Totally Rewarding Chats | Ep. 19: Habits of a High Quality Total Rewards Function

Leveraging recognition, storytelling, and technology in total rewards

Sean Luitjens and John Baldino discuss various topics related to total rewards programs and HR. They cover the importance of recognition and storytelling in total rewards, the need for competency development, common mistakes in data analysis and communication, and the role of technology in total rewards. They also touch on the significance of pay equity and the challenges of vulnerability and communication in HR. The conversation highlights the need for a holistic and strategic approach to total rewards and HR.

In this episode:

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

• Guest, John Baldino, President, Humareso

Episode transcript:

Sean Luitjens (00:00.64)
All right, we have another totally rewarding chat, another episode and we're with John Baldino, which I don't know if you saw the other day, we did do a pay equity webinar. Did you notice that your name wrong?

John Baldino (00:13.225)
Yeah, yeah, I didn't notice.

Sean Luitjens (00:16.928)
so don't go back and look. So that's going to be, so actually, you know, it's one of those things where you look at something several times on the main page. Didn't, I didn't notice it for days. Courtney didn't notice it for days. And then it pops up on the screen and I'm like, crap. Yeah. And I'm like, yeah. okay. You, you were okay.

John Baldino (00:35.743)
man. Well I was super offended. Super.

Sean Luitjens (00:42.198)
If we go back, we were, so this is John Baldino, also John Bladino, if you were on the, if you were on there, which is why, you know, didn't see it. So I know you have your just coffee and some people might know you that way. I've been on panels with you, but before I screw up your background, can you give an elevator pitch and, know, at your, experience level, we'll call it, take as many floors in the elevator as you need.

John Baldino (00:47.557)
Probably, yeah,

Yes.

John Baldino (01:10.731)
I don't want to take that many floors. It's a tall building. So the elevator pitches, I've been involved broadly in the human resources space for well over 30 years. And so have a lot of, I've had core responsibilities in areas of, yep, good old blocking and tackling HR, but org design, leadership development, total rewards, recruitment.

Sean Luitjens (01:14.222)
Stop.

John Baldino (01:39.051)
you know, all areas really of HR. haven't had not had my hands in things. I'm old school. So I started in personnel. We were doing payroll very manually, very manually on a weekly basis. And so really kind of cut my teeth in a lot of pre tech kind of ways as well. And so now for the last 12 years, actually to be 12 years in less than two weeks run an HR consulting firm called Humaresom where quite frankly we do a lot of these things that I just mentioned in terms of the kinds of support on the transactional as well as the transformative HR end of the spectrum.

Sean Luitjens (02:23.874)
I think the way you can tell how long someone's been around the space is on day one, did you go to the personnel department? If they say, what's that? You're like, they're younger. If other people are like, yeah, I remember personnel.

John Baldino (02:33.865)
Yeah, mean, Personnel was where, I mean, that was the place we hung out in Personnel. Like you were okay to go in, because there was always like a candy dish with stuff in it. And like there was always that sort of welcoming. Once it became HR, the door was closed. Don't bother me.

Sean Luitjens (02:38.808)
Yeah.

Sean Luitjens (02:50.188)
Yeah. So what do you do for fun outside of running a company and outside of whatever, you know, this is kind of the proof, the check your box is this is better than the selects five boxes with motorcycles in it test to see if you're a human.

John Baldino (03:04.413)
Yeah, yeah, yeah, this is a little better than that because I pick the right pictures and then it makes me do it again. So that's super frustrating. Yeah, I mean, but I'm like, every one of these boxes has a motorcycle in it. There's nothing else for fun. So I mean, it runs, it can run the gamut there. It really depends on my energy level, because I will tell you, as I've gotten older, there are things that I just don't

Sean Luitjens (03:10.844)
That means we didn't pick the right pictures, John. I hate to break it you.

John Baldino (03:32.329)
Or have as much passion for as I used to. So I would say of late, the things that I find myself spending the most time on, which I find enjoyment in, are I work out every morning, really just about every morning, whether that's going on a run or at the gym lifting weights. It's just a great time for me. I enjoy it greatly. And so this definition of fun, know may not, although I hate every second of running, I just enjoy the fact that I'm mentally somewhere else. I write quite a bit. So all kinds of things, right? So I think that's something, but I've always been a TV movie guy. for sure, like that is always part of my existence. And so I have offspring that, that in cycles run that course with me when, especially when they come home. And so I have certain things that I will do with certain kids in terms of what's our

Like my youngest is, all James Bond. Every 007, like that's our thing, right? And so we watched every movie. The other two don't really care as much for it, but that's like our thing. So I have these like genres with each of the kids.

