Steve Brink – HR Tech 2022 Series – Creative Compensation Solutions for the Talent Shortage

Connect with Steve:

• 

Connect with Dwight:

• 
• dwight.brown@salary.com

Connect with David:

• 
• 
• david.turetsky@salary.com

 

Podcast Manager, Karissa Harris:

• HRDataLabs@salary.com

 

Production by Affogato Media

Resources:

• uFlex Reward
• HR Data Labs Season 5 Episode 14
• HR Data Labs Season 5 Episode 12

• “There’s pay transparency, and then there’s taking it to the next level and giving [candidates] the opportunity to compare their current benefits with their potential benefits if they were to accept a job offer.”
• “Wouldn’t it be cool to have a different paradigm about pay where instead of [giving salary increases] just because the clock changed, we do so based on what what they actually do to impact the company?”

Announcer: 0:02

Here's an experiment for you. Take passionate experts in human resource technology. Invite cross industry experts from inside and outside HR. Mix in what's happening in people analytics today. Give them the technology to connect, hit record, pour their discussions into a beaker, mix thoroughly. And voila, you get the HR Data Labs podcast, where we explore the impact of data and analytics to your business. We may get passionate and even irreverent, that count on each episode challenging and enhancing your understanding of the way people data can be used to solve real world problems. Now, here's your host, David Turetsky.

 

David Turetsky: 0:46

Hello, and welcome to the HR Data Labs podcast. I'm your host, David Turetsky. Today, we've been talking to a lot of people at the HR Technology Conference 2022, about a lot of really cool interesting things around the worlds of HR data, analytics, technology and process. This one's special. This is my second boss ever, and one of my best friends. As he says business friends, Steve Brink, CEO of uFlexRewards. Steve, how are you?

 

Steve Brink: 1:15

Doing great Dave, great to be here. What an HR tech conference spin.

 

David Turetsky: 1:22

Why would you say that, Steve? It's been great!

 

Steve Brink: 1:26

You would not believe. You, you've you've been here just to walk around and look at the different software. It's amazing to me the different types of software that's out there that's addressing all different, you know, problems and challenges that our clients have.

 

David Turetsky: 1:39

And I think what you mean by that is, given your history, because you've been in the HR technology space for than 30 years?

 

Steve Brink: 1:46

Yeah, a little more than that, showing my age there, Bud.

 

David Turetsky: 1:50

I wasn't gonna go up to 40 years, but more than 30 years! This is this is exciting to actually see so much at the HR technology show. That's trying to solve problems in HR.

 

Steve Brink: 1:59

Yeah. But you know, one of the things that we're just talking before he got on the air, and you talked about like, pay and rewards and and the like, and what's kind of surprising about is all these various, they're all various point solutions. But they're few things that actually tie things together. So they're fairly well, I call them true point solutions, where they're disparate disconnected systems. They're not tying things together. And we were just talking earlier about, you know, total rewards, right, is that there's really nothing a lot out there about total rewards, which to me is low hanging fruit. What better way to various ways of actually how you reward talent, is that tying those together, so you get a bigger and larger picture, a true picture of the total rewards and all the different ways that you actually compensate your employees?

 

David Turetsky: 2:46

And Steve's coming at it this way because he's the CEO of uFlexRewards, right? Yes, yes. Which does total reward. Okay.

 

Steve Brink: 2:54

A little self-serving there was a commercial announcement.

 

David Turetsky: 2:58

This is our commercial part of the podcast. But Steve, people may know you, they may not know you give a little minute, a little bit of your background. And then one fun thing that no one knows about you.

 

Steve Brink: 3:09

Interesting. So actually, I was the early in my career actually did a lot of economic analysis for telephone rate cases. So all the statistical analysis in rate cases, when especially divestiture they were able to telephone companies at that time, were able to go more market based price price, if you heard that before. And then so I actually was integral in developing some software to model and simulate the telephone industry with based on different prices, and what the impact is in terms of optimized my pricing. So the CEO at the time actually went and said, Steve, you know, we got to do something about this HR and asked me to go there. And actually, I ended up learning as much as I can about rewards and pay and develop the first compensation planning software on the market. And that was with the integral systems was really the one that actually was driving that. And at the time, that was what Dave Duffield was the CEO if you know Dave Duffield left he's he founded PeopleSoft went on to Workday, etc. And, and so so I sort of had familiar with Dave, before PeopleSoft a while, long time ago 1987 Actually, yeah.

