Totally Rewarding Chats | Ep. 20: Getting started with Pay Equity

The future of pay equity and transparency

In this conversation, Sean Luitjens and Jennifer Hassrick discuss the critical topics of pay equity and transparency in the workplace. They explore Jennifer's unique career path, the definitions of pay equity and transparency, and the best practices for implementing pay equity initiatives. The discussion also covers the challenges organizations face in addressing pay equity, strategies for remediation, and the importance of maintaining a compensation system. Jennifer emphasizes the need for open conversations about pay equity and the role of leadership in fostering a culture of fairness and transparency.

In this episode

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

• Guest, Jennifer Hassrick, Vice President, Segal

Episode transcript

Sean Luitjens (00:00.84)
All right, so another totally rewarding chat and we have Jen Hasrick, who is the vice president at Siegel Consulting. And I'm going with Jen and as we spoke about prior and I've known you for a while, it's Jen or Jennifer. I'm going to make it Jen so it's easy on for me, not Jenny. Correct.

Jennifer Hassrick (00:19.806)
Correct, not telling.

Sean Luitjens (00:21.484)
Not Jenny. So that's who we have on. It's going very exciting. We're going to talk about pay equity and transparency. But to start with, just so people get bit of your background and so that I don't screw it up, give me the elevator pitch. know, however many stories you need on your background because actually your background is very interesting on how you got here. It's not the usual right out of school being consultants and work your way up thing.

Jennifer Hassrick (00:42.587)
Yes.

Jennifer Hassrick (00:48.434)
Yes, I kind of think of my career in eras. I'm gonna steal that from Taylor Swift. Having a family of young teenage daughters, I think that's appropriate. I started in consulting my first job out of school in compensation, moved to the tech space after that for a while, had an era of...business ownership operations. We're running three businesses at the same time. It was a little crazy. And then I found my way back to compensation. So most recently, right now I'm at Siegel. Right before that, I was at Corn Fairy and really focused on broad-based compensation and pay equity. So as I always tell people, I build and test systems. So that's what I love to do. And I'm excited to have this conversation today.

Sean Luitjens (01:37.75)
All right, that's good. And to prove you're a human, because we can't do the check if you're a robot box. So what do do for fun outside of work? Although you said you have Swifties, that could be hobby.

Jennifer Hassrick (01:48.798)
Yes, I have Swifties. We're a pretty athletic family, we're inactive. I bike a lot. I like winter. I'm in Wisconsin, so I spend a lot of time outside in the winter, snowshoeing and whatnot. And one of my daughters is a ski jumper on the national team. So I spend time in random places around the world watching her compete when I have the chance.

Sean Luitjens (02:14.712)
Random is a little harsh. mean, Lake Placid's awesome. So like, you know, it's not that random. The Olympics are in there, it's nice.

Jennifer Hassrick (02:21.806)
I could be in Estonia today if I really wanted to go watch her. So there are random places. Really? have a good one.

Sean Luitjens (02:27.28)
Actually, Tallinn is one of my favorite places. like, yeah, have you been? you have to go. It's like, this is my side and I'm not sponsored by In Any Way, Shape, or Form by, you know, the Tallinn Visitors Bureau, but it literally is like a medieval town and parts of it that they've kept really whole. It's kind of a you have to go once thing out there. Really cool, super nice. So anyway, that's my pitch for the day.

Jennifer Hassrick (02:50.398)
Alright.

Jennifer Hassrick (02:54.354)
Well, maybe I'll make myself there next time she shows up there.

Sean Luitjens (02:57.846)
All right, so we're gonna start something new with you and I figured we'd pick on you. So just to learn more, the speed round to get things warmed up, all right?

Jennifer Hassrick (03:06.334)
All right, so I'm bad at game shows. Just to warn you. Okay, good.

Sean Luitjens (03:08.384)
Okay, well, there's no wrong answers here and being the first one, I didn't think of it until now, there's no buzzer. So there's also that. So, tea or coffee?

Jennifer Hassrick (03:15.42)
Okay, good.

Jennifer Hassrick (03:22.42)
tea.

Sean Luitjens (03:23.584)
Okay, see that's not a wrong answer, that's T.

Jennifer Hassrick (03:25.628)
No, I do both. That's why I'm like, which one do I want to pick?

Sean Luitjens (03:31.481)
Best number of compensation cycles a company can do in a year.

Jennifer Hassrick (03:36.318)
to.

Sean Luitjens (03:37.292)
Two. The most important question that's gonna be asked today is next, creamy or crunchy peanut butter? All right, game on. Weird side note, I was recently in Denver speaking at World at Work and I always ask y'all when I'm speaking to the audience that, they were more crunchy than creamy, which is the first time all year I've done that. I'm like, I don't know what's going on in Denver, but.

Jennifer Hassrick (03:44.254)
creamy.

Jennifer Hassrick (04:00.904)
Interesting.