Sean Luitjens (04:46.35)
So you've now become my phone or friend for movies. So I'm awful at that. I watch like no movies. anytime, then, cause I'm always the one in room where someone will quote something and you'll be like, wait, what? Like that quote, should I know that quote?

John Baldino (04:57.961)
Yeah, I mean, I've got a couple of friends, everything in response is a movie quote. Like you really, you got to stay on your game with them. They almost every question they're asked, they respond in some way with a movie quote.

Sean Luitjens (05:12.798)
Yeah, so yeah, I'd be more lost than normal. I'll put it that way is what I would be. So what I wanted to do every time we've chatted, and like I said, we've been on a couple of panels and done some other stuff. Your background to me is fascinating. And I say that because some of the people we've had on comp professionals or benefits or payroll or other stuff and you've, you know, you've run the gamut.

Your company covers all this stuff. And so if we take a step up, I kind of wanted to take it from a couple of lists for you, whether they're two to four per, you know, so, you know, to start with what are the top two, three, four things you see successful total rewards programs doing to be successful. And then just so you can keep in mind, I'll let your brain process, you know, followed of course, what are the two or three or four things you see organizations focusing on that aren't good? What will be aren't good is politically correct.

John Baldino (06:08.061)
Yeah, terrible. I'll say it. Okay, so what's good? What's some good stuff? I think if you're a total rewards, either team or if you're not as defined, and I say this because just to sort of set the stage, you and I both know, I think from an economic standpoint in industries right now, there's been a reduction in force.

Both by departments and sometimes they pulled some things together. So now there are HR responsibilities that perhaps would have been in total rewards, but that has all sort of been melded together with the reduction in headcount. So it doesn't have to just be about a team. It really is about the direction that you choose to go. And I think one of the things that if you're going to do total rewards well, that I see it's about recognition.

Like if you can do a really great job of setting appreciation, gratitude in recognizing the contributions that staff are making to the work being done and the enhancement of the work being done, I think it tends to do wonders for not only the way in which reward in that recognition happens as part of total rewards, but really the storytelling that goes much deeper than that and allows marketing, for instance, to participate from an employee brand standpoint or recruitment talent acquisition teams to participate from a brand's corporate identity standpoint where you have these stories of awesome stuff that people are doing sort of highlighted in not only, again, recognition ways.

Whether that be through point systems that I know some organizations have or straight up bonus incentive based programs that are put into place. But I think it also affords an opportunity to tell those stories that affect other divisions as well. To me, that's a huge win when Total Rewards can sort of focus on that because sometimes you hear about the ROI. I don't know if you've ever heard about ROI. And so...

John Baldino (08:27.615)
people, you know, you'll have finance say, I don't, mean, all we're doing is really just giving them money for doing their job. That was, that was like direct quote from finance. And, and, but when you're saying, yeah, but this thing is now a benefit to yes, HR total rewards. Yes, it's a benefit to recruitment. Yes, it's a benefit to marketing. Yes, it's impacting our online presence. Yes, it's all of these things, right? And so you're getting a big bang for your buck, quite frankly, in that fact that it can hit all those things. So I think Total Rewards should be thoughtful about how robust.

Sean Luitjens (09:03.078)
How do they get that though? I guess, because to be honest, I would not have, if we wagered my top three guesses at what you were gonna say, that was not one. And yes, that's because I don't see a lot of total awards teams owning that piece. And so A, does it happen a lot? And B, how do they get involved, I guess?

John Baldino (09:11.295)
That wasn't one of them, right? Yeah.

John Baldino (09:24.969)
Well, if it's a reward, in my opinion, it should be connected to that because you are recognizing people. And again, typically there's some sort of monetary related connection to it. So, you know, like that to me is why total reward should be a part of it if not helping to lead it. I think two.

