Totally Rewarding Chats | Ep. 05: Aligning Compensation Strategy with the Modern Workforce

Tying people analytics to business goals is critical

Sean Luitjens and Paul Reiman discuss the need for modernizing compensation management which hasn't changed much in decades. They advocate for flexible, transparent compensation strategies that align with both business objectives and employee needs. The discussion underscores the importance of moving towards more dynamic, performance-based adjustments, supported by technology for fairness and responsiveness. This approach is essential for attracting talent and ensuring organizational sustainability in today's business climate.

In this episode:

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

• Guest, Paul Reiman, Founder and Managing Partner, Novo Insights

Episode transcript:

Sean Luitjens (00:02.11)
All right, here we are at another session of Totally Rewarding Chats. I'm super fired up. We have Paul Reiman from Novo Insights here. Always great to chat with you. He is the founder and managing director of Novo Insights. And other than that, I think it's best if you give me the history and give everyone else the history, the elevator pitch of your past, because it's unique.

Paul Reiman | Novo Insights (00:26.56)
Yeah, thanks Sean, thanks for having me. I'm excited to do this as well. I tell people Novo Insights is the third act of my career. So 25 years ago, I started in the comp world as a comp consultant and spent the first 12 years working for big consulting firms and loved it, traveled a ton, saw some great things, met a lot of people in a lot of different industries and then decided to go in house and.

spent 12 years then leading rewards and operations functions for three different software companies. Another great tour of duty for 12 years, kind of doing it from the inside and really learning all of the things I didn't quite get as a 20 something consultant when I first started my career. Sold the last company to private equity, decided that wasn't a roller coaster I wanted to ride anymore and said, hey, now's a great time to do something different. And thus, Novo Insights was born. So we've...

We're about a year and a half in now. We're still really young, but growing fast and have found a fun little space where we help organizations bridge this gap between comp strategy and comp delivery, something I'm sure we'll talk more about in this chat by just thinking differently about what pay really needs to look like in a modern era. So super excited to be doing what we're doing. Love and grow in a team and building a business all at the same time.

Sean Luitjens (01:45.166)
Awesome. So before we get started, I always like to ask people like, what do you do for fun hobbies or anything outside of work, you know, just to show that you're the little test to make sure you're human, not a robot.

Paul Reiman | Novo Insights (01:59.332)
Unfortunately, I run a business and I have small children, so there's not a whole lot of fun to be had. Although, though many would point out that when I join a Zoom call or a Teams chat, my profile picture happens to be me playing a bass guitar. So the closest thing I have to a hobby is I play in a very boring cover band called the Salary History Band, which is kind of on point for sort of what we're talking here today.

So music would be my one sort of fun thing that makes me slightly less robot.

Sean Luitjens (02:35.486)
Okay, that's interesting though, the linkage. That is the best linkage we've had from Hobby so far. Pretty awesome. So.

Paul Reiman | Novo Insights (02:39.456)
Yeah.

Paul Reiman | Novo Insights (02:44.302)
Well, what makes it less cool is that it's a band full of lawyers, labor lawyers in particular. And so they think about wage and hour just the same, so sort of salary history band kind of fit for lawyers and a comp guy.

Sean Luitjens (03:02.358)
So do you guys sell your, do you guys book the band in six minute increments? Is that, is that how you book your weekends?

Paul Reiman | Novo Insights (03:07.666)
Ha!

Paul Reiman | Novo Insights (03:11.19)
We should, except really the only gig we primarily play is their own events. So you don't even get paid for it because you're basically selling to the in-house crowd.

Sean Luitjens (03:22.114)
No, they're probably charging, they're probably charging your clients somewhere. Let's be fair.

Paul Reiman | Novo Insights (03:25.344)
Yeah, always lawyers.

Sean Luitjens (03:30.799)
So as we get started, I mean, the easiest way to get started is, you know, what, as you look at the total reward space, like, what do you see is the number one kind of topic you're intrigued by or issue you're tackling for clients?

