Totally Rewarding Chats | Ep. 26: The EU Directive from a Swiss Perspective

Expert advice on pay transparency and the EU Directive

In this conversation, Sean Luitjens speaks with Rachel Gibbs from Merities Consulting about the critical topic of pay transparency and equity, especially in light of the upcoming European Pay Transparency Directive. They discuss the definitions of pay equity and transparency, the importance of job leveling, the consequences of non-compliance, and the role of technology in facilitating these processes.

Rachel emphasizes the need for companies to start preparing now, the challenges of data collection, and the significance of effective communication strategies. The conversation concludes with advice for HR professionals on understanding business dynamics and the importance of being proactive in addressing pay equity issues.

In this episode:

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

• Guest, Rachel Gibbs, Reward Consultant, Merities Consulting

Episode transcript:

Sean Luitjens (00:00.542)
All right, we have another totally rewarding chat session about to get started. We have Rachel Gibbs from Merite's Consulting. How are you?

Rachel Gibbs (00:09.566)
Good thank you, great to meet you and thank you for this opportunity to talk about pay transparency.

Sean Luitjens (00:14.048)
See, you know you love the stuff when you're like it's an opportunity to talk about page transparency. Where are you dialing in from, as we'll call it today?

Rachel Gibbs (00:18.734)
Yeah, just a bit, yeah.

Rachel Gibbs (00:25.814)
I'm in the centre of Europe in Switzerland between Zurich and Lucerne.

Sean Luitjens (00:30.728)
I like how you, because you could tell I'm American, you had to tell me where Switzerland was. That's probably not unfair. That's probably not unfair. It is one of my favorite places, but I like how you took that preemptive strike for us. Just so I don't, you know, kind of have to go back through your background and get it the right way, wrong way. Can you go back and give us your elevator pitch on where you're at now and how you got there and how many floors you need to do that?

Rachel Gibbs (00:36.662)
I did not, I don't know.

Rachel Gibbs (00:45.024)
Thank

Rachel Gibbs (00:59.554)
Thanks, sure. I run Merities Consultancy. We specialise in pay transparency and pay equity, getting clients ready, principally for the European Pay Transparency Directive. That's a big piece of legislation coming through in the next 18 months now. And it's a topic I'm really passionate about. I started my career a long time ago doing tax, moved across into Comp and Bend and really found my niche here in pay transparency ensuring that there's pay equity across all areas within corporate employers. So yeah, really passionate about it.

Sean Luitjens (01:38.73)
That's awesome. I did not know you were from tax. So congratulations for escaping. So the one thing I usually ask, you know, some hobbies, you know, hobbies prove to us you're a human outside of doing pay transparency and equity work.

Rachel Gibbs (01:42.816)
Yeah.

Rachel Gibbs (01:55.788)
I think this is the real reason I'm in Switzerland is I love hiking, love swimming in the lakes in the summer, cycling and snowshoeing in the winter. I'm from the UK and it's less easy to do those from your doorstep in the UK. So that's what keeps me here. It's fantastic scenery and ability to do so much outdoors. That's really what I love.

Sean Luitjens (02:18.848)
So we'll have to add, I think early next year I want to do a panel of people who get outside and talk about work-life balance and basically I'm a child who plays outside all the time too basically so I'm totally with you and Switzerland is such a, it's basically an outdoor playground. The hardest part about living there is deciding what you're gonna go do outside.

Rachel Gibbs (02:34.435)
Yeah.

Rachel (02:39.742)
That's true, but the weather determines most of that and the snow conditions, that makes a big difference. As I learnt, having come from the UK where snow is a hobby and everything stops, schools, transport and here everything carries on but you just have to be careful and it's quite different.

Sean Luitjens (02:56.477)
Yeah, I'm sure. I know from the UK, the world stops with an inch of snow. So the way I've started with everybody who's in pay equity and transparency is in your own words, can you kind of define the difference between pay equity and pay transparency or what each one is in your mind, however you want to tackle that?

Rachel Gibbs (03:02.072)
Yeah.