If not, then I have seen it be unsuccessful because you have an HR entry level type person who's been given this website to monitor for the points that are given out and that sort of thing. And I'm not making fun of people. by the way, let me make sure I say as an aside, it's an absolute opportunity for discrimination to settle in when an HR team has a younger person coming in who's entry level and says, you can handle the stuff online. You could do all of our

That's like ageism the other way. So be thoughtful about that. But you would want someone who can really have an appreciation about how these areas intersect because if you just set up as a total rewards initiative, this recognition website, just to pick on something easy and say, I'm going to point to that as proof that we are a rewards and recognition organization. I think that's foolish. A website is not going to be that definition for you. It's the utilization of it and the way in which that thread goes all the way through.

To go deeper to your question in terms of being surprised that I would bring it up, think organizations, they're value -centric, which most organizations would say they have a set of values, then quite frankly, let's lean into them and give people a chance to show that they are living in the work that's being done. That makes it the easiest for total rewards to have teeth so that when we have to approach other areas of total rewards, benchmarking, right, levels of analysis that are being done, there's sort of goodwill that's already been deposited in a perspective of those that are involved with total rewards because it's not just the you make enough already police that are coming in, right? Does that make sense?

Sean Luitjens (11:41.678)
Okay, that does, that does. So that was one. Are you gonna surprise me with a second one?

John Baldino (11:47.423)
I'll give you a second one because I don't want to go on for hours. The second one that I would say, I do think total rewards should be involved probably in something that has been trendier the past few years. And to what degree total rewards gets involved, I'm not sure. But I think if you want to be, again, holistically successful, it's really in that competency development. We've talked a lot about skill -based learning, I would say, over the last couple of years. How do you do that from a total rewards perspective?

There ought to be incentive based considerations around people who are looking to grow their skill base, looking at their knowledge base. It isn't just tuition reimbursement. Let's just all take a breath. It isn't just that I'm not poo pooing it. I'm not saying it's irrelevant, but that can't be it. If people going to get their MBA, I appreciate how will it affect the organization directly, not anecdotally.

But how will it directly benefit the organization? If you're gonna put money behind it, you ought to be able to connect the dots on it. So if you're not doing that, I don't know that as a total rewards team, you're hitting everything you should. Help there to be alignment with, we are recognizing and have built an incentive based program for this because we can not dotted line, straight line to the ways in which what it is that you're pursuing in overall competency development makes sense for the organization.

Sean Luitjens (13:20.01)
Okay, so other than saying don't not do the first two, because I know that'd be the short answer, right? What are mistakes, that Total Rewards themes miss besides those two, which by the way, I've already missed both. So those are gonna be my list. Yeah, yeah. What are the bigger mistakes or areas you see people missing, like probably truly morally missing?

John Baldino (13:36.12)
So you're fired. You're out.

John Baldino (13:48.427)
I mean, some of this is not going to be surprising to you, I don't think. mean, the first one really has to do with the way in which data is inflated. I think when there are total rewards teams that haven't figured out and aren't trained, I want to make sure I say that too, because I feel like it's an indictment for all total rewards people. There are people who wind up in an area of total rewards, and quite frankly, they haven't really been equipped as well as they should be. Let's just be honest.

And that's an internal view sometimes of what total rewards really is. But if you are in charge of data and you don't know how to interpret and analyze data and quite honestly use math with data, then you do run the risk of over -inflating. And if you can only do that once or twice before someone is going to say, you're spending way more money than we need to.

And so therefore, now we call into question everything that is happening in total rewards, rather than understanding there's a learning deficiency in application of what to do with data, right? And how to math the data. That I see happen. think that we've trained people, some people, particularly on compensation analytics, to just be purely research oriented. I type this thing into a site.

about a job title, maybe a couple of other points of data, it spits out a range and I say, woo, I've done analytics. Right? That I think is a, that's a huge potential failure. And then I'll quickly.

Sean Luitjens (15:28.43)
I'll build on that. think the data, the skillset, but I also think it's the skillset and the math and kind of tying it all together, but the lack of rigor sometimes that the data that you're getting is good. So, you know, to me, before you even apply the math skills, is there a little bit of common sense going back, looking at the data and making sure that it's there? And that rigor.

At least, obviously I'm biased just because my view is biased because of where I am and who I interact with. And so the data in particular, if the data is not good, you know, the answers start to look bad and you know, they'll blame technology or they'll say the market's moving and you're like, but actually like that doesn't look right way back here. How did that get by? we're like, well, we just assume the assume word, which has been dangerous in business since the dawn of time.

It's still there. So the foundational data piece, I'll just go one step before you were in there and say the data is key.

