Totally Rewarding Chats | Ep. 24: What’s Going On in the Brazilian Market?

Navigating total rewards in Brazil

In this engaging conversation, Sean Luitjens hosts Emerson Costa and Carlos Silva, who share insights into the total rewards landscape in Brazil. They discuss their professional backgrounds, cultural nuances, and the current hot topics in compensation, including pay equity and transparency. The conversation also touches on personal preferences and experiences, providing a light-hearted yet informative exchange.

In this conversation, the speakers discuss various themes related to HR practices in Brazil, including regulatory challenges in the pharmaceutical sector, the importance of transparency in pay equity, and the cultural differences in work-life balance between Brazil and the U.S. They also explore the evolution of HR technology in Brazil and the role of Forhma in bridging educational gaps in HR practices. The discussion highlights the need for improved communication and collaboration between HR and marketing to enhance employee experience and address compensation issues.

In this episode

• Host, Sean Luitjens, General Manager of Compensation Benchmarks, Visier

• Guest, Carlos Silva, Executive Director, Forhma

• Guest, Emerson Costa, Executive Manager of Brands, Marketing, and Sales, Carreira Muller

Episode transcript

Sean Luitjens (00:00.622)
All right, we have totally rewarding chats. This is an international version today. So got some folks on Carlos, who is with Forhma and G3 and Emerson with Carreira Muller. Did I get that right? Not too bad. Where are we in from today?

Emerson Costa (00:14.505)
Yes.

Yeah. Yeah.

Carlos Silva (00:18.53)
Yeah, absolutely.

Sean Luitjens (00:27.334)
Not a trick question in Sao Paulo.

Emerson Costa (00:31.427)
I'm at the east of the state. It's called Indaiatuba. It's close to Carlos Jundiaí. It's hard to say, like, important to say, but it's the countryside of the state, Sao Paulo state.

Carlos Silva (00:49.622)
Yeah, we live close. We are close to São Paulo. It's about 40 miles far from São Paulo. I live my whole...

Sean Luitjens (00:49.703)
Okay.

Sean Luitjens (01:00.114)
Whoa, look at you translating for us, Carlos. Are you doing the math for us? Are you translating? Look at that.

Emerson Costa (01:05.333)
1.6 is not easy.

Carlos Silva (01:05.344)
Yeah, because we use kilometers here. It's really different, so we don't use inches or something like that, but sometimes we try to do the math. We have to do it for the exchange rate anyways, so it's not that bad.

Emerson Costa (01:12.756)
Yeah.

Sean Luitjens (01:12.85)
I know!

Sean Luitjens (01:25.039)
How far from campus? Deja-dou.

Carlos Silva (01:28.13)
Campos do Jordão, it's about, let's say, yes, two hours driving, like a hundred... Yeah...

Emerson Costa (01:30.933)
Two hours, can't say two hours, yeah.

Sean Luitjens (01:35.166)
Okay, one of my favorite places. you guys... Okay, yeah, one of my favorite places. absolutely... Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Emerson Costa (01:38.453)
100 miles, yeah.

Carlos Silva (01:41.088)
Yeah, it's about that.

Emerson Costa (01:44.713)
Beautiful nature like it's a little bit cold but not like America like we don't have snow maybe sometimes we have snow in campus or nobody's it's hard it's not easy yeah rare good good word

Carlos Silva (01:47.233)
It's

Sean Luitjens (01:50.864)
Yeah, yeah, so it's a...

Carlos Silva (01:52.652)
Yeah, yeah, it's rare. Yeah, it's very rare. yeah, and Campos do Jordão for those who don't know it.

Sean Luitjens (01:57.18)
Yeah.

Carlos Silva (02:04.926)
It's like a European city in a tropical country So it's very nice, you can find great food and all the architecture remembers some places in Europe and something like that We have another city that is really beautiful in Brazil that is in the south, it's not in São Paulo but is in Rio Grande do Sul that is in the extreme south of Brazil It's called Gramado I think I have told you,

Emerson Costa (02:25.845)
You can end.

Carlos Silva (02:34.602)
about it. Once you come it's a really amazing city too. you like Campos do Jordão for sure you'll love Gramado too.

Emerson Costa (02:47.007)
But this kind of city is kind of celebration in Florida. Like, it's not a real city, you know. It's something like you produce like for movies or something and you have people living there, but it's not like Brazil. It's totally different.

Carlos Silva (03:03.288)
Yeah.