Paul Reiman | Novo Insights (03:43.852)
Yeah, I mean, I think the founding call for Novo Insights is all around, how do we modernize the work we do? You know, when I look back 25 years ago when I started in this space, a lot of what we're doing is exactly the same. There's more technology behind it, for sure, but the mindset, the ethos, the psychology, has really not changed all that much, except for when a government or somebody else has told us we have to do it differently.

And, you know, I think there's just an era of modernization coming in terms of thinking differently about why people want to get paid what they get paid. How do we organize programs? How do we use technology to be efficient? How do we think about how people really engage with the experience of pay, whether it's in a comp cycle or promotion? You know, just we haven't rethought those things so much. And I see so much opportunity to let some old practices die and let some new things

come in and we're still discovering those new things, but there's definitely some opportunity for modernization and just retooling the compensation function.

Sean Luitjens (04:53.73)
So how do you get started with that? Because I, as I've been, I guess, preaching, there's really cool technology out there, right? And I'm biased because unlike you have not been a practitioner, I've just been a technology nerd for years. And so we think the tech has gone, but the example I use a lot is the foundation of like job grading for pay equity and pay, et cetera. Like there's foundational work that the tech has to sit on to work well.

Paul Reiman | Novo Insights (05:19.798)
Mm-hmm.

Sean Luitjens (05:19.798)
But how, where do you think companies need to start? Like it's an interesting place because you can go get really cool tech, but without some of the foundational strategy pieces and kind of knowing where you're going, where do you, where do you have clients start on that journey to be most effective?

Paul Reiman | Novo Insights (05:36.576)
Yeah, honestly, some of it is what we call the Comp Foundations. And it's basics. Things like, how are you thinking about the way you pay? Comp philosophy. And we don't believe comp philosophy is, you know, what G-Chat GPT would tell you, right? You should pay at the median to be competitive. Like, yeah, that's part of it. But why do you pay the way you pay? Who are you really trying to compete with and reward against? How do you value flexibility versus rigidity? So really challenging the-

Well, this is the way we've done it. Or this is what we did at my last company, which is largely how pay strategy gets created in many organizations. Um, we definitely have an opportunity to think fresh and be more. You know, I don't want to use the word strategic cause it's overworked, but like really purposeful about the choices we're making around pay. So that's where we start is philosophy. Like just challenge your assumptions and be very clear about what you want to accomplish with pay. Um,

The second big part then is sort of job and comp architecture, right? Where so many of these old grade systems have crippled under the pressure of pay transparency. Um, and really revisiting what does a pay range mean? How do you use it? Not as a cost control mechanism, but as a guiding principle or as a guideline for pay and make sure it accomplishes all the competing objectives that ranges have to do around financial planning, cost control, transparency, you know.

All those things, right? So you have to revisit that foundation and just challenge a lot of assumptions, right? There's no, I don't think there's a solution. I think it's more being more purposeful about deploying tools like that in a way that makes sense for your organization.

Sean Luitjens (07:25.846)
There's a little buffering that's happening in there. I'll have them edit out. Is that if it's buffing on your side or my side.

Paul Reiman | Novo Insights (07:29.556)
Yeah, that's fine.

Paul Reiman | Novo Insights (07:33.253)
Hard to tell. We know it's doing it.

Sean Luitjens (07:35.126)
I'm out.

But kind of curious, yeah, you know, I am curious, like, are you even having them go back and reevaluate things like, the one I've been harping on is the comp cycle. And I say that because you've got pay transparency, you've got new hires coming through the year, and we do the pay cycle once or twice a year, because in the old days, and I'm gonna date myself, you basically had to fill a piece of paper out and fax it to the payroll company.

And so the process was so arduous, we did it once a year, because that's the way you did it. Are you seeing companies start all the way back with that strategy, or are they trying to fit in, you know, fit into what has kind of always been, or how are you, where are you having them start?

