again, on the country. And and Latin America in particular has considerably more variable pay in a lot of instances than than fixed pay, which drives more variation, but primarily driven by performance. And in terms of just culturally how a lot of the plans work there, big companies try to be as consistent as they can in terms of like people at these levels generally have this kind of mix. You know, it's not always the same, obviously, because labor markets will dictate that. But I think the multinational companies try to do a good job in terms of pay relative to the market that we play and this is where we want to pay relative to that market within obviously the constraints in the requirements that exist within each country. So the United States is a little bit of a different animal, a little bit more Wild West in terms of the opportunity that that that's companies have to be able to pay differently and not have the same oversight. But again, as we noted earlier, I think you're starting to see governance move in the direction more of pay equity and pay fairness. And hopefully over time we get to a place where there's more consistency in that in that regard. 

Andrea: Thank you for that. So helpful because I think a lot of people who are who are watching are thinking about like, what does it mean to be a part of a global team? And having these conversations around DEI, I know there's conversation about oftentimes is it to U.S. focused? How do you how do you level up your your strategies to not just have that U.S. lens when oftentimes that's the context that we have? And to your point, like they do, they do vary kind of sometimes sometimes more drastically than others. And your laws and what you can do and what you can pull and what you can based things off of are all different. And so it is incredibly challenging to approach all of these different aspects of of rewards and compensation and DEI at a global level. But that's why I think it is so important to be collaborative, to have the input of lots of different people and to to the best of your ability, try to be as transparent as possible when you are, especially at that really global level, because I think people are way more inclined now to talk and to share information. So it's it's better to try to be transparent as a company upfront than have people trying to get you in that gotcha moment.

Nick: Yeah.

Andrea: It's not fair. And it's like, well, yeah, here's the reality of it.

Nick: Yeah, I 100% agree. And I think one of the things that you're seeing progressive companies and a lot of high performing companies is really anchor on values. So you think about, Hey, these are our values, this is what we stand for. This is how we want to think about the employee relationship and the employee experience. And when you have values that are consistent across the world, wherever you are, it makes it a lot easier to be able to anchor your programs to support those. You know, and I like to talk about kind of flexibility within a framework. So you have a framework that says, hey, generally we want to be within X or Y. How that looks in certain country may be slightly different, but it still anchors up to or levies up to this particular value. That's important to us as a company. So as you think about DEI in particular, if one of your values is around, hey, we want a very diverse leadership team, right? That's a that's an easy one. You can say, okay, by country, how do we make sure we make that happen? You may be different in terms of the opportunities and the way you do that. Maybe use some expatriates to be able to make certain teams more, more, more diverse than others, maybe use different kinds of pipeline. In terms of succession slates for different kinds of roles to give people stretch opportunities. So there's a lot of ways that once you have the value and once you have kind of the overall North Star, it gives you the opportunity to be able to to get there in different ways but still adhere to that North Star. And I think that's important across all of the functions and initiatives.

Andrea: I love that you talked about like succession planning, all all of those things that just don't necessarily get highlighted enough in in terms of these conversations. So I want to just slightly pivot in terms of thinking about the work that you do. And you mentioned early on that it's a very cyclical kind of job and that you kind of know what's coming because there's annual reviews, There's you know, there's there's there's moments in time, like you said, it ebbs and flows. So if I as a DEI leader want to effect change, like, let's say, for example, you know, here we are at the time of recording, we're just kicking off Pride Month and I've been working with my pride and they've identified some things within the benefits that don't work for them, whether it's in terms of some of the parenting policies is access to specific health care for partners versus spouses or, you know, having health care that is inclusive for people who may be transitioning, who are trans, What does that process look like? What should someone who's on a DEI roll or  HR roll or whatever say, how do we go from this set of policies to something new? What does that process look like?