Sean Luitjens (03:04.47)
So other than talking about your great headwear like you guys did a great job with the hats today You know that that's awesome you guys had them right there Can you I'll start Emerson? Can you just give a quick background and what?

Carlos Silva (03:08.653)
Yeah.

Emerson Costa (03:21.289)
Yeah. You know, like I'm a marketing guy. I'm not from this compensation world. And I think this is the good point for me because 11 years ago, I started in Carrera Miller, Constituting Trim, that is focused on total rewards. If I can say like this, not total rewards, compensation, think, is we have surveys, we have job salaries, plans, job description, all this stuff that we have in this kind of work. But I'm a marketing guy. I'm there to work with the brands we have and to make strategies to sell our products. And this is my background. This is... I'm a kind of... How can I say when you are not from this world? extra outside

Sean Luitjens (04:18.366)
We joke, compensation finds you, you don't find compensation.

Carlos Silva (04:19.118)
You are an outsider.

Emerson Costa (04:24.809)
Yes, this is, I think is a good way to explain me, but I love it. know, when I... Yes, but it's like a cloud. remember, when you have a king, you have a cloud. And especially this guy, he can say all the stuff, good and bad about the king because you are out of this. And I feel like that. We have a podcast, five years doing our episodes. And Sean, thank you so much because you...

Carlos Silva (04:31.234)
You are an outsider, like, yeah.

Emerson Costa (04:54.151)
Made us better like your episode and all these those that we did and I can listen all the stories and I can tell all the things because I love to say I'm not from this world I'm just joined with you.

Sean Luitjens (05:10.712)
Carlos we go way back so can you talk about your a couple things you're doing right now?

Carlos Silva (05:16.726)
Yeah, absolutely. Well, I have...I have started in the field of total rewards about 25 years ago. I was acquired by total rewards. So it's a, I had some experiences during my career from the executive side, working for retail company, telecom company as a compensation manager. But my biggest experience was at Hey Group where I met

Sean about a couple of years ago I think 10 or 15 years ago more or less we we have started our friendship and then Hey Group was acquired by Corn Fair in 2015 I stayed there until 2019 to start an operation of WorldatWork here in Brazil.

So representing for former. The courses and certifications and so on. And then, of course, the consulting side that I went through this 12 years, of course, they were there and I needed to come back to the consulting side. So besides Forma, I also run a company that's called G3 with other four partners. And we go through the total rewards.

Carlos Silva (06:53.28)
side but also for governance, for performance appraisal, culture and all this leadership development and other things besides total rewards.

Sean Luitjens (07:10.174)
Okay, so before we jump into kind of Brazil as a total rewards environment, we have the speed round that we started doing a little bit ago. So I'll start with Carlos, same question though, right after Emerson. So coffee or tea?

Emerson Costa (07:25.268)
Okay.

Carlos Silva (07:28.216)
Coffee.

Emerson Costa (07:29.909)
Coffee.

Sean Luitjens (07:31.166)
Okay, good. Brazilian beans? Is that?

Emerson Costa (07:35.029)
It's good. But.

Carlos Silva (07:36.799)
Yes, they are good, but I really love the Colombian beans also. They are really good. So, yeah.

Sean Luitjens (07:44.485)
Okay.

Emerson Costa (07:44.681)
The black beans. I love black beans here in Brazil. It's feijoada. Wow. Have you ever tried, Sean?

Sean Luitjens (07:50.26)
Okay, well that's a detailed answer.

Emerson Costa (07:54.517)
No, sorry. Okay, continue.

Carlos Silva (07:54.624)
Yeah

Sean Luitjens (07:57.749)
So, mountain, would you rather go to the mountains or to the beach?

Emerson Costa (08:02.175)
Beach.

Carlos Silva (08:03.662)
Because I live in the mountains. A what?

Sean Luitjens (08:05.906)
Well, why don't you live where you want to be then? Why don't you move where you want to be then if you like the beach better? Yeah. And last one, this is the most important one we're doing as we go through the year. Chunky or creamy peanut butter?

Carlos Silva (08:12.8)
Yeah, so that's it. Much better.

Emerson Costa (08:23.253)
I don't know what is the first junk key

Sean Luitjens (08:26.046)
No, I tried it with the pieces of peanut in it.

Carlos Silva (08:30.427)
the bar, the chocolate bar.

Sean Luitjens (08:32.604)
No, say, this is now we have a whole international thing. So when peanut butter, right? Does it have chunks of peanuts in it? Or no chunks, it's all just smooth.