Sean Luitjens (04:01.408)
Yeah, everywhere else is generally like two thirds, three quarters, creamy. So anyway, yeah, very, very interesting. It's usually very polarizing. Number of equity reviews in a year a company should do once they're going.

Jennifer Hassrick (04:05.329)
Yeah.

Jennifer Hassrick (04:14.822)
Once they're going, one.

Sean Luitjens (04:17.418)
Okay? And favorite sports team of any level.

Jennifer Hassrick (04:23.464)
well, I'll go to my childhood favorite, the 49ers.

Sean Luitjens (04:27.604)
Okay, that's fair. I actually, I added that one and I thought there's actually, there are wrong answers there.

Jennifer Hassrick (04:33.662)
Well, there's a little side story to it. So I'm in Wisconsin. I was born in Chicago. My dad was a Bears fan. My grandfather who was born in Wisconsin was a Packers fan. And I couldn't, I chose that to be a rebel. So I had to pick somebody else. So I picked the Jerry Rice, you know, Joe Montana. They were gross.

Sean Luitjens (04:50.152)
yeah, that era. Yeah, I grew up in Chicago. I'm a Bears fan, which, your dad and I can, whoa, that's 80s. Basically we went from great in 86 to bad forever. so the way I start off all the pay equity and transparency conversations we had is just getting in your words defined for people, pay transparency and pay equity.

Jennifer Hassrick (04:56.318)
you

Jennifer Hassrick (05:00.452)
Exactly, exactly.

Jennifer Hassrick (05:13.788)
So I'll with pay equity. I mean, in simple terms, Similar pay for similar work, but considering experience and other factors. I think that just, you know, there has to be a holistic view of pay within the organization and what's influencing it. So that's my, how I take a look at equity. On the transparency side, I think, you know, it's really about how-

Are you clear with how pay is determined? And I think transparency has a kind of a spectrum. As long as you're clear and there's clear guidelines, I think that's the beginning. You can go as far as to the minutia of this is exactly what, know, the range is or whatnot, which, you know, is still open to interpretation. So I think within an organization having some insight to how the...how you get to a result is important.

Sean Luitjens (06:16.936)
I hadn't planned on talking about it, but when you mentioned that, it's interesting with transparency because most of the legal issues that are out there was at seven states, six, seven currently, four coming, plus I think New Jersey's on the ballot now, or depending on the scope of that has been on the ballot. Most of those are about job postings and the external transparency. But your definition now, right now, was really, as I told people, there's two, there's internal and external. Yours was working on the internal transparency.

Jennifer Hassrick (06:32.19)
Hmm.

Sean Luitjens (06:46.584)
side.

Jennifer Hassrick (06:46.792)
Well, because the external mandates are impacting the internal and that's where the pressure is, right? So, I mean, I think, yes, they have to, you there are postings, right? And you have to, but you have to know what to post and you have to have your story straight to be able to post accurately because you're going to cause problems internal if it's not correct or right.

Sean Luitjens (07:05.4)
Correct, right, right. So if you're paying me $10 and probably you, or at least $15, then yeah, you have to be able to explain to me when I run down the hall and go, what gives?

Jennifer Hassrick (07:17.636)
Mm-hmm. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, on the external side, though, I think that there still is a spectrum. The laws are all very unclear and they're inconsistent. And so it's very difficult to even put your arms around what the transparency is, right? I think that the ranges are helpful, but we also know that not everyone reports in the same way. And so they become very unhelpful very quickly and causes problems on the internal.

Sean Luitjens (07:44.344)
Correct, yeah, I've joked that a lot of companies put it out there because they have to. I think some will start using it as a marketing tool. So I'll put total cash up, I'll put total comp, I'll do something to basically make myself look better. Because obviously I'm gonna apply to the jobs that have a higher pay range for that.

Jennifer Hassrick (07:50.087)
Thank

Jennifer Hassrick (07:55.762)
Mm-hmm.

Jennifer Hassrick (08:01.565)
Mm-hmm.

Sean Luitjens (08:02.198)
and then explain that internally that that's total cash or something like, know, total comp, you know, the communication becomes an issue, but I think it is interesting that companies will, you know, they always find a way to exploit something for their benefit. And because it's not really clear on what's included, what it is, what is account, it's going to leave a lot of room for companies to kind of do some different things.

Jennifer Hassrick (08:22.942)
Yeah, and you can't really get away from it anymore either. I Colorado was the first, right? And people avoided posting jobs in Colorado. Well, now you have 20, I think it's 23 states, right? That have something. And so it's like, it's not something you're gonna...

Sean Luitjens (08:32.375)
Yeah.

Sean Luitjens (08:36.248)
No, and if you're in one state, can't put like, don't apply. And if you're in Colorado, like, I mean, yeah, you can't do that. So, let's go. So you've been working with a bunch of companies, you know, working through the pay equity piece. So I just want to start with what is the best process of framework out for an imaginary company? You know, the best process, best practice on how you tackle pay equity out of the gate.