Rachel Gibbs (03:17.504)
Yeah, for me pay transparency is about a level of open discussion around how pay decisions are made. It doesn't necessarily mean that everyone has the same level of information. I don't necessarily need to know what my peers or my boss are earning, but I certainly know enough to understand how those decisions have been made to determine their pay in my own. So that's pay transparency. Pay equity is about being paid according to the work I do, work of equal value across the organisation and going back to pay transparency, understanding how that's come at. So again, it's not about a communist system where everyone's paid the same, it's about recognising fundamental differences, qualifications, skills, experience, which are gender neutral but...

But they're not, that's the point, is they're based around gender neutral work related factors rather than personal factors, which I can't change.

Sean Luitjens (04:23.178)
So I might actually steal that somewhere here. I think the recognized differences in a gender neutral fashion is what I might steal. I don't know if it came out exactly that way, but that's what in my mind I just took from that is, you know, there are differences and that's not what we're trying to get to. We're not trying to get to every role pays exactly the same for the job, but recognize the differences.

Sean Luitjens (04:49.056)
So you mentioned that EU, so one of the reasons didn't talk to you, it is less than two years away. It is coming soon and depending where you are, between one and four comp cycles away, depending how you phrase that as well. So if a company gives you a call now and says, want to start looking at this because we're scared the calendar's coming quick, where do you typically start with companies in trying to get this done the best way possible?

Rachel Gibbs (05:19.342)
There's a few key stages to it. One, and we've touched on it already, one is about a job levelling process to make sure that you understand where your jobs are similar. And then there's a question of doing pay equity to look internally and make sure that you're paying fairly across the job functions and the job levels. then the big worry is the communication piece, particularly at the moment where you're heading to a particular deadlock line and you have to kind of get the factors in place in time and that's quite a big piece of work. Getting line managers ready, getting employees ready so they understand the background and the theories and within the directive there's also a role for a workers representative.

This is someone who's an intermediary between the employer and the employee to manage these conversations and there's a big community piece for that group because they're slightly niche and they're going to have more access or better more detailed access to more confidential information so getting that group ready so it's it's not insignificant.

Sean Luitjens (06:32.33)
So it sounds like a lot of work. And before we start to the work for those Americans there, can you summarize what the penalty phase or the downside or the ramifications might look for? Because there's the obvious, we need to pay people the right way for doing the same jobs because we're just good humans, But assuming you don't play along or don't meet the deadlines, if you can quickly summarize what that looks like.

Rachel Gibbs (06:58.872)
Yeah, there are a couple of reporting elements. One is around, I can request to know where I sit in the job in the salary band and I can get that for averages by male and female also in the same salary bands as me.

If I don't meet those deadlines, there's penalties and fines for missing that deadline. There's also gender pay gap reporting and many companies have come across this already in Europe. this will be across the levels again and also through the whole organisation. And if you don't have, if you have more than a 5 % difference within those job level, gender pay gaps by levels, then you potentially have to go to joint pay assessment.

If, I mean the worst case on the reporting element is fines and penalties. It's really where an employee raises a claim and then two things are important there. One is that the onus is on the company now to prove it's paid fairly and my experience certainly here and in the UK is it's the other way around. The employee has to prove they've been discriminated against and the fines are unlimited. They include interest, of income, loss of opportunities and yeah, so it can get very expensive and to put it in context, there have been cases in the UK and there's one ongoing at the moment around fair pay with the retailer called Next.

and that covers three and a half thousand people and it's 31 million pounds is the cost of the company's incurring. Another one is a council in the UK, similar issue, equal pay and that's 1.5 billion and these numbers become eye-watering after a while, particularly if you've got a large head count.

Sean Luitjens (09:01.184)
Yeah, which is why I think that was more for, to be honest, the non-Europeans because I think the numbers that are already out there are already staggering. The one piece we'll kind just since you mentioned it, I don't know how we'll get, instead of looping back and trusting myself to remember, the 5 % pay gap. So in some locations that's raw pay gap and in some place that's adjusted pay gap via regression, right?