Emerson Costa (08:38.549)
Peanut butter, I know.

Carlos Silva (08:39.778)
Okay.

Emerson Costa (08:42.633)
Okay.

Carlos Silva (08:42.988)
Okay.

Emerson Costa (08:46.271)
Okay, the first, we have a chocolate bar. I don't remember the name, but the first one with the pieces, I love it. Yeah, first one.

Sean Luitjens (08:54.172)
Yeah.

Carlos Silva (08:54.318)
I prefer without chunky but the confusion we made is because we have a chocolate bar called chunky that's why we yeah yeah

Sean Luitjens (09:03.442)
okay. Well, there's only one brand I really, so it's called Chucky. There's only one brand I really follow out of Brazil, as you guys know, like Guaraná. Yeah, so that's the piece for the Americans on here. I can be bribed with Guaraná. Yeah. Yeah.

Carlos Silva (09:14.552)
Guadalajara Guadalajara, yeah

Carlos Silva (09:22.134)
Yeah, yeah. Pizza with Guadana also it's amazing. yeah. It's a soda, for those who don't know it, it's a soda made by a fruit that's found in the Amazon. So it's delicious.

Emerson Costa (09:22.261)
Popcorn and Guaraná. Very, very nice. Pizza. Movie with Guaraná.

Sean Luitjens (09:29.95)
you

Sean Luitjens (09:33.629)
Yeah.

Sean Luitjens (09:40.004)
Yeah, although you can't drink too much, you know, you get, you know, it's got cap.

Emerson Costa (09:44.885)
I think it's not the Guaraná, no, but if you go to the fruit, the real life, and then I think you feel like the sensation you.

Carlos Silva (09:45.711)
yeah?

Sean Luitjens (09:54.993)
Okay.

Carlos Silva (09:56.556)
Yeah, yeah, it's a... You can drink and buy like Guaraná in powder, so you can drink it. It's like... It energizes you. It's a... Yeah, it's very good. Yeah, yeah, it's the...

Emerson Costa (09:59.848)
in Natura.

Emerson Costa (10:14.131)
Yeah, it's better than Red Bull.

Sean Luitjens (10:21.704)
So one of the things I just wanted to chat about, because when we had talked before, we talked about the things that were in the US, because you were up here, for the Brazilian audience. And I wanted to just spin it around. think people have sent notes, and they find it very interesting how we have different but the same issues going on globally. So if you had to talk about what the hot topics are now, the number one issue, or three, what are you seeing right now that companies are struggling with most?

Carlos Silva (10:54.86)
Yeah, absolutely. Well, I think there are some hot topics here in Brazil about pay equity and pay transparency. It's something that is starting. I know in many countries we've been talking about this for like...10 years or 5 years or something this is something that is has started very recently in Brazil but it's getting it's increasing a lot and getting a power of discussion we have now we started this year to report for the government and it's becoming public some information about pay equity so companies can be followed by their employees if they have equity practice or not. For transparency we are in baby steps, but we are also starting on this too we started this basically for executive compensation like you have in SEC in the US but it's not so open like you have in SEC

Carlos Silva (12:34.631)
You have to report executive compensation for public trade companies but not really...For instance, in the US you have to put by name and all the story and all those things, very detailed information that you can know the person who is and something. Now here it's still something more...

Carlos Silva (13:04.406)
resume it let's say like for instance you you just show how much you pay for your board of directors for for your executive directors and something vice presidents and something but not to name it naming the executive there's some something like that so this I think it's it's really too hot topics because companies are trying to move through this and especially because sometimes you may struggle with some information because if you just compare man and woman you can have a result but if you go deep in the information and information is becoming really critical to have and to analyze and go deep and understand which side of the company, which size of the job, if we are comparing apples to apples to say if we really have an inequity or not so these are our couple of things and I

Sean Luitjens (14:16.363)
Is it legislative now? I guess I did not know that. So they have to report, do they have to report the gender pay gap?

Carlos Silva (14:20.278)
Yeah, yeah, yeah, no

Sean Luitjens (14:27.358)
And do they do it by, are they allowed to use, I say allowed because to use regression modeling because to your point, a raw wage gap obviously isn't great if you can't take all the other items together.

Carlos Silva (14:46.028)
Yeah, we have some specifics on that and basically what they are reporting is based on the more or less the regular reports that companies already used to do but they have a code for each job.

Sean Luitjens (15:08.861)
Yeah.