John Baldino (16:30.763)
Well, when I, I mean, I have to tell you, I still wind up talking to my favorite or like recent college grads or a couple of years out, because when you talk about data reliability and validity, they're like, yeah, they're the same thing. And you're like, don't know what you mean. Well, it has to be reliable in order for it to be valid. Okay. And then it has to be valid in order for it to be reliable. Yes. Okay.

Define those words independent of one another. If I were to ask you about reliability, how do you know a friend is reliable? Right? How do you know X is valid? And so I think we have to help equip people in that. I have to tell you very rarely, you know some of the work that I get to do, we're doing a lot of benchmarking, a lot of consultative comp work with clients who are looking to reform their entire approach really to their philosophy of compensation that's going to impact job leveling and pay grades and all kinds of things. I'm almost never asked about reliability and validity. There's just an assumption that what's going to be used works, right? And that's not true. Not all researched.

I'll even say web repositories are built the same. So you're right. You do have to ask that question. And if it becomes based on assumption, you're right. Right. That's always a problem. But it also will give the impression of being anecdotal. And when you say things like, well, it's just the way the market is right now. That creeps into anecdotal unless you have data points valid and reliable data points to tell you that.

And often they're just sort of like buzz phrases that we use. Right. a second thing that I would say, cause I, I will, I'll keep it to two. So I keep it brief is I think that I see a lot of total rewards teams stumbling over communication and which may sound silly, but man.

John Baldino (18:39.763)
Sometimes we just stink in how we sort of inform people about what we're doing, what's happening. Our approach to a launch of some particular piece, let's say of a total rewards approach, like we just do a terrible job.

Sean Luitjens (18:54.318)
I think it's an interesting, it's a new piece of the total awards and comp piece. And I think from the outside looking in, because I think, well, I've told you, I've never been a practitioner. That job looks like it's hard. And now it's gotten harder.

Because in the past you could be like, okay, I like the data and probably how comp found people they didn't find comp is like, Hey, John's really good at spreadsheets. Like we need somebody let's move them over here is good with numbers. And all of a sudden you've got people who've been in that industry or they think they want to be in comp because of that. now you're like, actually we're not a black box anymore. We don't just send stuff out. We have to communicate why this is and why someone got a big number and like,

John Baldino (19:12.487)
yeah.

Sean Luitjens (19:39.734)
It's the human and human resources. And how do you communicate it? And how does the manager communicate it? And a zero raise is hard. I actually think that harder than a zero raise is the, John, we're gonna give you this much and it'll almost cover the Netflix increase this year.

John Baldino (19:58.751)
You're right.

Sean Luitjens (19:59.992)
Do you do that or not? Like, so like, do you even do that? And so that strategic piece around how things get communicated as a whole and what's our pay philosophy, that's a new world for comp. So that one, that one, guess I didn't think of, but I hundred percent buy that that is like a new skillset. And you mentioned it earlier. What's weird to me when I see companies struggling with this is there's actually a department in most companies whose entire job is to take things and communicate them out to the world. And they refuse to walk down the hall and basically be like, people who have, because sometimes I think marketing has this thing that they're selling stuff, they're tied to selling. But actually, you can edit it, but what a great place to start. Like you have a team.

John Baldino (20:48.073)
What a great place to start. Yes. Yes. I couldn't agree more. And I will tell you, it is a very small percentage of organizations that I've both been a part of directly and supported from a fractional or consultative standpoint that leverage that opportunity well. I totally agree with you.

And it's a shame because really there's expertise in the marketing team. They're supposed to be. So why wouldn't you lean on that? Right. Because, and sometimes HR people write communication from a policy basis. And, and I mean, have you read your handbook? It's not like it's riveting.

So if you're the person who wrote that handbook and now you're writing an approach to total rewards and the enthusiasm behind it, the best way that people who come from that background tend to do so is with punctuation and emoji. And that's really difficult to take seriously, right? You use two exclamation points after this. woo, must be great.

Sean Luitjens (22:01.614)
And the difference between analytics and how you tackle it and how you communicate it, and the example I've used is there's some interesting research that once you get over 120 % of copper ratio, you don't need to give people any money in theory because their human behavior doesn't change. Well, you can't communicate that to the team and be like, John, you're now over 120 % of copper ratio. We know you're not going to do anything.