Where do you think that's going to end up? And I'll let you kind of wax on that. My thinking is we're going to end up with regression everywhere because the numbers are so massive. So next, for example, that number might become smaller via regression or the 5%. You know, they might get inside the 5 % threshold with that and there's going to be legal precedent. But right now it's not. So I don't know what your thoughts are around that.

Rachel Gibbs (09:52.074)
Exactly what you said that there's no precedent. We're still waiting for almost all the legislation to come out and Brussels one area in Belgium Brussels and surrounding area have adopted the Directive and we've had legislation come through in Sweden but these these points actually on in there in that level of detail Which is a pity because it is the sort of stuff that people are waiting for I mean your worst case scenario is unregressed and but then realistically you can't run a business without some factors in there to give you some flexibility.

Sean Luitjens (10:32.711)
Yeah, and that's why I think the legal is going to catch up. I the one I use, for example, in the US a lot is, you know, it's 250 employees or more. But where are those employees? Is it by country? it by... And so it's, you know, even to your point, the legislation hasn't caught up. You just know within a couple of years, you know, you need to be prepared as you go. So the baseline, which we've talked about a lot on here, so the job leveling piece, and so your organization helps companies tackle that and how long does it usually take them to go through that process knowing that they have to create this probably a little more in depth to create cohorts or et cetera. It's got to be a little more correct I guess.

Rachel Gibbs (11:15.618)
Yeah, I've done it in a weekend with a very small organisation. The longest I've taken is about 18 months. Realistically, that's...

undesirable in the current environment. It really depends and also you can simplify it by taking a number of spot positions, key positions within your organisation. Obviously you have the CEO, his or her direct reports and then underneath that some critical positions for this purpose and then you sort of match around it so you can do it a lot more quickly than 18 months for sure. But that's, I think that was the most detailed one I ever came across.

Thanks

Sean Luitjens (11:57.044)
And are you seeing more companies use third parties to do this because I've kind of joked the comp or total rewards teams usually aren't underworked anywhere I've talked to so are you seeing them now lean into third parties to deal with the job leveling because it just takes time that they don't have?

Rachel Gibbs (12:15.232)
Yeah, that's true. And the other thing I've seen, is that companies have done this work 18 months, two, three years ago, and then they've done nothing with it. So they've kind of got to pick it back up off the shelf. And one thing they're missing is the opportunity to embed this in the organization and getting governance right around pay transparency two years, three years after the directive comes in, the companies are managing this on an easy basis but it's not all falling apart around the pay equity elements is really critical and I don't think so many companies are focusing on this. There's this kind of blinkered view of getting the directive in and done and then very little thought given to what's happening beyond that.

Sean Luitjens (12:59.272)
In your take, do you suggest companies hire, I mean obviously you're a third party, and I have a view, which I know folks have heard, but do you suggest as people go through this first process, in Europe in particular, because maybe it changes for the US, that they use a third party, especially on the legal front?

Rachel Gibbs (13:19.046)
I would say that yes. I think if you're a small organisation and you have access to good processes through, I'm thinking say of a non-profit and within that non-profit environment there are access to robust systems to support you then there's no reason why you should involve a third party. could do it if you've got 30, 40 employees you could probably do it yourself if you have the confidence. Once you get above a thousand employees it gets much harder and particularly if you've got multi-jurisdictional locations as well. think it's much harder. So yes, I think it is necessary to get extra support.

Sean Luitjens (13:57.012)
Okay, yeah, I mean, that's kind of my opinion. I think the confidentiality of having, and this might be an American view of having legal counsel as you go through and find things out for the first time. That's really important because you don't want that to be public or someone to go out and make it public because you have some time to fix it. And so the problem that you first have, you know, could be not good. And you want to keep that kind of, you know, under wraps until you start working the problem.

So from the time that you start leveling and going through and you run the process, you put them in cohorts and then you run your regression, et cetera, how long does that usually take you to give the company an answer around kind of, hey, here's where you are and here's where your problems are?

Rachel Gibbs (14:44.77)
Yeah, I...