Jennifer Hassrick (08:57.138)
Mm-hmm.

Jennifer Hassrick (09:02.174)
First, have legal be part of your conversations, engage with legal. I think that oftentimes I find that organizations underestimate what could happen with a study. And so having external counsel is very good. Internal, if you don't want to engage external.

Sean Luitjens (09:22.552)
Do you have a preference there for companies? Cause that was literally what I just wrote down. was like, you know, do you suggest they have external to kind of provide one degree of separation? And it's a, yeah.

Jennifer Hassrick (09:26.839)
You

Jennifer Hassrick (09:32.45)
Yeah, because the power, like the first time any organization does it, it's good to have the third party help, right, and do that so that you make sure there's no bias even embedded in the processes. Eventually, you can do some of it internal with a third party check every so often, but I personally, I would go if you can do with an external counsel only because the conversations, which is one of the best practices that we always like to do is have those stakeholder conversations with leadership. Very hard for them to be open and honest if you have the legal team internal sitting there.

And it's just uncomfortable. People become guarded. So if possible, I would say the external is the best way to go. And having somebody that understands your organization and understands pay equity. I think that's the other piece. I have been on some projects where the council wasn't as familiar with pay equity. So not only were we teaching them how this works, and then they're thinking through all the legal risks, we're also working with the project teams. So, best case scenario is external with some knowledge and experience in this type of.

Sean Luitjens (10:51.384)
No, that's fair. And I usually frame it as there's a lot more precedence around confidentiality for a third party hired counsel, as opposed to internal being an employee versus counsel. And so that you don't know what's under the covers the first time piece has got a little bit of extra layer of protection.

Jennifer Hassrick (10:58.93)
Mm-hmm.

Jennifer Hassrick (11:03.014)
Right.

Jennifer Hassrick (11:10.282)
And I think internal still should be part of the project team, but those, think the biggest one is those stakeholder conversations, which is the next step. So you get started, you engage your council, you get your team. Team typically, you know, obviously a CHRO usually is the champion of this work, but then having their team being able, whoever's under there that understands.

The data and be able to get the data and be able to explain some of it. But keeping it a small, tight team, because the more people you have, it gets a little risky, right? Because it's the knowledge of the results that can, if anything gets out, that's an issue. So get your project team, keep it tight.

And then usually, above the CHRO, oftentimes, then we start having conversations with the CFO. Your teams at the top is usually where you want to have conversation. And then if there's divisions within an organization, the leaders of those groups, because what the intention of those conversations are is to be able to build trust and be able to kind of start teaching them what you should be thinking about. Because they may not realize some of the practices that are there are, you know, causing issues or maybe they're not, but at least there's an awareness.

So that's the first part, having those conversations and then start getting the data. The data, usually it's a snapshot of current census. Take a look at that data, create the model based on the unique parts of the organization. I've never done a study that's exactly the same because every organization's different. They might have divisions, they might have regions, they might have high minimum wage you have to control for. might have, IT is often a different market. They might have a comp philosophy, but this is a little sidecar over here that we have to control for.

Jennifer Hassrick (13:18.864)
And then you do standard descriptive statistics just to see where your balances in the organization, where there are gaps. And then the regression analysis. Then you do all that, and then you run it a couple times because you always find something that was missed in conversations to explain. Say, well, wait, we noticed this. Why is this? we forgot to mention this. Those other things. So then you have the model has to changed several times.

And then you get to your final results and you're really looking at kind of two key things is are there cohorts that are statistically significant? Are there gaps that are large within?

Know particular cohort, and then you look at the individuals and with even within those cohorts and without and see what does that distribution, where are your, where's your legal risk, which is about two standard deviations below the mean, and you start vetting that. And then you determine what that cost would be, how much you want to move them, which I know we'll talk more about. And then there, and then the last piece is whether or not to communicate it.

And I think that's the hardest piece of this because you can, and when you wanna do any kind of increases or that's a whole another conversation and strategy that comes at the end. And we can go into it now or we can kind of dig into it later.

Sean Luitjens (14:46.732)
No, I have a The obvious one for me always is budget. And when you tackle that, because pay equity, maybe you've seen it. have not. No one ever lowers someone's compensation to bring everyone back. It's not really a thing. the only real solve if there is a pay equity is money. Do you tackle that upfront when you get the C-suite in there at the beginning? Or do you wait until you see

Jennifer Hassrick (15:07.377)
Mm-hmm.

Sean Luitjens (15:16.034)
how much it's gonna be.

Jennifer Hassrick (15:17.866)
you usually wait to see how much it's gonna be. It is very difficult to predict what's gonna happen.

Sean Luitjens (15:25.208)
Do you tackle the issue that, by doing this project, like, there's potentially money involved? you know. Yeah.

Jennifer Hassrick (15:31.14)
right. Well, we do. mean, on a high level, I mean, they know it could cost something and they just don't know how much. you know, I've seen some organizations shift money from one pup. You know, they've already had something earmarked. So they're like, well, we'll tap into that if we need to, or we're going to shift this budget or so. But they know it's going to cost some money. And I think that is oftentimes why people don't even get started because they know it's going to cost something.