Carlos Silva (15:09.122)
This code is a problem, by itself, because it's old, it's not updated and this can cause confusion. But anyways, it's based on that and the government compares if for those codes what is the dispersion that you may have on each code. So sometimes you have to explain something that is wrong

Emerson Costa (15:11.099)
Old. Yes.

Carlos Silva (15:39.499)
From the basics.

Sean Luitjens (15:41.822)
But if I have that right, Carlos, there, so in the US and in Europe, right? Your equity work is basically an internal labor market analysis. So it doesn't matter about anybody else in theory. It's just you. In Brazil,

Emerson Costa (15:53.973)
You

Carlos Silva (15:57.152)
Exactly, yeah, the same.

Sean Luitjens (16:01.0)
Does that mean that they are comparing your dispersion of how your pay is between gender to everybody else in Brazil to see if you are in line?

Carlos Silva (16:13.038)
No, no, you compare it's internal equity, it's your company only, but you compare for instance, if you have a hundred employees in the code XYZ, that is like an operator of something.

Emerson Costa (16:16.959)
guess.

Carlos Silva (16:36.162)
For this code they analyze if you have differences between men to men, women to women and men to women so they make this analysis but what is the issue that sometimes happens this code XYZ you may put this 100 operators but you have like a mechatron operator that is different from maintenance operator you know it's so you're not that's the point that I say that sometimes they are not comparing apples to apples and.

Sean Luitjens (17:10.398)
Yeah.

Emerson Costa (17:18.153)
Yeah, because it's a conglomerate of job positions. So we have a code with 10, 15 job positions, and then we have men and women. Wow, there's a problem. But if you have a plan, you can show to the government you attach of this report, like explain, like, no, take a look at this job position, this grade, and then the government, it's OK, go ahead.

Sean Luitjens (17:18.194)
Yeah, I think.

Carlos Silva (17:42.04)
Yeah, this is a good point.

Sean Luitjens (17:42.344)
So you could basically defend your cohort, your group of people to the state. I guess that's interesting to me because my record and this is many years ago, helping companies or being involved when they did job matching down there, was it was kind of a once a year, loose matching to surveys, almost in-person thing, and then it goes away. So has that caught up? Because at the basis of pay equity is, don't, I usually, Carlos, I use that example a lot. It's not green apples to red apples anymore. It's not even red apples to red apples. You really start half the measure, you know. Actually, now I don't know. apples to mac apples? Do we have mac apples in Brazil? Gala apples? Red delicious apples?

Emerson Costa (18:27.891)
Mac Apples.

Carlos Silva (18:29.042)
I don't

Emerson Costa (18:32.703)
Yeah, I don't know.

Carlos Silva (18:34.653)
We have a sword that's called Redlicious, yeah, but we have a...

Emerson Costa (18:36.063)
Three, four kinds.

Sean Luitjens (18:38.684)
Yeah, yeah, Red Delicious. Okay, so now I have to know. So you want to compare Red Delicious apples to Red Delicious apples, not to the other three kinds, right? And so have companies, have you been doing a lot of work with companies? And have you seen companies get much better at their job descriptions and job leveling and job architecture?

Carlos Silva (18:46.198)
Exactly. Exactly.

Carlos Silva (18:58.744)
This is a way we have worked and the demand for this sort of projects increased because this is exactly a way that companies can prove that they are really managing compensation, remuneration and their structure. I think this is a...a way at least to say that well we may have differences but we have rules for this they are communicated people know how to move in their position so it's clear for everyone so in this sense I think things are increasing in this area

Emerson Costa (19:55.049)
We have another hot topic here in Brazil, Carlos. Companies that were sued for cartel formation. Have you ever heard about this, Sean? This is good because last week, 33 companies were sued for this kind of a cartel because they chained information and WhatsApp group is open and all these companies know all about them.

Carlos Silva (20:04.653)
Yeah.

Sean Luitjens (20:20.306)
Yeah.

Emerson Costa (20:23.049)
So this is a huge problem because three years ago we had the same problem with the pharma companies here in Brazil. And what do you think Carlos? It's good to explain.

Carlos Silva (20:32.046)
Yeah, yeah it's a it's a in this case it's a group of companies they are formalized and they they are huge companies.

Actually, I know most of the people that are there and we have an organization here. I don't know exactly what would be the comparing in the USA and other countries, but it's a...

It's a government department that approves when you have merger and acquisitions and all these things and they make an analysis if you are compliant to good rules, good behaviors in commercial practices and something like this. What happened three years ago, like Emerson said, is that...