It depends on the question, very roughly it would take a couple of months, not necessarily, definitely not daily activities, but just being on the sides and supporting. the process set up at the beginning well and then supporting through the job levelling, through the pay equity pieces and then supporting with coms and then pay governance after that. So yeah, it can be done relatively quickly, depend on your employee numbers and the jurisdictions you're in.

Sean Luitjens (15:20.202)
So let's talk about though the one step that I would consider in between. So we've got our job levels, we've gone through and know, high nerd factor on what type of regression modeling we want done all that work, done our results and got those out. The remediation piece. So what are some keys when you're talking about organizations and how they remediate over what period of time do they do it with or without their current comp planning cycle, is separate and intermixed the two. What have you seen there around remediation?

Rachel Gibbs (15:54.796)
Yeah, I've seen it. I've seen a couple of well, there's a very public one where they actually reduced male salaries to get the funds to uplift the female salaries and that's the BBC in the UK. And that caused a lot of upset for obvious reasons, but they did. They did do it.

Sean Luitjens (16:12.552)
I have never heard of that. actually am going to have to change my entire spiel when I'm out speaking to associations that I have never heard of anyone reducing pay. So now there's one. Yes.

Rachel Gibbs (16:24.142)
really? Yeah yeah, there it is. Where's my book? I can't find my book now. Yeah, it went down badly. It went down really badly. I'll send you the links. It's like carry.

Sean Luitjens (16:36.416)
Okay, yeah, that's, that's, I can't, well, to be fair, guess that's how I would have expected it to go. That's why I've seen it. No one's done it. I like, can't imagine it went well. so, okay.

Rachel Gibbs (16:49.294)
I'll send you the link afterwards because I have got a poorly memory. The others I've seen are struggling with budgets. I know of one case of a Swiss based company where line managers said we haven't got the money to do a salary round and do pay remediation. So they had a separate budget for that. But that's not that often. Most are just struggling with the budgets they're god.

Sean Luitjens (17:17.312)
And from a timing standpoint, I know it's a little bit of it depends, but the reality with the with the directive coming, do you suggest they tackle it soon or do you try to remediate over two, three, four pay cycles?

Rachel Gibbs (17:33.634)
The challenge is that if you try and remediate now...

and you do one lump sum, to those people who've been underpaid, it sends a very clear signal that something was wrong. And I do know of someone who got 100 % uplift when the gender pay gap was introduced in the, gender pay gap reporting was introduced in the UK, and she happily took it, but she did have question marks about it. So in an ideal world, you just smooth that through and do exceptional increases on a regular basis, you know, as the pay review goes through years I think we may find that some companies struggle for time.

Sean Luitjens (18:14.72)
little bias on that front from the standpoint and we can talk about where else you see tech because I think tech has a lot of places in here but it also has a lot of not places or places where you can't just lean 100 % into tech but the ability to set up your merit matrix based on performance and position in range

Rachel Gibbs (18:34.221)
Yeah.

Sean Luitjens (18:35.462)
and basically tackle the first cycle or two. So one of the things I've talked about is moving from an annual cycle to two or three or four cycles, because you can kind of hide that money to your point of it doesn't look as bad as one lump sum if it comes to little pieces. It's small pieces of excitement versus one large question mark. But the other piece is if I do adverse position and range, if by default women were lower in the range for that same performance, you'll continue to throw money at them.

Rachel Gibbs (18:54.754)
Yeah.

Sean Luitjens (19:04.392)
before you get to a point at which you'll have to do it. You you're going to get towards the finish line and have to cover that at some point, but you can basically create a wide spread and still give men something pretty close to red circling, but not. But that's one place where I think tech can really help because it's not tenable to do that for every person in a thousand, a 5,000, 10,000 person shop without tech. Are there other areas where you've seen technology really be helpful?

Rachel Gibbs (19:26.284)
No, absolutely.

Sean Luitjens (19:31.73)
specifically in pay equity where they might not have been used before.

Rachel Gibbs (19:36.664)
I think what I'm seeing, and you'll be closer to this than me, is kind of bringing it all together. So kind of having that whole overview from job leveling, or starting with job descriptions, job leveling, benchmark data where needed, and then internal equities as well. And all that piece across the whole tech piece is really, for some companies, is probably too simplistic because you're kind of streamlining the whole thing and you're dependent on one provider for instance but sometimes it gives you a good overview and a simple overview sometimes.