Sean Luitjens (16:00.226)
Yeah, think joking when I've told people in the US still not for long. I think the best thing you can do is obviously, you know, do an equity project, figure out your problem and fix it. I sadly think the second best option still currently for the next couple of years is the ostrich method.

Jennifer Hassrick (16:01.159)
Okay.

Jennifer Hassrick (16:05.452)
the best way to do it.

Jennifer Hassrick (16:15.919)
Mm-hmm. Very much so.

Sean Luitjens (16:16.941)
of just not knowing because the worst method, worst thing that can happen is you find someone finds out you did one, you found out there were issues and you just didn't tackle it. So the ostrich method in the US, which is why the EU I think is kind of nice, it's kind of like said, well, you can keep your head in the sand for two years, but no more, you know, so you got to start dealing with it.

Jennifer Hassrick (16:33.352)
Yeah.

Jennifer Hassrick (16:37.086)
Yeah, and truthfully, mean, there's so many organizations that don't even have a compensation philosophy or structure or system. And so the ostrich method is also almost necessary because they don't have a way to even measure jobs. I mean, they don't have a defensible mechanism to measure even where or how much a job should be paid. so I think that

Sean Luitjens (16:54.072)
Yeah.

Jennifer Hassrick (17:04.639)
That is very much a theme. They're afraid to do it or really they can't do it. That's that's

Sean Luitjens (17:10.817)
So you mentioned the snapshot, but I'm curious, why do you not pull the historical data in or when you mean snapshot, do you mean all the history you can grab, but by this at this particular date?

Jennifer Hassrick (17:23.134)
Yeah, typically, I mean, so there you can, if you want to look historically, you can look at, you can do talent flow analysis where individuals are coming in and out. That's more of opportunity equity type of mindset.

Sean Luitjens (17:36.034)
Yeah.

Jennifer Hassrick (17:36.926)
But when we do a pay equity study, it's a point in time of what current pay is because we don't know what happened a year ago. We don't know what happened two years ago. Hard to tie the pay policies and practices of leadership making decisions. So we often do it at that kind of time. The only thing that we do look, if we have to a little bit back, is say the bonuses or any other.

And then we do look at what merit was and whatnot. That could possibly explain some of the data. But typically, this is what the current pay is. This is what the current job is. And typically, we focus on...

Sean Luitjens (18:11.544)
Yeah.

Jennifer Hassrick (18:20.21)
base for the study. we can, it depends on the cycle of bonuses. It doesn't often fit. Everybody's on different ones. And so it's hard a lot of times to do more of an historical view for the equity piece.

Sean Luitjens (18:31.672)
you

Sean Luitjens (18:37.814)
I guess there's a couple of things of interest in there. guess for me, the length of service piece, if you're working against that as an item, right, as one of your variants, that to me, I'd want the history because theoretically is that, you know, how's that curve bending or has someone's been in there? Cause in theory, it's kind of pointed diminishing returns in a range, right? But that's not always the case is to get to know somebody better and you have these, you know, biases that go up. And so does the curve kind of inflate up?

Jennifer Hassrick (18:57.566)
Mm-hmm.

Jennifer Hassrick (19:03.602)
Mm-hmm.

Sean Luitjens (19:07.21)
the other way. So for me, that's, that's always a really interesting one. I think the other piece is the bonus. Because bias to me, there's a lot more bias in the bonus because as a good friend of ours now, and I did check actually, to make sure it was his quote, so I wasn't misquoting, but you know, Tom McMullen at Corn Ferry.

Jennifer Hassrick (19:11.462)
Mm-hmm.

Jennifer Hassrick (19:29.715)
Mm-hmm.

Sean Luitjens (19:30.552)
It's his saying. unbridled management discretion is the enemy of pay equity. And so if you give them guidance and there's only so much you can do with three and a half points, you know, in base pay, but you let them run rampant and bonus, then that's where they'll run rampant. Right. And then that's, it's a one year total cash really exercise. I view pay equity. mean, you can, you can talk about long-term incentives and that down the road, but I view an initial one, my personally as a one year total cash exercise.

Jennifer Hassrick (19:44.584)
Yep. Yep. Absolutely.

Jennifer Hassrick (19:54.258)
Okay.

Jennifer Hassrick (20:00.381)
Yeah, and I think first you measure the gap, but I think you have to look at those other pieces too. And you can, not all organizations have that data. I think that's the other piece. How their data is collected or reported is different. And I've been on projects where they have multiple cycles of bonuses, right? And there's no rationale either.