 

David Turetsky: 4:23

I was still in college waiting.

 

Steve Brink: 4:25

No, thank you

 

David Turetsky: 4:25

rooting for Penn State at that point. Yeah. Yeah.

 

Steve Brink: 4:28

So let's not talk about ageism. Because it is a Go lions. true thing. It's like as you know, I have gray hair as you can see, those of you who cannot see Yeah, a little bit little sparkling. But But anyway, it's funny how people react and say, you know, when they asked me to like plug in as I was doing a presentation today, you know, I brought my PC, I pulled it out and then say, Oh, let me help you so you can plug it in. I said, Okay, I got that. And it's like everybody thinks that just because you're old you don't know how to use the computer. It's like come on! I'm not that bad!

 

David Turetsky: 4:58

Well, you're not that bad, but there are a lot of people who do need a lot of help. But now let's go talk about the one thing that no one knows about you.

 

Steve Brink: 5:07

Well, I thought the first for

 

David Turetsky: 5:08

I thought that was your background!

 

Steve Brink: 5:10

Oh, well, I kind of I combined them.

 

David Turetsky: 5:12

Okay, well, there you go.

 

Steve Brink: 5:13

So anyway, one thing you know, we had done this before. But one thing one thing one thing one thing one thing,

 

David Turetsky: 5:19

Repeat customer here so.

 

Steve Brink: 5:20

Yeah, I know you have to so now I've gotten multiple things. So one thing I got state Player of the Week in football in high school football, my senior year for all of the state of Texas in one week

 

David Turetsky: 5:32

That's incredible.

 

Steve Brink: 5:33

And our team actually went into played in the semi finals against Eric Dickerson who went on to be the NFL Hall of Fame. Anyway, that's kind of a strange, strange thing, because I don't know why that popped in my head. But I guess I'm gonna see my son play college football this weekend. That's probably why it popped into my head.

 

David Turetsky: 5:48

That is so cool. Anyway, so the genes are strong with this one.

 

Steve Brink: 5:53

I didn't play college. I moved on after high school. He's done much better. He's a good athlete. Yeah. Got it from his, his mother's side. Yeah. Okay.

 

David Turetsky: 6:11

So Steve, let's talk about 2022. And 2023. What surprised you about 2022? What do you learn in 2022? What did you expect in 2022? From a compensation perspective, compensation management, compensation technology or the market itself? What happened in 2022 that kind of surprise you? We'll start with that.

 

Steve Brink: 6:31

I mean, gosh, where where do you begin? I first I was gonna say you're gonna sing In the Year 2525, which is a song from the 60s, I was like, golly, you're gonna it's kind of scaring which we're approaching pretty quickly. Anyway, 2525? If man is still, you know, but yeah, and so. So the interesting thing, I think, in terms of overall is just, it's just the whole war on talent. And, and, and how people are struggling hiring the right talent, and there's been a shift in terms of, you know, the whole future of work, and I'm not gonna beat that, that that thing. But you know, where you're needing talents differently, it's going to be different in the future. And so how do you attract them? And it just just it's been interesting is that, you know, we're talking to one just to just to kind of show what people are starting to think outside the box, is that this this bay area software company, is that they do total reward statements. What they want to do, though, because they offer a lot of personalization and flexibility, they actually want to, they actually want to bring it over and actually have total reward statements for candidates think think about.

 

David Turetsky: 7:36

So it's a modeling of what they're going to be?