Sean Luitjens (20:16.22)
Have you seen companies struggle to pull the data in? Because I think that's the other piece, right? So with this unknown aspect, specifically in Europe, in my mind, you you could have companies of not a huge size, know, thousand employees or less in 10, 12 countries. And how have you seen them trying to tackle that issue of just getting all my roles and getting all my data in one place, including pay?

Rachel Gibbs (20:42.06)
Yeah, I did a case study with Novo Nordisk and they'd taken a good while to get all their base pay together and then to then move on and collect what the European Union called complementary, which you and I know as benefits. Collecting that data was the next element and also then the variable, which hopefully should be easier because it's share plans and incentives. But when you start to add in commissions, it starts to get a bit messy. But yes, that whole area is taking a lot. They're a big organisation but others are in similar situations.

Sean Luitjens (21:17.448)
Is the current, is it one year total cash for the current mandate or is it the directive? Is it one year total cash or is it just base pay?

Rachel Gibbs (21:29.454)
Base pay, basic pay, which is then country by country based on the local legislation and then variable and then complementary.

Sean Luitjens (21:37.834)
Yeah.

Sean Luitjens (21:44.808)
And do you see, I mean, this is the other place where I think legal precedence is going to catch up, right? So those who want to be biased will be biased and do bad things. And so if I get the base pay set, but you and I are equal performers and I decide that since I'm an old, older white male, that I'm going to get more shares than you, or I'm going to get a larger bonus because there's management discretion involved. You know, do you see legislation catching that up over time?

Rachel Gibbs (21:49.294)
Yeah.

Rachel Gibbs (22:13.612)
I think so and unless it's an organisation, you know, we have a robust system and your performance is outstripping mine and you know, there is a good solid reason why you've got more share awards than me. If those are in place then there's no argument. It's having that robustness and clarity of decisions rather than just, quite like you more than I like the other person.

Sean Luitjens (22:40.478)
Yeah, well, the unexplained pay gap, mean, unexplained is a politically correct term, but it's the unexplained pay gap, which is bias effect. also think there's, I do think some of the pay equity and the pay equity work is going to help managers as well with things like the recency effect, where Sean hasn't done a good job for 10 months, but the last two months I finally did a good job.

Rachel Gibbs (22:46.04)
Yeah.

Sean Luitjens (23:07.07)
And so in my mind, he did a good job, but you can get rid of some of that because Rachel might be a good performer throughout the year and we shouldn't actually have the same performance rating if we have some solid tools, et cetera. And so it all comes kind of come back to, I think with this all measuring, well, what is the same work in same performance? There's still some fundamental issues there. And just like,

Rachel Gibbs (23:25.186)
Yep. Yep.

Sean Luitjens (23:30.464)
Just like the merit process, managers aren't dumb. And I think we're going to have to try to keep up with them as they try to game the system that are on performance or around OKRs or whatever it is.

Rachel Gibbs (23:43.79)
candidates as well, that's the other thing that will be an impact. There's a lot of evidence from academia that I come to you, you tell me what the range is and I say, yeah, but how about you give me this on the side and this and this, little goodies to kind of attract me and you want the candidate because they're really going to make a difference and it's hard to say no, but this is going to be a tension and that's why I'm saying trying to provide some governance upfront will help manage that longer term.

Sean Luitjens (24:12.032)
Yeah, I think even some common practices where, you know, if I'm at 100 % range penetration, right, I'm at the top of the range, I don't give a merit increase, I give a bonus that year, right, until my ranges change. That's really my salary for that year is just not to change and that's not going to be tracked in here. And so, you know, the ability to kind of do that still is going to have issues until we can track all that.

So I think there's gonna be, I think it's great. I think it's just gonna be, you're gonna have gaming the system on one side and you're just gonna have the fundamental, do I track all this and actually do the math correctly? And I think the last thing I'd be curious, not the last thing for you, but the other piece of this that I'd be curious about is how are you educating HR teams and total rewards teams around the regression process and what it means, because it's not basic math you know, it's not overly complex, but are you seeing them struggle with a little bit of a black box going, you know, data going in and data coming out?