Paul Reiman | Novo Insights (08:24.)
Yeah, I think most organizations are trying to evolve from what they have. So I'm, you know, I don't see a massive movement tomorrow towards like an always on comp cycle. That said, I do push my clients to think about what are you really trying to accomplish in a comp cycle? You know, things like bonuses, things like equity awards do have to happen in a cyclical sort of way.

just because there's a cycle behind those programs, right? There's financial performance that has to be adjudicated in certain ways, the equity awards don't happen all the time, vestings occur in tranches, right? So there's reasons that those happen cyclically. But from a salary standpoint, like what's really your goal in a comp cycle? And my entire comp career, we've been in a 3% world, and it's just really hard to do the things that we claim we can do once a year.

in a 3% budgeted comp cycle. So if you're willing to challenge those assumptions around how much you're trying to bite off in a comp cycle, then you have different choices available. And we do encourage people to think about what's possible.

Paul Reiman | Novo Insights (09:41.6)
You just disappeared from me, Sean. So I think the buffering is getting worse, not better.

Paul Reiman | Novo Insights (14:08.68)
Hey, you're back. What happened?

Sean Luitjens (14:10.342)
Hey, is it you or me? I stayed on.

Paul Reiman | Novo Insights (14:14.64)
You disappeared from me all of a sudden. I was mid answer and your screen went black and then I couldn't see

Sean Luitjens (14:20.29)
Yeah, you disappeared and it basically, I've had this little bubble over your head and I don't know because I'm in the studio director thing that has said that your network isn't good and it'll try to aggregate it together. Usually to be fair, that bubbles over my head because I live out with Starlink. So I was kind of happy to see it above your head.

Paul Reiman | Novo Insights (14:41.76)
I'm on a hardwired connection, so it must have been just some... I mean, the weather's crazy everywhere, so it's possible it's just somewhere in between, I guess.

Sean Luitjens (14:47.574)
Now you're fine. Now you look fine. Because you were breaking up before. So now you're fine. So I left it going. So I think we can kind of... You're going to have to answer that same question again when I say go.

Paul Reiman | Novo Insights (14:51.261)
Okay. Huh.

Paul Reiman | Novo Insights (15:04.142)
It's going to be quite the job for the edit folks to stitch back together.

Sean Luitjens (15:07.178)
Well, I wrote down at 730, so somewhere around 730, and then I'll write down just before 1530 here. We'll get going. So there's this eight minutes in here. At least it's one big chunk, actually. So you ready? Oh, no, that's fine. I thought it's usually me because we're on Starlink. So three, two, one. So Paul, like.

Paul Reiman | Novo Insights (15:15.468)
That is weird.

Paul Reiman | Novo Insights (15:20.124)
Yeah, true. Bizarre.

Paul Reiman | Novo Insights (15:25.288)
Yeah, sorry about that. We're all good.

Sean Luitjens (15:37.706)
If you think about where these companies start with, I always come back to things like comp planning. And I say that because comp planning has a lot of new cool technology and you've marked out some of these in the comp tech landscape. But if you think about the why behind we do it, we do it once or twice a year. And that's because in the old days, and I'm old enough to remember this, you collected data on sheets or something.

someone aggregated it and then faxed it to the payroll company. And so this was an arduous once a year process because it was super difficult. And now the tech is sitting in there, but how do you work with companies to figure out that's just one example where they need to update the process and for why, like, where do you start? Because obviously I'm a technologist, so we'll build whatever people tell us, but the why actually is the, the interesting part to me.

Paul Reiman | Novo Insights (16:28.468)
Yeah. Yeah, I think it always starts with why are you doing the thing you are doing, right? So let's use comp cycles as an example. Like there's a reason that it is cyclical for some purposes, you know, that isn't just driven by the difficulty of the task. So bonuses, for example, a lot of organizations pay bonuses in their cycle. Well, you need to know financial performance to do that. That might be an annual thing. So that is going to be a cyclical rhythm or equity, you know, for those that have a stock.

process. Same thing, you don't give stock all the time. Right? There's good reasons to take a step back and periodically do a refresh or review across the organization. Salary increases though, a lot of times we do that once a year because we've always done it once a year. It's not because, well, it makes perfect sense to sit with a budget of three or 4% and divide that into smaller chunks. You know, so if you really challenge the why did we do this, you open up new possibilities. I don't see...

a massive flight of organizations throwing up in the air saying, okay, well, let's not do it once a year. Let's do always on salary planning. That's too fast a transformation. I think people still try to renovate within the systems that they have. But absolutely, organizations are seeing that as a good example of an opportunity to more periodically, quarterly, twice a year, just advance the strategy to say there's better ways to think about the experience we want to have in investing in our people in terms of salary change.