 

Steve Brink: 7:38

Exactly. Because what typically, when you go hire somebody, I don't know about you, I probably do a bad job at this. But I tell them their salary and bonus, right, and then all of a sudden, then oh, here's our handbook, or here's our website to go to, and to actually

 

David Turetsky: 7:49

go figure out

 

Steve Brink: 7:49

exactly but this one, it allows them to actually model and where they can actually customize. And they really see that as a differentiator, and I believe them. So that's what the competition is doing. And I think there's going to be this, this great kind of awareness of thinking outside the box on what better ways to attract, retain and motivate people. And this one is in terms of, of talent acquisition.

 

David Turetsky: 8:13

So let me put into two perspectives, though, because I think it's a phenomenal idea. One, there's pay transparency, that's been kind of forced on companies, whether you're talking about Colorado, New York City, or California soon. And Illinois is a different issue, but we'll talk about that later. But, but when you're talking about certain states are forcing companies to say, This is what your base pay opportunity is, what you're talking about is taking to the next level, and giving them the opportunity to understand like, look at what you do today, and wherever you are, but but think about, here's what you could get if you come to us, and here's what we would be offering you for everything very well spelled out.

 

Steve Brink: 8:54

Exactly. I think I think that's one of the cooler things and and I just think what people are thinking outside the box, you're not you're not costing anything more. Right? So you're just you're just kind of setting it up a more competitive edge to to actually look at your recruiting in a better light than anybody else.

 

David Turetsky: 9:12

Well, you're serving. And the second thing I was gonna go to is information is getting to be ubiquitous now. We're able to and I don't mean ubiquitous from this perspective of everybody's the same. I mean, you can get data on pretty much any company by either going to Glassdoor or PayScale or Salary.com, or any other the sites. But what you're saying is, is that why force them to go do the extra work?

 

Steve Brink: 9:37

Exactly.

 

David Turetsky: 9:38

Let's let's give it to them as being an employer of choice. Let's tell them what they could get if they come to us.

 

Steve Brink: 9:46

Exactly. And but you go to Glass Door, it's pretty much like salary, maybe the bonus potential, you know, that's it, right? What about all the benefits and everything, all the allowances? There's there's companies that are getting really creative by offering things whether it's student, you know, we all know student loans situation is really challenging. But you know, doing doing some student loan reimbursement, you know, program or whatever, that people can opt out saying, Okay, I don't you know, I want to trade this benefit for this, because that's where I am. But why offer that didn't then one size fits all? It's not right? Is that been able to do that? What's important? Because it's about my interest, my career, my reward? Why not? Why not facilitate that process with them?

 

David Turetsky: 10:28

Well, and maybe the problem is that they feel like there's so much then that the current employees might be jealous of, unless they're actually getting the same treatment.

 

Steve Brink: 10:40

Right. But exactly, that's the total reward right? And each way, and that's the pay transparency, you're putting Uber, you're putting pay transparency to your advantage. Right? Yeah, that's

 

David Turetsky: 10:51

You're making it out all out there.

 

Steve Brink: 10:52

Exactly.

 

David Turetsky: 10:53

Well, that's the problem is that some companies are so afraid of opening everything up. One of the reasons why is because they don't have it all in a consumable format from different viewpoints. And some of it just doesn't make any sense. Because it was all we've done it this way forever, because, and they haven't thought through. So do you think they actually have to go through renovation to have this happen and fix their pay policies? Or can they just go with what they have now? And the communications will solve itself?

 

Steve Brink: 11:22

Dave, we've both run businesses in the past. And so we always start, I think, in terms of the business strategy. And so your total reward strategy needs to be in

 

David Turetsky: 11:28

Sure. the context of that business strategy. Just because someone, that's why I always get frustrated a little bit by benchmarking, because it's your benchmarking against people that have different business strategies, right? And so with your business strategy, is that what what? What kind of total reward strategy that's going to drive and meet your business strategy, and think outside the box in terms of between your two ears, versus between two lines of source code that some technology prevents you from administering those type of things? So why not open it up and say, hey, I want to I, if I were to, if I were to craft now, my total reward strategy based on our business strategy, would it be the same thing it is today? I would say no. Probably no. I don't know. I think because business strategy changes so fast.