Rachel Gibbs (25:09.778)
Absolutely and I think there's also a distrust because you kind of feel like this is the data I saw and this is the data you've got now and how have you got there and until you start to personalise that data process, it takes quite a leap of imagination or statistical comfort to really do it sometimes. So yeah, sometimes trying to personalise it and take an individual and show them how they were impacted by regression is a real key way of getting that done.

Sean Luitjens (25:41.428)
Yeah, I think that really struck me the last couple of weeks where it sounds like the worst conversation ever for probably some people, but, you know, talking to someone about, you know, log linear versus like Blender, Oaxaca and the differences. And then you realize that's two statistical nerds, you know, working through this and the complexities of it. And if I'm a person that's running comp for, you know, 750 person shop somewhere, like they want to feel comfortable about it's defensible because they're then going to make paid decisions based on this. And so how do they get their head around that?

Rachel Gibbs (26:11.618)
Yeah, absolutely. Yeah, it's tricky.

Sean Luitjens (26:13.632)
So moving to the last piece, which I think it's going to be, what are the big communication items you're really getting companies to get their heads around and how do you see them best tackling that? Because this is, I'm old enough to remember, at least in the US, where you couldn't talk about pay. Like as an employee, you just couldn't. And so it's very interesting now where companies and compensation professionals who didn't have to deal with this are now in charge of communication.

Sean Luitjens (26:38.922)
What are you seeing as the two, three, four key critical items?

Rachel Gibbs (26:44.802)
Yeah, this, think it's interesting. One of the key items is this desire to ask people what they're currently earning at interview. And that's no longer going to be possible to record people's salary history. And Novartis, a Swiss-based company, it took them three years to get that out of the recruitment process. And that's one company that really concentrated on it. And I think...

Moving that mindset is going to be very hard because I think it is your starting point for any negotiation It won't be it shouldn't be but that's the reality is people are used to practices like that. So that would be one way I think as well when you start to have line manager discussions the first thing up for me is to remember that line managers are employees first and you know, the first question they'll ask themselves is, okay, so what, how does this affect me? And if you can't answer that question before you start trying to train them, you lose them and it's a waste of everybody's time.

So that kind of doing the employee first bit before you do the line manager response and then giving them tools to to empower them. Because I don't know about you, my experience of the worst answer is HR told me to tell you this. And it doesn't help anyone. It's keeping that cabinet responsibility within the line manager group so that they understand and can have coherent discussions. So those are some of the things I've come across. Try and get the best for employees and for everyone concerned.

Sean Luitjens (28:24.082)
I think for me, like hearing you say that, guess, and it's probably better said than I've said it, is their employees first. Because I usually say they weren't hired for that reason, right? So actually they're an employee for something else. I don't think most employees enjoy or want to have a pay discussion in their entire life.

So I think the communication is a huge opportunity actually too to help managers where in the past there was a 20 page PowerPoint given many weeks away and then given a blank slate to give out merit. And I think doing it very formulaically and communicating the strategy inside of the tools that they have and not just saying HR said so.

But if HR communicates out to all employees that this is our pay philosophy, and it's when they talk and say, you know what, Rachel, this is your performance, this is where you were in the range, which is now all fair, right? Now you can actually tell people that because it used to be a no. And here's your increase because of that. And here's your bonus, which is calculated this way. I think it takes some of that pressure off of them while still throwing comp under the bus at some level because they came up with a strategy, right?

Rachel Gibbs (29:30.86)
Yep.

Sean Luitjens (29:33.632)
And so I think that's actually going to be really good. The other thing I'd be curious if you've suggested or talked to is I've suggested to a lot of companies they go to their marketing department. One reason being serious and one joking. The joking reason being if marketing can understand what you're saying, everyone can.

Rachel Gibbs (29:52.366)
Mmm.