John Baldino (22:19.935)
Right.

John Baldino (22:27.167)
Right. You won't do anything more for us at all. Right?

Sean Luitjens (22:30.752)
You're not going to, we can't change your behavior with money. We know you're not going anywhere, dude. Like you can't write it that way. Someone's got to make basically somehow craft the message out and you know, matrices allow you to equitably dole out money and strategically get more out of your dollars. But every one of those boxes, you know, other than the, got more money, you know, other than the, the top left, call it a high performer, low in the range.

Everyone else has got somewhat of a difficult message on varying levels. And that's like, if you have a five by five matrix, that's 25 messages that have to get crafted out. And then there's humans on the other end, because they're not predictable either. And so it's very complex.

John Baldino (23:14.749)
It's very complex and I think also it winds up, it may have the negative effect of showing that you're less considerate of the full picture. And so.

I see organizations that lean heavily, and I love what you said about the comp ratio, that lean heavily right into these comp ratios, which I get it. And then it's case closed. When really, hold on, what is the basis for that range that you're using? it base salary? Are you doing total

What's the approach to incentive based consideration? Can that live and exist separately? Yes, you're at 120%. I get it. Okay. What do we do to help that person know that they still can make a contribution that's above and beyond? How do we incentivize that in that way?

I have to tell you that there are still plenty of organizations that try to pop some of those questions into either a tech -based platform by job title and a few other details and just hope that there's some incentive -based research of which there's typically little. Or the latest and greatest is just going on AI, whatever platform you're using and saying, know, mighty wizard, what should I do for this? Right.

And the response is like, where is to your point about validity and reliability, where is that coming from and how are we communicating that? Good news, chat GPT said I'm allowed to give you up to 10 ,000 more this year, so we'll do 2 ,500 a quarter if you meet these objectives and we're just kind of pulling things out of the air. That's when total rewards becomes anecdotal and silly.

Sean Luitjens (24:57.59)
Well, I think, you know, again, the messages and sometimes I think HR one of the mistakes I see them make is that employees aren't smart and, know, there's some. And so, you know, if I give, you know, you know, marry a, $2 ,000 increase. And I decide that John, you're at the top of the range and I give you a $2 ,000 bonus and no increase. think their hope it's hopeful that they're like, they're going to view that as the same.

John's probably pretty smart. He's going to be like, I'm sorry. I'm not going to like, like, I see what's happening long -term to me here. Can you explain that? And you're going to have to, you're going to have to do it. And once you don't do it upfront, of course, then you're chasing, right? UFO. So you tried to fool me. Now you're going to give me some more answers. So I think the communications is it's very tricky now. And it's become, cause in the past, I think you'd be like, Hey, it's calm. You can't ask anybody. You can't tell anybody. And it's a magic black box and be excited.

John Baldino (25:45.833)
Right. Huge.

Sean Luitjens (25:58.316)
and now you can't. So if we take that and say all that stuff that you just said, you know, what are one or two things that Total Rewards should be like, okay, I've got my stuff going that I should be focused on right now.

John Baldino (26:12.811)
I mean, we said a lot, right? So I think from a focus standpoint, one, which we've kind of alluded to already is the data set, right? What is it you have the time? I know you're going to tell me you don't.

But you have the time to test veracity of the data sets that you are using. It's OK, by the way, to go back to some of the platforms you might be using and ask the deeper questions. I appreciate that you may say, then what's the point in me having subscriptions to various platforms? I'm not saying to get rid of them. But what I am saying is show that you've done some due diligence in not only testing the veracity, but understanding the nuanced differences. Quite frankly, run some in those systems that you may not be interested in knowing directly for your organization. If you have a role that you know of, go on LinkedIn jobs or Indeed or look for some roles in some of the disciplines that you're pricing and look for titles that you don't currently have. Look at those duties and responsibilities, work from them, not the job title, work from them and see what results you get. That's what you're going to, it's a proactive approach to being prepared.

For any of the response that you may get from staff who were like, I went online and this is what I'm seeing. Because the internet is not just exclusive to comp professionals in that area. Other people to exactly your point are smart enough to log in and look at some stuff.

And I'm not saying everything they're looking at is valid, but it's going to affect their perception of the way in which data is either being used to screw them or to keep them from getting all that they know that they deserve. Go and do some of your own research in that regard so that you're ready proactively. That's definitely one thing I think a team can work on together. It's not every day. Maybe once a week you take a little bit of time to do that. And then even if you are still part of a team.