 

Steve Brink: 12:14

Yeah, you got the whole change management issues and those types of things. But if that's aligning, and it's going to align better to what you're trying to achieve, doesn't it make sense? And that's where the whole business acumen in terms of where we need to be tied more in our profession, we need to think about that a lot more than then I think we have before because you're, it's like, yeah, we've always done it this way. So we need to keep on doing make some changes, oh, market prices, we got to, you know, increase it 5% or whatever. It's like, wait a minute, let's take a step back.

 

David Turetsky: 12:42

But there's a lot of friction in constantly evolving your process. Because processes and policies take time to for change management takes time to actually develop them. But it takes time for change management implementation. And, then are we talking about having a constantly evolving compensation strategy?

 

Steve Brink: 13:02

Like, well, I don't think your comp changes like every single day, right.

 

David Turetsky: 13:06

But your business strategy changes often.

 

Steve Brink: 13:08

No, not as much as you think there's there's there's tweaking over time, which then tweaking what would actually matter. And I that I that I agree with.

 

David Turetsky: 13:16

Yeah.

 

Steve Brink: 13:16

But you know, I've always said, you know, a goal without a plan is a dream. And so, if your goal isn't

 

David Turetsky: 13:22

Is that yours? Did you actually come up with that yourself?

 

Steve Brink: 13:25

Or I read it somewhere, and it's put in my mind, and now I think it's mine?

 

David Turetsky: 13:29

Well, you are a brilliant guy. So that was copyright, Steve Brink 2022?

 

Steve Brink: 13:34

No, no, but what I mean by that is that is that if you maybe can't do it overnight, but then if you have the goal that you want to actually match it, and then there's chunks that you can change and you have a plan to do that. This year, we're going to focus on this because that's in the arching, right, and we're going to do this and this. So again, as long as you're and again, as long as you're going toward that business strategy who might be changing your, um, I'm using my hands but we're on the radio, doesn't make sense

 

David Turetsky: 14:01

People can't see on the podcast. Steve's actually looking like he's salmon swimming upstream.

 

Steve Brink: 14:05

No. Exactly. So but that you want to aim ahead, right, where it's going and be able to do that. Where do we want to be? What do we want to be as an organization from our total? What do we want to stand for? What do we want to show people pay transparency? Do you know what what kind of payer do we want to be right?

 

David Turetsky: 14:20

You can talk about pay transparency or you can actually do it, right? And the proof is in actually getting it done and proving to people that your words turn into actions.

 

Steve Brink: 14:31

Correct.

 

Announcer: 14:33

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David Turetsky: 14:44

So then let's transition a little bit to I guess that was the what surprised you about 2022. What did you learn in 2022?

 

Steve Brink: 14:53

I learned that personally I think like like actually this is gonna go off tangent on comp but I think mental health is real issue. I really believe that. And I think we need to do more either as organizations, or whatnot to be able to support that in different different ways. And I, and you know, and I think that's a serious issue for future of companies. And I know companies are starting to address that definitely. But But I think that's a it's a real serious issue for our talent that we need and the like, and whether that's changing, you know, we've always had, I know, gotta get away on a tangent, Dave. But but, you know, you know, we have five day workweek, since with, you know, what, 1910, or whatever, in terms of the, the laws is that, does it really work in terms of the five day eight, eight hours a week, you know, what, it's what's been really beneficial, you know, in terms of this remote work, and it's, again, hey, let's have an output standard not an input standard. And we change that, and I know some companies are experiment with a four day work, which I think is great, you know, and I think there's ways that we can actually do that, to me is part of reward as well. And a differentiator as well, is that that can address mental health in different ways. I mean, it's this used to plug in and you know, all of a sudden, you probably keep punched as you go into work. And you put your statement in there, boom, when you click, and it's like, 901. You enter time card. Yeah, exactly. Be able to do and you punched out. And it's like, oh,

 