So that's an example around comp cycle, but what data do we use to benchmark? There's all of these different things that we're doing it the same way we did it 25 years ago. And if we ask, well, why do we still do it that way? What is it about that processor experience and really stay true to what you're trying to accomplish, then you can explore what role can technology play? What role can different forms of data play? What form can AI play in sort of making this disappear?

There's a lot of different choices we have, but you have to stay true to what you're trying to accomplish.

Sean Luitjens (18:28.878)
How do you help once they figure out the why, how do you help them bridge the gap to, you know, what technology you use and the ROI around that? The interesting thing about comp, you know, the comp profession is, and I've jokingly said it a bunch, is I've never been a practitioner. It looks hard. I also think they as a group have been exceedingly creative and just the willingness to get stuff done.

And so they'll outwork it. And so to me, the ROI is hardest in comp than some departments because they'll just, you know, take the comp cycle again, just as an example, technology makes it easier, but the ROI would be in the amount of time is how some management might look at it, but comp people have been their own worst enemy. They'll just get it done. And so there's no ROI on the technology because they just believe in the process and do it.

Paul Reiman | Novo Insights (19:21.732)
Oh, totally. There is nothing that the comp function doesn't love more and hate more than Excel. Right? Because we'll plow through any constraints. I could build a spreadsheet for that. Knowing fully the risks and challenges and costs associated with spreadsheet-based work. But we'll still do it, right? So we love it because we can just make it happen. We hate it because now we're stuck with what we just made happen.

You know, that's the state of play. Like it is, it's the killer app for all of us. And it's both our biggest, you know, success stories and our biggest failures tend to come from being able to plow through it. Absolutely.

Sean Luitjens (20:01.538)
So how do you see pay equity and pay transparency? Because to me, I mean, it's the biggest lever and maybe it's either FOMO or the fear at the management level of having this come out. How are you seeing, and I know they're two separate pieces, but how are you seeing these two play as this all comes into the next year or two?

Paul Reiman | Novo Insights (20:25.724)
Yeah, unfortunately, I think it's going to take longer than a year or two, but some of it is the regulatory groups realizing that they're not the same thing. Like right now, the strategy is, well, we want to mandate pay equity, and we think we're going to force you to do that through pay transparency. That's largely the regulatory strategy. They just don't connect that way that I think people think it does. Right? Like just by putting posting ranges out there, you know,

time will tell, but my belief is that it's not going to advance the state of pay equity just because we've posted ranges, right? So I do think at first is a reckoning of they are two different things and you have to understand what problem you're trying to solve with pay transparency and how does that really contribute to pay equity. Pay equity is more driven by representation issues than by sort of the negotiation access to information issues that transparency does actually solve.

That said, of course, I think both are good and both advance the state of compensation, right? Pay equity just at a moral level is the right thing to do, and it creates plenty of opportunities for us to think differently about the programs and strategies we deploy to make sure we don't introduce inequity and we address equities to the extent that they exist. So it's a huge thing to plow through. If we think about the last topic we were talking about there, like it's something people have to figure out how do you make it happen?

But it's a great challenge to have because it does produce societal good to advance the state of pay equity. I think pay transparency is like the puzzle side. Like it's not inherently good or inherently bad. It's a natural set of constraints that now we get to learn how to live within. I see places where it's creating great opportunity. You know, it's taking away some of that old school, well, I'm just going to negotiate with this guy and figure out how much to pay him. Right. It's kind of changing some old ways of thinking.