Emerson Costa (21:28.253)
It's called FTC, FTC in America. It's the same of CAD here in Brazil, FTC.

Carlos Silva (21:33.579)
FTC, okay.

Sean Luitjens (21:33.63)
Yeah, I think on our side, the FTC, but the Department of Justice has their rules here on safe harbor anti-collusion. I they like to be called the cartel when companies get together though. That has a thing, but the...

Emerson Costa (21:39.263)
Yes.

Emerson Costa (21:44.777)
Okay.

Sean Luitjens (21:51.678)
Yeah, there's rules here that have been in place. were lightened actually in 2023 around this. But basically the goal of these safe harbor rules, as they're called in compensation in the US, is to keep companies from colluding and setting price. So basically if everyone says here's the median and everyone pays the median, like then the price can't move and employees can't move up.

Emerson Costa (21:58.911)
Mm-hmm.

Emerson Costa (22:08.277)
Ooh.

Emerson Costa (22:13.354)
Yes.

Emerson Costa (22:19.413)
Yeah, it's the same.

Carlos Silva (22:19.628)
Yeah, yeah, yeah, it's it's more or less the same. This started when when this company's investigated by the sort of commercial cartel and they to try to defend themselves they also delivered information that a bunch of companies were doing this sort of practice you know I don't know I know most of these companies I know these groups I don't really think they they have changed such a sensitive information that could really change the market or protect their companies I don't think it's it's something unbelievable that thinking that 30 companies have this power to manipulate the market together. One or two or three companies may happen we don't know but 30 companies come on!

Sean Luitjens (23:27.73)
I think it depends on the role, and I know the government can't manage it this way, but it depends on the roles, right? So if you're in pharma and you have pharmaceutical scientists or laboratory scientists that are very specific to that.

Like then they could control price. For accountants or finance team, if you try to keep price down or artificially, I guess, keep it highs, okay. But if you try to keep price down, people will just leave that industry. It's affordable. But for some of those, I can kind of see it. But we definitely struggle with that in North America with the data.

Carlos Silva (23:59.66)
Yeah, exactly.

Emerson Costa (23:59.924)
Yeah.

Carlos Silva (24:04.886)
Yeah.

Carlos Silva (24:10.144)
Yeah, and this is also a good point because for specific jobs this may happen but you can if you are in a pharmaceutical company you can go for a retail company or construction or chemical or whatever if you're in finance or HR or legal or whatever so I don't think

Sean Luitjens (24:31.198)
Well, I think the other piece of that is I don't know how much you're seeing it, but with transparency and posting jobs, right, the requirement or the willingness to post how much a position is worth, that data is not a secret anymore, right? You have other issues. You know, if I post a job,

Emerson Costa (24:43.059)
Yeah.

Yes.

Sean Luitjens (24:50.078)
for 200,000 Reais and Carlos accepts and Emerson is making for 200,000 to 250,000 Reais and Emerson's making 175, he's gonna be in my office asking what Carlos made. And in the US now there's a lot of transparency laws that allow employees to talk to each other about pay.

Emerson Costa (25:14.943)
Yeah, I think we are far from transparency here. We are talking about equal pay, first of all, but we can see companies, American companies, Carlos, I was seeing some, how can I say, vagus job position open. Yeah, with American companies that they are publishing the salaries. Here at Carrera Miller, for example, we have this.

Sean Luitjens (25:33.253)
Yeah.

Emerson Costa (25:42.549)
all transparency because all the employees know the salary of all the professionals here at Carrera Miller. We have the grades. This is public. But of course, it's not normal. It's not common. you see the Brazilian company, I don't know, 1%, 2%, 3 % are open to see this kind of transparency, 95%. Of course, it's hard to say in percentage, but I think it's when you talk about this here in Brazil, like to open a position and open the seller and forget it because the control is mine. I don't want to share this information because I can manipulate, know, I can persuade you like in this position. So I think we are far from transparency, but the law and the government are pushing with this report like for gender gap and equal pay. So maybe like.

We can see a delay like four or five years when we see some waves in Europe or in America. I don't remember Carlos, but last year was hard. was, I think the first for me that I'm going to the world work rewards like in 22 Atlanta, 23 San Diego. San Diego started to talk about it. And now in Cincinnati.

Maybe for 2027, 2028, maybe we'll see something like this in Brazil.