John Baldino (28:13.099)
If you're a solo practitioner, still can do this with the HR team as a whole. Share what your research showed. Print out, be old school even if you're in an office together, print out a couple of job descriptions. Let people pen to paper it, right? And talk about, well, someone's gonna think this is what they do even though we don't have it listed on their current job description. Okay, well then that's gonna influence why they think they should be making X. Let's be proactively ready for these things or be ready to make some changes in that.

That's one thing I think that teams can be doing right now. The other thing I would say is I think that the robustness of, and I will probably talk about technology, but the robustness of technology is frightening to some people in total rewards. I know that's funny, but it's true. I think that there are people who still struggle with...agility and mobility in technology. And so want to stay stymied in things that they know. I mean, I literally know people that will, they, they cut a brother before they give up Excel. They are just never going to get away. I'm not mad at Excel,

Sean Luitjens (29:24.51)
Excel rocks. I mean, Excel and Excel to be fair, it's interesting because obviously we're a tech developer and I would argue our number one competitors Microsoft. It's free.

John Baldino (29:37.097)
Yeah, I would believe

Sean Luitjens (29:39.276)
The data is portable, the skillset's portable. By default, Google Sheets is in the hands of third graders now, which are now future comp professionals, right? So it is portable, and if you want to nerd out on VBScript and pivot tables, but I think you're right. There's limitations that there are limitations to what you might want to achieve now that Excel just can't handle or it becomes too onerous. And actually, you the thing with Excel, while the skill sets portable, what I tell you is the inside knowledge is not right. So when Mary leaves the company, you know, a lot of times they're like, wow, we can just get someone else who knows Excel. And what they do is recreating everything because Mary had so much extra stuff in there. Like why I don't.

John Baldino (30:22.699)
That's right, you copy and paste some of that stuff. Yeah, 100%. And I think, again, just because folks that will be hearing our chat, let me give a little, if I can just quickly, another sort of context to this. I'm not saying that the software is the enemy, and I'm not saying Excel is the enemy. But what I am saying is, if you're going to lean into a software tool that has the backing to it, of developers and other tech professionals who are looking to continue to enhance and affirm the validity and reliability of that tool. That's different than what you'll have in -house who are doing so for Excel.

And the other piece that might be helpful as well is there is a liability that has some transfer to platforms that you're using versus Excel. You need to know why the data is working the way that it is in the software tool. I'm not saying

And Excel sometimes can help you to understand why certain things are coming through the way that they are. Coming back to VLOOKUP and those kind of, I get it. I'm not saying not to know that. But if you don't know how, if there's one person who's the guru of Excel in your organization,

And no one else really understands how the, you know, the, the cake is being made, then, then everybody's just nodding, just, just nodding. Yeah, that looks great. What looks great? A bunch of cells with numbers in them. What, what is great? What does that mean? And I think a tool often comes with, context tutorials, around why

John Baldino (32:08.381)
It's built the way that it is so that those who don't know have an opportunity to safely know those answers and not have to reveal perhaps something that they think will make them look weaker in the eyes of their colleagues, which honestly, we know there's political perspectives that will shine through when something like that comes to light.

Sean Luitjens (32:29.238)
It's interesting, one that you didn't mention that I usually mention for a different, well, I appreciate it. I'm like a golden book. I'm easy to read. So like the pay equity thing is the one that I get on. And I say it, not, I mean, altruistically, think everyone should be a good payer. And I think that's the thing, but,

John Baldino (32:34.215)
I don't want to take your stuff, so please.

John Baldino (32:49.674)
for sure.

Sean Luitjens (32:51.34)
And you don't, the ostrich method is still reasonably an okay approach in the U S but the underlying fundamental work, which kind of goes to what you were talking about before of understanding a job, what roles, responsibilities, what competencies you have to have. That framework is the crux of most pay equity

And so if you start to get yourself ready for pay equity, it's coming. If you do work in Europe, like it's coming. So, you know, if you don't think it's coming, you can keep your head in sand for a little while longer, maybe. But the work. Well, but the fundamental work, even if you're not on that train yet, the fundamental work.