But it's also really hard when you've got to put something out there. And there are legacy challenges that are out there that make it difficult to be transparent. So it's a big challenge for us to face. I don't have a crystal ball to say how it's all going to work out, but it's definitely the big problem that we're working with all of our clients to address is what's the right level of transparency that complies, but advances sort of our talent objectives more broadly.

Sean Luitjens (22:46.062)
Do you think though, I mean, where I struggle is, is it, you know, the philosophical issue or the technical issue? And the technical issue, I mean, it sounds like it's done, but the reality is it's not. And that's in my mind, because that, you know, to say you've got pay equity and to really look at pay equity, you know, it's for the same job, for the same, you know, effort, for the same performance. All of those systems underlying have to be correct, right? And so there's a technical, I call it all in the technical bucket.

Am I graded as a pyramid? Am I graded the right way? And then did I have a good performance management system? And then did I do the comp planning based on it, based on that performance equitably and whatever. That gets thrown to the sides you're talking about with, as soon as you do that, you're gonna hire somebody new, right? That's the hard part about pay equity and transparency. Or is it more the philosophical issue that it's hard and maybe it's more of a human issue in the human resources.

to tell people I have to give them more money than someone else. Nobody wants to do that. And most managers weren't hired for that type of thing. They're hired because they're great at something else, not dealing with merit increase communication. So those are the two buckets. So do you think it's more driven by the philosophy that companies are like, this is hard and it's miserable and whatever?

Paul Reiman | Novo Insights (23:59.337)
I'm sorry.

Sean Luitjens (24:13.15)
Or hey, I'm gonna have to go get technology to make sure that I'm doing it right.

Paul Reiman | Novo Insights (24:17.156)
I think it's more philosophy, you know, apologetically to a technologist. Like I think the technology is not hard around transparency, right? There's a set of numbers and we show them and I'm oversimplifying, but it's, and the mechanics of well, Sean is low in a range below a range technologically. Let's make sure Paul knows to pay him more than this person who is already high. And right. Like that's, there's work and there's an experience in a user quality issue that needs to happen, but it's not, it's a

We know the answer, right? Find a way to pay this person more. It's more the, well, who is that supposed to be really, right? Is it just because Sean's paid less? Well, why is Sean paid less? Is he really doing the same work as this person? You know, the technology can advance that story, but I'm not sure it's going to tell you the answer. I think it's more of a approach and expertise issue that technology needs to enable, but organizations need to figure out, like what's the right way?

Sean Luitjens (25:13.826)
Yeah, and I agree. I like to think at this point, both the willingness to do the hard work and grade people, which has got some skill to it, right? And then the willingness and philosophy that I want to be transparent with pay and put the people in bubbles and people will figure out where they are. The tech can be solved, right? And if you want to nerd out on multivariate regression and go down all that, we can do all that and put it in front of users now to have it. The question is, do you want to solve it?

And again, I'll come back to the old, you know, do you want to use the peanut butter spread method? Because then I can go to everybody and say, hey, you all got 3% and I was fair, even though those of us that know a little bit of math know you've just made a pay equity problem worse, right, in the market. And so that is the interesting piece because the tech is now out there. And so does management think if we buy tech, we solve the problem? And it's not.

Paul Reiman | Novo Insights (26:10.068)
Yeah, I do see some of that where it's like, I won't name, but I have a friend in a pretty good sized company whose chief HR officer was like, well, the AI can solve this, right? And I do think that mindset is there. They're like, well, yeah, like spotting an anomaly in itself is a mathematical or a sort of true fault exercise given a set of assumptions. So does it solve it? Yes, from the sense that it can give you an answer, but does that really accomplish

pay equity? Hard to say for sure. And as soon as you solve that, you actually, like almost all the time, you have to run it again to now solve the new inequity that you may have created until you get to sameness. Like mathematically, there's always inequity until everybody's paid the same in a given job. You know, is that what we're tasting?