Sean Luitjens (27:16.072)
So what, actually you guys, I keep forgetting I was with you guys in Cincinnati. What did you see that struck you at World at Work in Cincinnati between vendor services, technology offerings, because it's all there, right? That is different or behind, it's interesting, Emerson, that's the second time I think I've heard you say four or five years behind. You guys tend to trail kind of the US, not by much, maybe enough.

Carlos Silva (27:16.142)
Yeah.

Emerson Costa (27:39.765)
Mm-hmm.

Emerson Costa (27:45.407)
Mm-hmm.

Sean Luitjens (27:46.026)
if we do things right and then fix the things we did wrong. It's good to be four five years behind. But what did you see as the biggest differences potentially?

Emerson Costa (27:49.545)
Yeah.

Emerson Costa (27:57.053)
I don't know, Carlos, but it's not something like when you... Now like, wow, the America is so... In front of the Brazil or... Like I told you about this transparency and equal panic, we are going to this. It's not something new. Of course, Carlos, we have a group of companies that go to the US and they are sharing all the...the steps that we have here Brazil because they have another subsidiaries in another countries. We are talking about a small group of companies that talk too much about this. But if you think about the Brazilian companies, like the small and medium companies, my God, I think this Congress will be very, very futuristic or something. But I'm trying to explain with my eyes.

And during all these days, Carlos, in G3, Emerson, Carrera, Miller, doing these, like every day we're talking about this. We're looking for these, and it's not something new. Like, I don't know, Carlos, do you have another opinion or?

Carlos Silva (29:12.664)
Yeah, I was really curious this year seeing how companies are providing easier ways to analyze data. I have seen this increasing a lot.

Carlos Silva (29:35.104)
all the putting all together in the same system and having the ability to make the analysis. I think this is a great step that we will need very soon, starting with this topics of pay transparency and pay equity. This will be really fantastic to have and having insights on that and understanding the data and making the pre-visibility, I don't know if the word is really right, but making the...making the preview that you can take from the information you have inside. I think AGR is far behind. We have seen marketing, commercial, finance, years ahead.

Emerson Costa (30:22.901)
Mm-hmm.

Carlos Silva (30:35.361)
Having the information, understanding the client, the behaviors and so on but when we go through HR we are far behind and what I've seen that this is increasing we are moving faster than we used to do and this I think will help a lot other thing that I saw that is somehow different here some benefits that are being provided in the US you have providers there that I haven't seen or at least not much here in Brazil for instance fertilization like

Carlos Silva (31:27.214)
Elder care, yeah, to take care of your parents for instance, know, yeah, yeah,

Emerson Costa (31:29.363)
Elder.

Emerson Costa (31:34.861)
this is...

Sean Luitjens (31:35.43)
Vovo, Vovo, Vova.

Carlos Silva (31:38.638)
Yeah, exactly. Fovó e vovó. Yeah, grandpa, grandma. Yeah, and this sort of... I think you are a way ahead in the... When you think about the employee experience, when you think about the work-life balance and something, I think we have something to learn.

Emerson Costa (31:38.759)
I got it.

Emerson Costa (32:03.594)
Yeah.

Sean Luitjens (32:04.22)
It's interesting. don't know. I would push back on work-life balance. I think the measurement of it and some of the things offered, but I don't know. I would argue work-life balance in general, I've seen at least the people I know, it's better in Brazil.

Emerson Costa (32:19.807)
Yeah, I agree, Sean. I was like, Americans say about work-life balance is something like performance all the time, to work a lot. I have a friend in Atlanta and my God, to talk with him is so hard because 7 a.m. and 8 p.m. during the, hey man, you need to stop just a little, please. And Emerson forget it, this is America, it's another way.

Sean Luitjens (32:44.894)
I think culturally, I'm a work-life blend, so I'll start early and I'll go late, but I'll leave in the middle of the day. I think the biggest difference is on holiday. Unless I'm out where there's no signal or I'm out doing something, I check in. When people I know, even friends, go out and are in Brazil, and they go out.

Emerson Costa (32:54.933)
Mm-hmm.

Sean Luitjens (33:07.73)
Bye, like, they're gone. So I think that ability to reset, and actually I would say it's not just the employee's ability to reset, but the company's willingness, or just that's the culture, that when Emerson goes on vacation, we're not going to reach out to Emerson or require him to be around. That's a key differentiator.

Emerson Costa (33:27.241)
Mm-hmm.

Sean Luitjens (33:30.724)
Do you think, Carlos, that the use of technology, you think they're also three to five years behind in Brazil, like it's coming? Are they open to using more than Excel?