Sean Luitjens (20:29.894)
I struggle with that though because one year total cash like

It's cash. so like, you can fundamentally talk about the methodology or how it was paid or was it truly formulaic or was it granted, but like it's a payroll number. It just, it's a legit payroll number. Now, not only that system might not be the system of record where it is and it gets harder to get, but where there's a will on that one. think there's a way. I think when you talk about grants and the timing and the vesting periods and whatever, that gets crazy about how you value, you know, how you value that. that, that to me is where it gets squishy, but this whole like, we can't find

Jennifer Hassrick (20:38.887)
Mm-hmm.

Jennifer Hassrick (20:56.506)
Yes, it's the end.

Right.

Sean Luitjens (21:03.268)
what was paid last year for incentives.

Jennifer Hassrick (21:06.512)
It's yet sometimes the timing has been weird. I've seen that or they skipped and then so some people got it, some people didn't. So then it could be under recording. I've seen some of that. So I mean, if we can, do the total cash, but it's not always something you can do. you know, we always have a wish list. Like this is everything we wish you could give us. And we can't always get it because they may not collect it. They might be between, one thing I've seen too is you mentioned time and job.

Sean Luitjens (21:25.506)
Yeah.

Jennifer Hassrick (21:34.95)
I've seen ERP changes not being able to truly measure the time and job because when they move to the new ERP.

Sean Luitjens (21:42.024)
Yeah. No one's more than five years because that's when we upgraded the system, right? Yeah. Yeah.

Jennifer Hassrick (21:47.324)
Yep. So they'll like, well, you're going to notice this 2018 number. Well, that's the year we did the ERP. So you could be there for 30 years and the system doesn't know that. sometimes we've been able to go back, not always. And that will skew results, but that's the data that you have. And so that's the

Sean Luitjens (22:07.766)
No, I think to be fair in today's environment, I think the flip side to that is let's get a process going. Like let's go through this, right? And so if we can only, if it's only tenable to work on base pay, I guess in some cohorts, it depends how leveraged they are, right? That becomes a thing or not a thing. But for the bulk of people, I think that's a solid place to start and get a really good process. And then you can be like, okay, we know the process. We just need more information to pull in over time.

Jennifer Hassrick (22:19.88)
Mm-hmm.

Jennifer Hassrick (22:26.877)
Yep.

Jennifer Hassrick (22:32.794)
Mm-hmm. Right.

Sean Luitjens (22:37.268)
So then the cohorts, we didn't kind of talk about that at the beginning. How do you help create cohorts? Because I think there's some, you know, having been out at some of the World at Work stuff that's out there, people think it's same pay for same job. And that job is like the same exact title. So when you create a cohort, you how do you define your cohorts and how do you put people into cohorts through the process?

Jennifer Hassrick (22:52.829)
Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm.

Jennifer Hassrick (23:03.554)
It depends on the organization and how they're organized, truthfully. It comes down to if there is a different compensation philosophy or approach within a subset of the organization. A great example is a retailer. They might have distribution, they might have shared services, and they might have the retail locations. Those all have different...

They might have some similar jobs in there, but not necessarily. I they may have same size jobs, but the jobs are, they're going to be approached differently based on the market and who's running those. I mean, I saw a distribution company that had different mindsets on.

they're in within their divisions and everyone ran their pay their own way. So, you know, I think that it really depends on the organization. But it's that kind of the line the sand is is pay approached a different way they do they have at the same system the approach are they looking at the same market data? Do they have the same rules? And that's that's the first part of that.

You know, another example I was thinking like credit unions, know, financial institutions, they are going to have that shared services, they might have a different, you know, branch type of work is different. And then they might have.

I I think I know I did one, I think we had three different ones because the way they got approached. That doesn't, isn't necessarily geography. You can correct for geography within those as well, but it's more about that high level function.

Sean Luitjens (24:42.168)
Do you think though that's gonna be pressed on the other side with kind of the external view of are those jobs different or not? So the example being kind of, know, a UK box retailer who basically says we approach the pay philosophy for a stock person inside of a store.

Jennifer Hassrick (24:52.734)
Mm-hmm.

Sean Luitjens (25:01.128)
different than we approach someone at the warehouse, which recently legally has been found to be like, you can't do that. They're the legit same job, just one's in a warehouse, one's in the store. Do you think that's going to be part of what you have to start taking into consideration? Because the fact that I have a different pay philosophy in this location and that location, but the job's the same, is that going to be a feasible reason to not pay equitably?

Jennifer Hassrick (25:03.782)
Yeah.

Jennifer Hassrick (25:11.806)
Mm-hmm.

Jennifer Hassrick (25:15.742)
Yeah.

Jennifer Hassrick (25:21.822)
Hmm.

Jennifer Hassrick (25:26.382)
Yeah, I think so. I think it's I think, you know, against those, you know, the rules of the road are going to need to change to adapt to ensure equity. mean, I think the reality is, is we have biases and equity in our market data. Right. I mean, that's just the market in itself. And so I think pay transparency is forcing better, better rules, you know, better, better mindsets towards how you approach pay. And absolutely. I think there is, though,

One caveat to that is that market demand will probably trump that. So you might have that similar job, but there might be a scarcity in a particular area or in a particular industry or even a location.