Sean Luitjens (26:55.846)
Right. And then you hire somebody new and whatever, right? And again, I always come back to what the manager wants to hire the best person possible. They almost don't care that everyone else is going to be like what gives because they have a need and an urgent issue. By the way, thanks for throwing AI out there because it wasn't going to be, you know, an HR discussion without AI being discussed at all. And by the way, I like the fact that it just solves everything.

Paul Reiman | Novo Insights (27:08.169)
Yep.

Paul Reiman | Novo Insights (27:11.66)
Totally.

Paul Reiman | Novo Insights (27:23.956)
Oh, why wouldn't it?

Sean Luitjens (27:26.142)
Yeah, I think it's interesting. It's basically made it worse for, I think, some people, specifically maybe in HR because HR is so complicated, right? And you think about jokingly, I've said the compensation as a whole is simple, right? You just pay people. How hard can it possibly be? And if management thinks that, then why can't AI just solve the problem, right? And so I think HR is getting caught in this AI

Paul Reiman | Novo Insights (27:43.584)
are gonna be.

Sean Luitjens (27:52.994)
can fix everything thing and it's so inherently complex. And by the way, it has the word human in it. And so, you know, humans are what statistically probable and individually, you know, highly unique, I'll call it, right? So if you could wave your wand, kind of the last question I always think is interesting. So if you could wave your wand and wave something in total rewards and kind of fix one big problem,

Paul Reiman | Novo Insights (28:08.458)
Yeah.

Sean Luitjens (28:22.51)
What would that be? And of course, why? Can't leave without the why.

Paul Reiman | Novo Insights (28:24.68)
Yeah. Yeah, this is kind of a loaded answer. It actually speaks to what we were just describing, but I would love to be able to reset the clock, right? And just start without any bodies buried or things hidden in the closet. Because that holds back all of my clients in some way or another from making a change they wanna make, right? Well, so if I could just say, look, everybody in this job is going to be paid exactly the same rate of pay.

and they're going to be happy with it. Now we can implement good program and policy to drive pay for performance, to attract and retain. I think you can do it, but you have to start from a clean space, but we never have that clean space to start from. So lots of people would say, in a magic world, I would pay everyone in this job exactly the same, but they're not today. So does everyone get a raise? Do people get a pay cut? How do I transition into that? So it's a theoretical response of, you kind of clean up the stuff.

that's not an ideal set of operating conditions. Because it's just those legacy issues.

Sean Luitjens (29:29.654)
And organizations even get near that because the way you clean up, I mean, pay equity in other places, right? Everyone talks about how you pay and how you remediate. Not once ever, and maybe you have, have I heard any company say, you know what we'll do is we'll reduce some people's pay. That's not happening, right? So there's inherent cost and the reality that comes into play. I think the other thing that happens, the assumption is if I could pay everyone the same, then...

all my new hires would be the same too, because, and no one will leave, but the fundamental issue is they're human and some people's propensity to leave or value other pieces of culture are different, right? So the compensation piece only tackles part of it that's there.

Paul Reiman | Novo Insights (30:15.144)
Yes, though I have seen where if you are really clear about how you approach pay in the lens of both pay equity and your broader value proposition, it works to the extent people sort of self-select in the right way. Meaning, look, everyone here is gonna make the same. And if you wanna make more and you think that's what's gonna make you happy, this isn't the place for you. Like I have seen organizations be that bold about it. So then,

Folks choose it for a different purpose, right? There might be people who could make more, right?

Sean Luitjens (30:47.246)
Great, because I think the fallacy of pay for performance is if you really drive everyone towards pay for performance, it's by definition in forest ranking competitive, right? And so if you create a culture that is a little more that way, we're gonna pay the same and everyone's on the same, they work in both of the team, is my personal philosophy. Versus, you know, look, I know Paul and I are pretty good. Only one of us can be a three. One of us has to be a two.

And especially if I know I'm probably too quality, the only way I can become a three is make sure Paul's a two. That becomes part of my daily job is to make sure that's there. And that's where this pay equity piece, I think, can be tough for people to manage. It's not just paying the same, it's how do you create a culture where that's okay.