Emerson Costa (33:30.826)
Yeah.

Carlos Silva (33:42.242)
Yeah, absolutely, absolutely. I think it's a need. that, you know, Excel? It's something that I think we are really used to have it. And I think we need to...

Emerson Costa (33:43.412)
Yeah.

Carlos Silva (34:02.456)
To have more flexibility in some systems and in analysis and making it to skip from Excel because you know we can talk a lot about the way that you may waste time and the data may not be accurate and something. But end of the day is like, you know, it's the easier way, it's the quickest way and you just put a spreadsheet and move on.

Sean Luitjens (34:34.558)
Yeah, I think to me, I think the biggest difference is what you said, but also the ability to be more creative with your plan and be more specific to every individual formulaically, because you can't do it in Excel because then you get errors. You can't run as many simulations. So if you're a consultant and you want to say here are four different models, like it's a lot of work to do. And then how did you do? I think the other piece, Carlos, that

Emerson Costa (34:54.293)
Mm-hmm.

Sean Luitjens (35:01.81)
People don't do because in Excel it's hard to then look three and six and nine months later and say we had a plan, did the plan work, you know, and actually have data and put it back and put it to your point, put it together. Cause there's a lot, you know, there's a lot going on there.

Carlos Silva (35:09.815)
Mm-hmm.

Carlos Silva (35:19.482)
It starts with the database that you have that you may have errors and changes through time to time and you just lose the history of that and you know absolutely

Sean Luitjens (35:32.318)
What's interesting, because at the base of everything you said, I would say the problems are basically the same. You might be three to four to five years behind, it's job architecture, having the right data, all that, and then looking to the tools. I want to spend a couple of minutes, Carlos, as we kind of get here. And you've been doing the, and actually, Emerson, I know you've been around him, the Forma, and talk about kind of Forma and world at work.

Brazil because I think that's interesting. I don't know that there's anything like it in other places.

Carlos Silva (36:03.09)
yeah, absolutely. Well, we started Forma five years ago, by the way, this November we are celebrating five years when we started representing Word at Work in Brazil, so...

What we are doing here is offering all CCP and GRP courses. So we make all the certification in Portuguese with Brazilian professors. They are all.

By WorldatWork so and they can they can go through the the same process to have the certification but in Portuguese making online virtual courses we can we make virtual courses and also yeah this is the

Emerson Costa (36:55.257)
And in Reaise, this is good because it's not if you convert the conversion is not so good in dollars for us in Reaise.

Carlos Silva (37:04.5)
Exactly.

Sean Luitjens (37:04.51)
But also I'd imagine the legislative courses and the regulatory courses are Brazilian specific.

Carlos Silva (37:13.344)
Yeah, yeah, it's a little bit different. Yeah, we don't go through American legislations more

Brazilian legislation, but you know, it's like It's basically one course that is a little bit different all others are Exactly the same content. So we have the same and who certifies is where that works So we do all the process here But but the certification is just like the same as you take it in the US or or any other country in English

Sean Luitjens (37:21.564)
Yeah, yeah.

Sean Luitjens (37:50.375)
Okay, how many companies, how many members?

Carlos Silva (37:50.424)
Basically this and very soon

Carlos Silva (37:57.027)
We have already around a hundred members more or less but we're increasing the number of certified people and we have around a couple of hundreds of students having the courses here so it's been really really good and for the total rewards. We always take the the Brazilians every year there. This year we had 34 people going from Brazil to the conference and hopefully in Orlando we will have a bigger number.

Emerson Costa (38:40.063)
More than a hundred. Orlando man, Brazilian, it's a Brazilian land.

Sean Luitjens (38:45.103)
Two things on that. That means each one of them can bring four, five, or six 200 milliliter bottles of Guadana.

Carlos Silva (38:55.315)
Yeah!

Emerson Costa (38:55.463)
Wow! Transportation, yeah. We think about a boat.

Carlos Silva (38:58.956)
Yeah. We will ship it to you.

Sean Luitjens (39:03.162)
so actually for those, for those watching, one of things we're going to do, think it will work. is we're going to have a joint podcast. can you pronounce it? Cause my Portuguese is off. Emerson, name of your podcast, the Quinto.

Emerson Costa (39:18.389)
Quinto dia útil. But you say good. Like, say quinto dia útil.