Sean Luitjens (26:09.602)
But that's gonna be interesting. I think that's where it's gonna get really interesting, right? Because how is that a legally defensible position to take on why you have numbers that are different as you go?

Jennifer Hassrick (26:13.553)
Yeah.

Jennifer Hassrick (26:19.826)
Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm.

Sean Luitjens (26:25.952)
And as you mentioned, the market data is interesting to me because that's an external labor market function and pay equity is an internal labor market function. I mean, it doesn't matter if you pay at the 25th or the 75th percentile as a company, it's are you paying, you know, it doesn't matter how you pay the market. Just are you consistently good or bad payer? At the end of the day, you know, you can be a bad payer as a company. You just have to be consistently crappy to everybody. That's yeah, that's kind of the goal, right?

Okay, so let's assume we've gone through this process now. You talked about communications and then let's talk about remediation. So we have a problem. I guess the old Houston, we have a problem issue. Now, how do you see companies best tackling this? Let's assume they do have a problem. went through the process and there are some issues that have to be tackled.

Jennifer Hassrick (27:18.173)
Mm-hmm.

Sean Luitjens (27:19.106)
What do you think of when you come to timing for remediation, how to communicate that, and then kind of we'll talk about long-term remediation.

Jennifer Hassrick (27:26.118)
Yeah, I mean, the best thing that I would say that I've seen most organizations do, especially if they have a larger problem is, don't have a tongue haul about it, first of all. mean, but embed it within, one, make sure that you know exactly what you're gonna do. And if it's gonna be, you can't fix everything overnight. And so is it gonna take a little while? So understand what your path is before you even say anything about it. In terms of timing, mean, the best case is to do it through your merit cycle and not have that big shining shining star on it.

But, you know, I also have seen it being you have part of the conversation and part of your process that we do merit increases and then maybe and then they have another cycle for equity increases. That again brings some light to it. so it really, know, having your story and understanding exactly what you're going to say is critical if you're going to not embed it within that other process. Those annual adjust.

Sean Luitjens (28:29.88)
But would you recommend probably a best case would be to, you know, either do a equity set aside or pay equity addition, depending how you budget alongside the merit. So we do merit, we'd run that through the regular cycle and then, you know, HR business partner somebody, consultants if we have to, you know, goes through and helps you allocate that pay equity accordingly as part of the same cycle. So it's a little more seamless and not called out.

Jennifer Hassrick (28:38.514)
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Yep.

Jennifer Hassrick (28:53.958)
Yes. Yep. Yeah, absolutely. That's the best case scenario to be able to do that. And it really depends on the timing of your study and your timing of your merit cycle, right, as well. You don't have to do it immediately. Let's say you did your study in June and your cycle's not till March. You don't have to do it immediately, but plan for doing exactly what you just said and knowing that there's that carbon.

Sean Luitjens (29:17.624)
And as they go forward with remediation, think one of the things I've, you know, be curious of your take, well, one, how do you operationalize this? I mean, before I talk about the, how you look at remediation ongoing, like, how do you see companies moving from, you know, we hired a consultant, we had a third, you know, third party attorney, we went through this big project and like, it's a lot like software developments coming from dev. We launched and now what? Right. Like we've got this ongoing maintenance thing that has to happen.

Jennifer Hassrick (29:44.472)
Yeah.

Sean Luitjens (29:47.628)
How do you see people setting themselves up for success best in that case?

Jennifer Hassrick (29:52.316)
I mean, think keeping it part of the conversation and embedding it within your process is the best thing to do because it's not going to go away. If you put it on the shelf for five years, you come back, you're going to have something. So just making it less painful, so it's just part of the conversation and one of the reviews that you do. You can do a lighter type of review in off cycles and then maybe do a bigger one every few years just to make sure that you're making progress.

But really, the goal is to narrow gaps and the goal is to remove any significance, which is indicating bias. So that's what the goal is ultimately. goal is not zero. It's going to be very, that's data, right? You're always going to have some outliers, but that's really from an operational, embedding it in processes and having a little bit of a carve out every year.

I think the other piece is getting in front of it. And this is the hiring piece and we know the pandemic caused a lot of compression, a lot of issues and we're gonna be unraveling from that for a while as well. But getting ahead of those type of processes too is the other way. It's not just about doing the numbers.

Sean Luitjens (31:08.205)
My soapbox is the analytics, both at the time that you figure out the problem, but in the remediation. And I say that because, you know, I think much like comp planning and equity, because it's part of that process is people do it and then they check the box and they leave and actually did our thesis work, but also helping build that thesis of how we solve. And so the very extreme example I'll use sometimes is like retail. Like if you realize you have you know, an issue in retail.