Paul Reiman | Novo Insights (31:35.9)
Yeah, totally. I worked at one company, one of the three, I won't name it, but people can figure it out if they stock sufficiently. But they were so long term minded, right? People stayed for a long time and they moved you around a lot, took on different jobs. The problem with that is at any given moment, you might be way over or way under market for the job you're in. Right. And they did such a good job of telling people stop thinking that way. Right. You're going to zoom out.

and over your eight years, 10 years or whatever here, you're gonna get way ahead. You are going to learn, you're gonna grow, you're gonna make more money. If you measure every moment, are you paid fairly? Multiple points along this journey, you're gonna feel bad. But you're gonna be better off if you ignore it in the short one. They didn't use those exact words, but that was basically what they told people. And it worked for those that got the message, right? And it was just a self-selecting cultural thing.

Sean Luitjens (32:28.546)
So if we pick on that for a second, Joe, that's super cool, right? Like I actually think that's super cool. But how does a company, without digging too deep, let's say I'm on that journey, right? And I'm doing the same job as you, but I have different pay because I'm on this moving around thing and you don't. How does that come out in the wash in a pay equity or pay transparency view, right? I don't know.

Paul Reiman | Novo Insights (32:56.712)
Yeah, I mean, in that particular circumstance, that message was kind of on a slope that people shared. So if, you know, think of it as like you're the class of, you know, 2004 joining the company, like by and large, you're moving as a class. So it kind of worked. You had to redefine pay equity though, right? It's not the people who are sitting next to each other doing the same work. It's the people who are learning and growing together, right? So it's...

Sean Luitjens (33:22.446)
in your class. Okay.

Paul Reiman | Novo Insights (33:23.44)
Exactly. It was equitable if you slice this way, not equitable if you slice that way, essentially. But that's, you know, kind of true in every circumstance, I might go so far to say. Like, you know, I know how to part through the math.

Sean Luitjens (33:35.918)
Would you say, I'm kind of leaving on that side, I'm curious, what we haven't seen yet is a lot of the legal precedent out in the market yet, right? There's been some obvious, right? So for obvious reasons, this person looks underpaid, you know, and, you know, they're just bad payers and bad humans for paying them that way, right? That those are the obvious ones. But I'm waiting for the precedents for things to come up like this, that basically say, well, actually, we as a company.

Paul Reiman | Novo Insights (33:54.036)
Yes.

Sean Luitjens (34:04.214)
don't look at it by the job, we look at it by the class of 2020 and how defensible that is. So I'm really interested in how that stuff will go. Where a company is actually probably paying fairly and it's really great for the employees, but one person wants to test the system or one person that's three classes behind them wants to test the system. And interesting.

Paul Reiman | Novo Insights (34:24.116)
Yep. And what will happen then as a result? Yeah, who knows? Who knows?

Sean Luitjens (34:29.686)
Okay, this has been awesome. So appreciate your insights. We will definitely share your info if people wanna reach out. For those who haven't seen it, I'm gonna put in a plug. Paul didn't know was coming, but Novo Insights and Paul have put together a really cool Comp Technology grid, which both is overwhelming if you think Comp Technology is a simple landscape, but also is super helpful when you think about the way.

Paul Reiman | Novo Insights (34:37.44)
Yeah, that's great.

Sean Luitjens (34:56.266)
Some people are thinking about the comp technology and layering it all together. So definitely worth checking out if you haven't seen it. I have plagiarized it a lot, Paul, and used it to explain to people where parts of the puzzle fit together. It's really awesome work and was really needed.

Paul Reiman | Novo Insights (35:10.764)
Thank you. Yeah, the landscape has exploded and to the extent we can help people understand it better is part of the mission for sure.

Sean Luitjens (35:19.598)
The graphic helps, and maybe that's just because I'm not that bright in a picture is my speed, but I really appreciated it. So thanks again, everyone. We will have another session. Really appreciate it, Paul. Thanks.

Paul Reiman | Novo Insights (35:31.276)
Thanks, Sean. Thanks for having me.