John Baldino (33:21.927)
It's here. Come on. It's

Sean Luitjens (33:28.972)
to do that with a job architecture and a career framework and roles and responsibilities and all that basically starts to underpin the data validity that you're talking about to be able to do the work. Because again, I'll come back to, and obviously at Vizier, we believe in analytics. The analytics work that is amazing, what the tools do. I terabytes of data, we can run trillions of rows,

But again, you have to have that information matched and that data has to be right. And then why build the analytics? But again, that underpinning of at our company, this is what people do and pulling some stuff in. I like the concept of like go a little old school and be like, Hey, everyone print out this job. No one can have a fax machine. So they'll have to scan it. You could really mess with them. Like a, like an amazing race scenario. You have to print it out and fax it to me.

John Baldino (34:20.393)
Yeah, yeah. Listen, if you have any experience with state related unemployment offices, know plenty of them are still doing faxes, right? So if you have that skill set, hold onto it for a little while longer. And again, I don't want to take away from pay equity. You know I totally agree with that. mean, I'm huge on pay equity.

Sean Luitjens (34:21.622)
see if they can find

Sean Luitjens (34:36.172)
Yeah. Well, I think it's more the work though. I think what's interesting is I know you and I've jammed on pay equity and ways to measure it, remediate, do all that stuff. But I actually think even if you don't like it, there are multitudes of benefit to doing that initial lift. And so if you think it's just for pay equity, I think just any analytics and the ability to do more is going to be better for going through that rigor at the beginning.

John Baldino (35:03.893)
There's no reason that anybody who sits in a total reward seat with whatever duties and responsibilities, whether it's specifically comp analysis or if it is under.

You know, benefits related perspective, there's no reason to not look at those things both internally and externally. There's no reason. You can't just lean into one because it's an incomplete view. You've got to look at both. And so when we talk about compensation benchmarking and competitive analysis in that regard, I get it. It's an external view. But the pay equity piece then has to be a natural part of it from an internal perspective.

But it's both end. I think it needs to be both end.

Sean Luitjens (35:44.622)
Correct. So getting near the end of time, this is that you get to go, know, blue skies and unicorns. If you could automagically solve one issue of any of these in HR, what would that

John Baldino (35:59.753)
I mean, from a total rewards perspective.

Sean Luitjens (36:02.742)
No, go, go, go, this is big. This is auto -magical. So this is like all of HR. I mean, if you think payroll secret writing and you know what they're handling.

John Baldino (36:09.091)
I mean, my gosh. Am I allowed to say two things? I mean, and I'll be quick. The one thing I would say is on the human side, I'll break apart human resources. On the human side, I would say we need to get better if I could fix everything, would be around vulnerability and communication.

Sean Luitjens (36:16.108)
Yeah, sure.

John Baldino (36:37.491)
It's still a huge struggle for people and vulnerability, even just me saying that word, I know just has a whole lot of baggage for people when they hear that word.

I have done this so long. If you aren't in a place where someone is, if you're not ready to have someone come and chat with you about a difficult health prognosis, not purely to ask you about FMLA, but to talk to you about what's happening. If you have someone who needs to come and talk to you about the future of their kids who are looking at trade school or what's next, not because they want to know how long they can keep them on benefits, but they look at you as someone with some level of expertise and have a heartbeat behind what you're offering, I want that to be fixed.

We just have to get through that. We need to not be so separate. And on the resources side, I'll be technologically based for this one. I wish we had a great way, if could wave a wand, to really track germane years of experience in systems of record.

Sean Luitjens (37:44.714)
Yeah, yeah. I like how a lot of times it's self -enter. So yeah. Yeah. I've been doing it longer than, you know, since I was in grade school, I've been doing that.

John Baldino (37:48.796)
Yeah, yeah, yeah.

John Baldino (37:54.523)
People will answer that way and who's going to check that? mean, nobody is. Yeah.

Sean Luitjens (38:00.384)
Thanks so much. This is always good. We always run out of time. For those, John's pretty easy to find on LinkedIn. Check out his, you know, but first coffee series. It's great. And actually it's, it is, don't get too big ahead, but it covers a lot of different stuff in the human part too, which is actually pretty cool. So as a numbers nerd, it's very educational for someone like me at times. So it's greatly appreciated. And so we'll have his contact information.

John Baldino (38:11.103)
first coffee here.

Sean Luitjens (38:30.348)
Really appreciate it. Thanks again. Thanks all.

John Baldino (38:32.031)
Thanks, Sean.