It kind of go away in two years if you hire right, if you look at certain roles, turn, know, really good box store turns over 40 % a year, right? So, you know, to your point, it's like the remediation comes in two forms and it's like, which roles are turning at a place at which if I actually just become a good payer consistently and, you know, do the right thing for everybody coming in, a lot of that will take care of itself, which ironically is not the big hard heavy hit that you'd see on the P &L at once through the piece, right? So they can get in front of that. Other roles you might be like, Hey,

Jennifer Hassrick (31:41.757)
Mm-hmm.

Jennifer Hassrick (31:53.982)
you

Jennifer Hassrick (32:01.436)
No, right.

Sean Luitjens (32:05.318)
Turner was 2%. Like, we gotta do it. Like, you can't pretend it's gonna magically solve itself in this period of time. And so those analytics of what happened, did people stay, did they go after the piece, like, did that all shake out? The other piece of that I think is gonna be interesting is, you know, there's only so much money.

Jennifer Hassrick (32:09.278)
Right.

Jennifer Hassrick (32:25.746)
Well, you're exactly right. And you can't fix it overnight. it takes time. And one of the biggest constraints is budget. There's only so much money available. so I think prioritizing which areas that you want to touch. Obviously, those that are single outliers that are in that legal risk zone, pay attention to those. But again, you can move them over a couple years and be mindful of decisions with those.

Sean Luitjens (32:59.862)
Yeah. But I also think like equity tackled in a vacuum is more expensive than not. And so if you look at the whole thing and say, you know, people who are over 120 % of comp ratio or whatever, don't leave, you know, statistically, mean, humans are not all statistically predictable, but in general, right? And so you create a little bit more of a matrix that basically skews some money around so that you pay that philosophy better. You can pull some money into the set aside out of that same budget with the same effect that you were hoping to

Jennifer Hassrick (33:08.006)
Yes, I totally agree.

Sean Luitjens (33:33.854)
Versus the creamy peanut butter spread as you spread. I think making sure that that equity is looked at holistically across the whole comp plan is actually all those analytics pulled in together can help them find the money versus just this swath of additional money.

Jennifer Hassrick (33:38.717)
Yes.

Jennifer Hassrick (33:44.456)
Mm-hmm.

Jennifer Hassrick (33:52.892)
Yeah, and I think that's a great point because I think, you you mentioned the ostrich method and that is one of the reasons, you know, they know it's gonna cost money. know they're gonna probably find something. They know it's gonna cost some money and they don't have any. And so what are we, how are we gonna do this? And I think I like your idea, you know, like looking in the matrix form of where can we pull to be able to shift because really that's at the end of the day.

Sean Luitjens (34:16.344)
Well, you've got to know like in that, and this is where it gets complex, I know it maybe sounds overwhelming, but there are certain roles in certain locations, right, where you can say we've traditionally given three to three and a half percent or something. You know, this next year, we might have to come back for a year while we fix this and give two percent, but we know the risk of resignation statistics show that.

while we'll feel bad about ourselves for not giving them the extra point, we know we can do it because nobody leaves in that position for a year. And then we'll kind of get back to business as usual once we've solved this problem. But there's also going to be roles because you can't do it unilaterally where you're going to be like, actually, if we go below 3%, we know historically like churn is going to go up and we're going to pay. So actually we can't pull from there. And so I think looking at it just holistically with all those analytics around it,

Jennifer Hassrick (34:42.842)
Okay.

Sean Luitjens (35:05.462)
becomes the way to help find the money. Depending how bad a person you've been as a payer, a company, in the past, you can only find so much in the couch cushions as well.

Jennifer Hassrick (35:07.976)
Mm-hmm.

Jennifer Hassrick (35:15.678)
Well, and you touch on some level of sophistication that you need to, you're talking about, know that if you do this, you get churned. A lot of organizations don't have that knowledge and sophistication in their analytics. So that's, think, an intimidating factor as well. But I would agree that moving from one bucket to another makes a lot of sense. And you could actually turn that into a story, right? In the sense of this is what you know, this year we're focusing on this, or you start putting that into your message and know that it changes because of the balance that we have.

Sean Luitjens (35:53.686)
No, I agree. So if there would have been the top one or two hurdles that you've seen companies struggle with, obviously beyond the I don't want to know.

Jennifer Hassrick (36:03.582)
Yeah, have number one is fear. mean, think that's an intimidation. mean, statistics are, know, pay equity goes beyond the statistics that you typically are used to, you know, in terms of comps. So, you know, the word regression freaks people out. mean, they don't, you multiple regression even then, you know, so I think there's there's that factor, that hurdle, and they know that they can't necessarily do it. Budget, you know, budget paying for the project and budget knowing that they're going to have to make some increases.

And then I often see a hurdle of leadership. There's, you not all, you know, especially those making the decision for whatever reason, any of those and others is, you know, there's not a lot of buy-in. So a project can sit on the shelf, a potential one for a while until there's either a change of leadership or a change of mindset that forces the decision to do, you know, type of review.