Nick: Yes. So the opportunity to influence change, I think has never been more important than right now, because what you're seeing, it's actually a super interesting time in the world because you're starting to see benefits, I think historically has been, hey, how do we add more benefits? How do we start to get more inclusive? How do we open up things like, you know, like you're talking about parental leaves and you're talking about different medical opportunities or different medical insurance coverages, things like that have generally gotten more open over time. And what you're seeing in the United States is there's and putting politics completely aside. There's movements that are that are restricting benefits of certain kinds. So you talked about transitioning people and transgender reproductive rights is another one. So if you're a company that operates in a lot of different states, in certain cases, you're being forced to make decisions around, Hey, how do we operate and how do we offer benefits that may or may not align to what's happening in particular states in the United States? So that's been challenging, I think, for a lot of people try to how do we manage those transitions where certain things are being more restrictive when historically benefits has been more inclusive in terms of adding benefits and offering up new things? Conversely, compensation has never really taken a big look at, Hey, how do we make sure we're equitable, how do we make sure we're being inclusive? And now you're starting to see again at the state level and even some stuff at the national level where states are starting to mandate more guidelines that are that are forcing companies to be more transparent, that are forcing companies to be more equitable. So it's a little bit of an interesting time. And we're going to talk about this actually at World at Work, which is coming up in the middle of June. We're doing a presentation on looking at total rewards through kind of a diversity lens and inclusive lens. And I think it's just a fantastic opportunity. But back to your specific question on how do you influence. So again, most most of the compensation and benefits events are recurring events. So in the United States, open enrollment generally happens towards the end of the year, whether it's November or December or October, depending on the company, not always, but in most cases, planning for that generally starts in the summer. So you're going to have to be out in front of that, much more so than, Hey, can I drop in in November and say I don't like the parental leave benefits? No, you have to get out in front of that. And I think one of the things that's important for anyone that's working within an organization is that the decision makers start their planning like much, much further in advance than you think. And I think one of the things that's important to note is that when you can get involved in some of those cross-functional teams early on, you start to drive a much higher success rate in being able to influence those programs that they've been able to influence some of the discussions that happen. Because what I can tell you with certainty is that as you go through an annual review process, as you go through an allocation process where money is getting distributed, that's the opportunity in the moment to be able to make some adjustments in a in a more seamless way than when you do it in a one off basis. On the benefits side, you have to be out in front of that so that they can make the, you know, the cost modifications, they can do the budgeting, they can do the planning. And a lot of times what happens is the most progressive companies are starting to do surveys and understanding like, hey, what is the employees actually want? And I think the more you can attach to that, the better your success rate is going to be. So kind of the the key takeaways there would be get involved in the process as early as possible, build cross-functional relationships. And those cross-functional relationships aren't just the compensation manager or the benefits manager, The total rewards leader there. Also with the finance finance partners, with the legal partners like you want to be able to have a multi faceted approach because I think that's the way you can really drive and influence change, particularly when you see opportunities that make sense and gaps that may exist within the offerings of an organization.

Andrea: Oh, thank you for that. I love that because I, you know, as the DEI career coach, oftentimes the conversation I'm having with with my clients who are looking to transition into DEI, you know, I'm like, listen, when you first get in there into a new DEI role, the number one thing I recommend for people to do once you do get into that role is just like, listen and build relationships. Build relationships beyond your DEI team, build relationships beyond your e.R. GS Go have lunch with the finance team, go, you know, virtually or in person, like chop it up. Whatever you can do to, build real, real relationships. Cross-Functionally Because I guarantee you when people ask me like, Andrea, how have you managed to kind of get the things done? I don't know if it's because I'm Southern or what, you know, relationships. Yeah, yeah. And I will say that I mean, I think you came in after I did at Tableau and immediately I built that relationship. We were sitting down, we were talking, we were just having casual conversation. My day one conversation with you was not like, All right, I have a list because I did I did have a list. But it was like, How do I make sure that this person knows that I'm don't just see them as somebody who is going to check boxes for me. But this is something this is a human this is a person who has a job too. And I think that we forget that sometimes that the more relationship building that you can do as a DEI person, again, oftentimes so much of the job is influence because, yeah, I didn't write a single policy for, you know, our compensation, but I'm at the table and I want to just say I appreciate that because I hope that people listening will hear me out on this. In order for those relationships to be built, you have to also open your doors.