Sean Luitjens (29:53.14)
you know, because they're not in comp and, you know, they're all the, you know, people out there in the marketing. But the other thing is they are very well versed in writing and communicating something in a very short amount of time because that's their goal. And so if you can get them on board to help you, they're literally inside your company and that's their job to do that. And so, you know, starting to leverage that at least as a run buyer to clean things up.

Rachel Gibbs (30:15.658)
Yeah, that's a really great tip. I hadn't thought about it, and I'm sure as you say, and also just what you've touched on, having that feedback and conversations with people because I know from my own experience, I've done this a couple of times, you make assumptions, make, and we've talked about regression now, so we're in our own little world and we think these things everyone understands.

Sean Luitjens (30:36.681)
Yeah.

Rachel Gibbs (30:37.132)
And then you start to talk to people and they're like, what is she on about? having, know, the more you talk to people, the more you realise how little you understand that they need to know and kind of moving that forward. So yeah, it's a really great tip.

Sean Luitjens (30:50.26)
Well, you know, I think it's, you're in Switzerland, you might be multilingual, right? So, you know, you have to be multilingual between comp and normal human being, I think, is what's gonna end up happening here because the pay equity piece is actually pretty complex when you start talking about how many standard deviations and the regression models and all that. And you do have to translate that down to somebody who really wants to tackle this once or twice a year are new. So I like though that I might steal that one as well. They're an employee first actually for something else. So I guess two quick last questions. So the first I guess one would just be any quick advice out there is when to get started or how to get started. Words of advice for anybody pondering this?

Rachel Gibbs (31:41.055)
I would say get started as soon as you possibly can. wouldn't wait till the deadline's in the calendar for the year. Get going now and make it a smoother process as you can because teams are already overstretched and they're not sitting around on a bank waiting for work to come in. I think that would be my big tip. Just get going.

Sean Luitjens (32:07.296)
Okay, and then the last thing I ask everybody doesn't have to be pay equity or pay transparency. If you could automagically fix one thing in HR, what would you tackle first? The wave of wand, I guess.

Rachel Gibbs (32:20.45)
Yeah, I don't think HR gets the respect it deserves. And one of the reasons it doesn't get that respect is because it doesn't understand the cost of people and the dynamics that that has on the business. And for that to happen, think HR needs to be more business-orientated, understand some of the accounting principles. I'm not talking about, you know, details, tax...law for instance, but just understanding profit and loss, balance sheet, cash flow. And I think if, for me, if HR could do some of that, I think it can take itself to the table, which is always the expression. But if you don't, you haven't really got much to participate and say apart from how you think employees are going to react. So that's my magic wand item for HR. I'm not sure if it's...

Sean Luitjens (33:10.43)
No, that's great because I actually think that's one of the ways by understanding the business fundamentals and who's important in their business, they'll be able to stretch merit much further. So if I'm an engineering firm, then the accountants are less valuable, sorry to the tax people, than the engineers. And so that's where I'm going to spend and create. Because again, with technology, I can segment that out.

Rachel Gibbs (33:18.273)
Yeah.

Sean Luitjens (33:33.502)
and give engineers more money. But actually, if you go and it's an accounting firm, you know, a tax firm, then accountants should be making the most and have the most increase. And that's the most important asset that you have for humans. And so I need to split that out. And so those business fundamentals, I think, you know, are really important in understanding what really drives and who drives the business.

Rachel Gibbs (33:54.828)
Yeah, no, that's my view. Thank you.

Sean Luitjens (33:57.15)
This has been great. So I appreciate it. As we post this out, will make sure Rachel's contact information is out there. We'll tag this obviously out on LinkedIn and she should be easy to get. know, do you give skiing lessons too when people show up?

Rachel Gibbs (34:13.175)
No, I've never skied. We go snowshoeing.

Sean Luitjens (34:16.416)
Okay, need snowshoes, snowshoe tours as we go out. This has been great. I really appreciate your time. It gives us another unique perspective. Somebody from, you know, actually out in Western Europe, but a lot of our folks have been from the U.S., obviously. So this has been great. I really appreciate it.

Rachel Gibbs (34:31.096)
Thanks Sean, I've really enjoyed it, thank you.