Sean Luitjens (36:56.28)
Well, I think the leverage it's interesting because it costs money and potentially hurts and the people it hurts the most when it costs money are the people with more leverage on the company's performance short term because their bonus is, you know, my base is much lower. My performance is higher and it's less on my personal and more on my

Jennifer Hassrick (37:06.876)
Mm-hmm.

Sean Luitjens (37:15.402)
on the company's performance. so, you know, they're not there because they're dumb. They, you know, they're doing the math in their head and they understand what's going on. So it is, I think complex. And I don't think it's because I get beat up a little bit because I sometimes say all people, I'll go with most people today. I think most people want to be fair payers for the roles. I fundamentally don't think there are people saying, I just don't want to pay fairly.

Jennifer Hassrick (37:19.858)
Mm-hmm.

Jennifer Hassrick (37:33.928)
Yeah

Sean Luitjens (37:38.912)
I think it's, I've, you this problem somehow got here and I somehow either inherited it or it happened because I wasn't paying attention, but it wasn't because I wanted to be a bad payer. But I have to pay the price to fix the problem that I didn't really want to deal with one way or another.

Jennifer Hassrick (37:47.855)
Yeah.

Right. Right. Yeah, I agree. And I would say, you know, some of the leaders I've worked with, I mean, they understand the connection of equity and culture.

Right? So I've also had on the flip side, some very engaged and excited and motivated, you know, leaders that say, I want to do the right thing. I understand this is good for my culture. This is the kind of company that I want to be leading. So, you know, there is on the flip side of that. And so I think that, you know, you get both, right. But that's, you know, that's what I've seen in terms of the barriers of getting going.

Sean Luitjens (38:30.279)
So if you boil all that down and you give one piece of advice for people looking at tackling pay equity right now, what would it be?

Jennifer Hassrick (38:40.958)
Start the conversation, get started somehow, right? And it doesn't mean starting with a project, it's starting to think about and have the conversation with those that are leaders, managers and leaders of understanding what pay equity means and how does your organization fit into that equation. Baby steps is really what it takes.

Sean Luitjens (39:03.864)
Okay, and then the question I ask almost everybody, if you could automagically, which I'm sure is in your lexicon as a professional, if you could automagically fix one thing in all of HR, what would it be?

Jennifer Hassrick (39:11.174)
It is. I use it all the time.

Jennifer Hassrick (39:17.438)
job descriptions. They are, they're so important. They're very important because it gives everyone a path, but they are also what.

Everybody avoids because they're hard. They're hard to write. And if there was be one way to just have that work be done and not bogged down without the stress that it creates, because it ties into comp systems, it ties into pay equity, it ties into job leveling and architecture and career frameworks and training and everything.

Sean Luitjens (39:50.998)
But the only functional place it's truly used, which is where it goes, I think always off completely off the rails, because I agree that it's a huge thing is it get used for talent acquisition and talent acquisition spins it to get the best candidate impossible for that specific role. And then that all of a sudden becomes the updated job description for somebody who's not doing that. so it like the, the weeding or cultivating or whatever weeding of the job description garden and maintaining that.

Jennifer Hassrick (39:57.976)
Mm-hmm.

Jennifer Hassrick (40:17.256)
Mm-hmm.

Sean Luitjens (40:18.678)
I think is where I would argue that's like pay equity. Actually, if you do, if you do the process once that's fine. It's better than doing it zero times, but it goes off the rail so quick because the people who use it, their goal is not for why comp and pay equity wants to use that job description. If anything, it makes it worse because they have multiple job descriptions for people doing the same role.

Jennifer Hassrick (40:39.61)
Absolutely right.

Jennifer Hassrick (40:43.518)
Yep, yep, no, absolutely. think that, you know, I was just at a conference this past week and, you know, someone was asking, you know, about how do you, how do you keep it going? I'm like, it's just, you can't build a system, even if it's comp system, and not maintain it. It's a garden. And job descriptions are...another garden that feeds many others. And I think that if you maintain it, it's fine, but that's where it gets. It just causes so many problems. And then people choose to ignore it. I I've seen job descriptions that are 10, 15, 20 years old. And we all know that work has changed. And that's usually the...that's why I say there's the pain, people avoid it. It's a tough one.

Sean Luitjens (41:34.114)
Well, I appreciate it for those that are watching, listening. can get Jen Hanzer at Seagull, easy to find. We'll put her information out there. Be looking at the Olympics in another couple of winters, right? For ski jumping, which I still think having been up to Lake Placid and gone up to the top of that thing to not take the stairs down and decide to just roll on down and jump.

Jennifer Hassrick (41:42.841)
again.

Jennifer Hassrick (41:49.356)
Bye!

Sean Luitjens (42:04.072)
have at it. That is just trouble waiting to happen. This has been great. Always great catching up with you. Again, if people have questions, easy to find and we will catch up with everyone next time.

Jennifer Hassrick (42:05.64)
Hahaha

Jennifer Hassrick (42:12.531)
Yeah.

Jennifer Hassrick (42:17.726)
Awesome, thanks Sean.