Nick: Yeah.

Andrea: And it was one of the things I really appreciated about you and so many other people in my career that when you are in a VP SVP leadership role, don't forget that you weren't always and that there's people who want to learn and understand and who may not have the access to the seat at the table and know all of the ins and outs of how things are working. I didn't know everything, but I'm inquisitive. I want to know and I wanted to ask those questions. And having somebody who was willing to answer the questions without belittling me, making me feel dumb, making me feel like I should have known all of these things was so incredibly important to the ability for me to progress in my career.

Nick: Yeah, I think that's great advice for for anybody that's working in any industry, because I think relationships that you build will open new opportunities and new learning and give you a different perspective just in terms of how the business works and how you can influence the business. And to your point, I think one of the things that I that I really appreciate about it, our engagement was that throughout the process, you know, you wanted to do the right thing for the company. I wanted to do the right thing for the company. I don't think we ever deviated from that and get in the input from you and from the ERGs and from from different stakeholders really enabled us to push forward and have a message. It was fundamentally different than the one we were going to send originally because we got that feedback. And it's funny you laugh a little bit, but I remember sitting in one of the sessions we had and, you know, to be fair, taking a beating on some stuff that that people didn't necessarily like, how it was either being message or being said. But what I, what I appreciated was that I knew that we were in lockstep in terms of what we were trying to do to get pay fairness front and center and funded in a way that the leadership team was supportive of. And we knew that the intent was there. So how do we make sure that we get from point A to point B and bring everyone along and land a message in the best way possible? And I think we did a really great job of that, and that was directly because of the relationships we had and how we brought in additional people to provide input. And it's just so critical to be able to drive big change at organizations these days.

Andrea: Yeah, you can't you've got to have a little bit of thick skin because I'll tell you there, there were days that I would go out of a meeting with like, well, we thought we thought we were on the right path. [audible laughs]

Nick: Let's assume to the job, right?

Andrea: It comes with the territory that like if you can't, if you can't listen and hear out other people, you know, you've got to find your path forward. But being able to have various inputs is really good. It's so critical because how can you talk about inclusion and equity if you're limiting the voices that you hear? And it's a very hard thing. I mean, I don't think there's a world in which every single person is ever going to be happy.

Nick: Yeah.

Andrea: But you're totally, you know, and you know that your your your best work is, is out there and that you're going to continue to incrementally get better. That's sometimes the best that you can hope for. And that's not like that's not perfect and that's not like my aspiration. But that's sometimes just the reality is that you're you're negotiating across so many different things. You are talking about money, right? Like benefits is money. And the company usually isn't saying it's a free for all. Here you go. Here's my budget. Andrea and Nick, go do whatever you want.

Nick: Right.

Andrea: There's constraints all around. And so you're working with all of these different elements and factors that you're having to kind of figure out and negotiate. And I think that you've just given us so many valuable things to think about in terms of skills and how to work together, because I think more people in the DEI space in the HR, Compensation should really be thinking about how these roles can be more collaborative. And I think that it really has the ability to to be transformative for for companies.

Nick: Yeah. 100% agree. And I think it comes back to the age old adage, you have two years in one mouth for a reason, right? And you should be doing a lot more listening than talking. And particularly in the areas where like I was the first to tell you like, hey I don't know all of the things that are top of mind for you, help me understand. And then conversely, you did the same with me and like, okay, what are you guys trying to do? Let's figure out a way to to make this work. And I think most of the compensation and benefits and rewards leaders that exist out there, at least the ones that that I've been connected to, they're open. They want to learn more. They want to understand, hey, how can I use the programs to be able to drive more equity, to be able to drive more fairness, to be able to give people what they want. Obviously, within the constraints that they have. But that's always in discussion that I think people are open to. So take advantage of that and connect with those people, build those relationships, because those are relationships that that help both both functions for sure, and ultimately help the employees in the companies.