Sean Luitjens (39:21.514)
Yeah, so we're gonna kind of share do our podcast their podcast kind of have a booth and do a bunch of that so if people are interested make sure you check it out or you know You know can share your thoughts or if you have something cool going on the question I ask everybody at the end as we go if if you could auto magically Auto-magic a blended two words auto-magical

Emerson Costa (39:49.853)
Auto... I don't know. Auto-magic. Auto-magic.

Sean Luitjens (39:53.118)
Automatic, Como seria?

Carlos Silva (39:55.652)
To make something automatic

Sean Luitjens (39:58.172)
Yeah, if you could automatically fix one thing in human resources, what would it be? Just magically wave a wand.

Emerson Costa (40:03.743)
Ooh.

Carlos Silva (40:05.389)
People. People.

Emerson Costa (40:07.327)
People!

Sean Luitjens (40:08.947)
Both of you said people. What do mean people?

Emerson Costa (40:11.093)
No, it's like Freud. Freud tells us that we have just three things that we can control. It's time, nature and people. So if you can do something with these, have like a third of problems is solved.

Sean Luitjens (40:27.864)
That's kind of deep for me, Emerson. Is there one? How about you, Carlos?

Carlos Silva (40:34.798)
I was joking about people, but I in human nature we have a big field to go. But I would say communication. I think communication. think this is something that...is one of the top issues in HR that, you know, doesn't matter if you're talking about remuneration, if you're talking about leadership development, feedback or whatever, but I think we have a big way to fix communication and make it better and avoid some bias and something. Yeah.

Sean Luitjens (41:26.344)
Yeah, I think I've been speaking a lot about that. And I think for two reasons, I think pay equity and transparency. You're going to have to communicate because now people will know. So you can't hide behind the numbers and nobody will know the numbers. I think the other thing it's interesting I hadn't thought about it Emerson until he just said that was one of the departments in every company they have that I don't think enough total rewards professionals leverage is marketing.

Emerson Costa (41:26.773)
Good.

Emerson Costa (41:36.885)
Mm-hmm.

Sean Luitjens (41:55.014)
And Emerson is proof you can teach marketing people some compensation. And so I jokingly, I can't say this with a straight face with you on here, Emerson, is a lot of times at conferences I talk about.

Emerson Costa (41:55.23)
Yeah.

Emerson Costa (41:59.882)
Yeah.

Sean Luitjens (42:08.218)
leveraging marketing, but also if you can get the marketing team to understand it because they're not compensation people, you've broken it down to the human level because regular employees are not compensation people. And you two bonuses working with marketing people. And I forgot that you came from marketing.

Emerson Costa (42:13.204)
Yes.

Emerson Costa (42:20.649)
Yes.

Emerson Costa (42:26.505)
Yeah, I did my application for the rewards 25. I showed Carlos yesterday. Carlos, I don't know, man, because the point is this, like when marketing meets HR, this combination, my 11 years, I'm feeling that this is the point. Go ahead, Emerson, because I think we have a huge land to conquer, is it?

Conquire. I think this is good for...

Sean Luitjens (42:58.034)
Yeah. And I think to be fair, people who started in Total Rewards more than four or five years ago, you got in and you didn't think you were going have to deal with all the communications necessarily. And so you were in it for the numbers and the strategy and the figuring it out and all the math that comes with it. And all of a sudden you're like, you also have to communicate. And those two skills, and I'm good example of it, I'm a math and development nerd, having good communication skills don't always go hand in hand. And so I think it's a...

Emerson Costa (43:04.852)
Mm-hmm.

Emerson Costa (43:12.33)
Hehe.

Sean Luitjens (43:27.014)
I do think it's a great one, Carlos, actually, to bring up that sometimes gets forgotten within the tech and the numbers. Well, thanks so much. Thanks for speaking English. We proved and we're going prove again that your English is far superior than my Portuguese when I was in Cincinnati.

Carlos Silva (43:37.9)
you

Carlos Silva (43:44.228)
No, we tried. We tried. Hopefully the audience can understand us.

Emerson Costa (43:46.548)
Yeah.

Sean Luitjens (43:50.994)
No, it was very good. It's super great. And as I mentioned, they'll be in Orlando. We'll be setting up shop together. If people have questions, we'll put links on for both firms if they have questions about not only Brazil, but Latin America actually. The expertise isn't just Brazilian. We just picked on Brazil. And thanks so much, guys, for being on.

Emerson Costa (44:08.273)
Mm-hmm. I love it. Thank you so much,

Carlos Silva (44:10.478)
It was a pleasure. Thank you.