Andrea: Yeah. Oh, this has been so good. I want to close out with one more piece of advice from you. What is a book, a podcast, the course. Anything that you would recommend to someone who's interested in learning more about total rewards compensation, Who is thinking about getting into the DEI space? What are a couple of recommendations that you have?

Nick: Yeah, so. So I think I'll answer this in a couple of different ways. So so from a book perspective, one one that I love and it's a former colleague of mine that I worked with at Nike. It's it's, it's a book called Fair Pay. It's by a guy named David Buckmaster has a lot of really great information for people that aren't deep into the into the weeds on compensation and pay and how it works. Again, Fair Pay by David Buckmaster. It's even on Audible, so you can get it there. It's on Amazon. Great book. Like I said, a lot of research and a lot of practical, practical ideas that will help you understand, Hey, how does compensation work? What are they thinking about? How does this group that no one really knows what they do do, what they do? And yes, that's a great book from a from a learning perspective. WorldatWork is the professional organization of compensation benefits. So they have a lot of great courses available. So obviously there's a there's a certification that goes as well. But if you have certain things that you want to you want to look through or even just peruse their website, they have a lot of great articles that people can learn more about compensation or sign up for one of their courses. And then the last one that I'll give you is is really about change and change management. And it's a book, but it's it's a book that that I really love that a lot of people have heard of it. It's called Atomic Habits, and it's by a guy named James Clear and it talks very much about how can I make small changes to drive big changes, because I think people don't necessarily recognize that a lot of the big changes don't just happen, you know, and put this on your personal life, but this on your professional life, you can't make big change without making little change first.  And how do you set yourself up in a way so that your environment is supportive of that change? And that applies in the personal side? It applies on the professional side. It's been to me one of the best books there is in terms of understanding how can I take little steps on the path to kind of big change in a way that's going to be meaningful and a way that's going to be effective? And so again, Atomic Habits by James Clear and Fair Play by David Buckmaster and then World at Work for anyone that wants kind of a deeper dive in terms of education or information.

Andrea: I love the stuff that WorldatWork puts out there. I have their newsletter. Yeah, it's kind of it's a great way to stay informed of like what is actually happening out there with legislation and other things. I will link the other two resources below and absolutely check those out and I could not agree more. I always tell people celebrate the tiny wins because those are important too, and that is what really equals the big change. So don't be discouraged if you feel like you're just getting small wins here and there, they matter. They add up and they have the ability to truly impact someone’'s life. What seems small to you may be absolutely major and transformative for someone else. So don't don't get discouraged when you don't feel like you are solving the biggest problems in the world because it sometimes is is hard. Like we've just talked. So, Nick, thank you for those recommendations. Thank you for all the insights that you have shared with us. I am so glad that we got this chance to spend time together today.

Nick: Yeah, thank you. I love their conversation and glad I could help and hope. I hope it's been helpful for people.

Andrea: I hope you enjoyed this episode of the DEI career conversations. Don't forget to like, subscribe and hit the bell so that, you know, as soon as new episodes are live. Also, if you'd like to learn more about our brand new program, be sure to check out the links below or visit DEIcareer.com and look at our courses. This new course is so exciting because not only are we going to help support you as a job seeker, thinking about pivoting your passion into a career, into the but we're also going to make sure that you have the tools and resources you need in order to learn how to create data informed strategies for the DEI, how to create metrics, how to make sure that you know how to do the work of the DEI by getting unprecedented insights from DEI professionals who are doing this work day in and day out. So I'm so excited about it. I hope that you'll join us. We have monthly community connection calls for anyone who's a part of the program and you can learn more about it all at DEIcareer.com.