David Turetsky: 16:17

By the way, what were those things? They were punch cards. They weren't time cards, they were really punch cards back in the 60s and 70s. Yeah, yes. I'm that old too, Steve. Yes. But But to your point, though, and I think it's a very important thing to bring up. We've talked about mental health on the HR Data Labs podcast, not just because I'm nuts. But because it's really important to make sure that people understand you're taking care of them. And you mentioned before about the total reward statement that you give a new hire. Well, one of the things that would be amazing from the moment there are candidate sorry, on candidacy. Yeah, I apologize, it is from candidacy, but as a candidate to know that you are going to be taken care of whether or not you are mentally healthy. You know, we always go on interviews, and they aside, you know, they assume that they're looking at you like, is this person nuts? The answer is, we're all nuts. Right? Exactly. And, and the interview process shouldn't be about your, your mental health, it should be about your ability, as you say, for the output. And we have to be very careful right now and make sure that we're taking care of people with different abilities, especially when it comes to mental health. And from the moment that they decide that they want to pursue candidacy with your company, it'd be really cool to know that and know that they'd be taken care of whether they're having a great day, or having a shitty day or every day of their life is a challenge, right?

 

Steve Brink: 17:47

Couldn't have said a better, Dave. You're exactly right.

 

David Turetsky: 17:50

All right. Well, we're gonna drop the microphones and walk away now. Thank you, everybody. Welcome. Take care. Bye. Just kidding. So Steve, we've talked about what you've learned, we've talked about what surprised you? What about what did you expect for 2022?

 

Steve Brink: 18:04

In terms of what to expect for the rest of 2022? Are you talking about

 

David Turetsky: 18:07

In total, you know, what did you expect coming into 2022? What do you expect for the rest of it? We already talked about what surprised you, we already talked about what you learned. What did you expect? What did you think was gonna happen?

 

Steve Brink: 18:18

What I expected is sort of happening? It's like the talent actually has more more power over, maybe not over but yeah, but they have more leverage than they've ever had before.

 

David Turetsky: 18:28

Right.

 

Steve Brink: 18:29

And I think that's driving some change. I think it's driving some positive change, because companies are having to adapt to that, to actually attract and retain and motivate their, their talent. And I know, I'm looping back around. But that whole whether it's whether it's pay transparency, whether it's flexibility, whether it's you know, personalization, all those type of things, in terms of that's, that's what we're talking about, it's forcing companies to think differently, which I think is a good challenge, and to be able to do that. And so because you want to get the right talent, you're not going to be successful as a business. If you don't have the right talent. You know, Geez, how many like right now, it's like, oh, my gosh, you go to restaurants, I know, some restaurants that only do takeout now. Because they can't hire people!

 

David Turetsky: 19:09

You can't hire people.

 

Steve Brink: 19:10

What's what's up with that?

 

David Turetsky: 19:11

By the way, that's not about hiring the right person. They can't hire anybody to come to work for them.

 

Steve Brink: 19:15

Right. Yeah.

 

David Turetsky: 19:16

Because hiring rates are through the roof for unskilled work and for skilled work, and they either can't afford it, or they literally can't find people.

 

Steve Brink: 19:28

you know, IBM is, is hiring people, instead of going ahead and going to college, which is really expensive. It's just hiring people out of out of high school, and I'll train you how to program if you have these certain competencies. I'll tell you know, I'll teach you how to program so why spend a fortune you know, it's like those kinds of things. It's like you're tapping into resources differently, because you want to get the talent and train them yourself to work the way you want to do it, you know?

 

David Turetsky: 19:59

Which is a paradigm shift from the everybody's got to get a four year degree in the skilled labor world.

 

Steve Brink: 20:04

That's right.

 

David Turetsky: 20:05

They gotta get a four year degree, they I got really good grades and a four year degree, and we're going to hire the best and the brightest, and they have to start day one and be completely productive. We're gonna pay them through the nose, well, or we're gonna pay them nothing, actually. But now smarter ideas, as you say, hire bright people who have capability and then mold them into what you need them to be based on the need of the day or skill them.

 

Steve Brink: 20:33

Yeah, and you can then show, pay transparency is just not sharing the the pay as as it is now. But what is the future pay, so being able to, you know, we in the past is always those steps, you know, step pay, or whatever, sure, if you're upskilling, if you're if you're hiring people, or you're gonna say, Hey, I'm going to train you, and this is where your salary starts. But when you reach this level of skills, we're gonna pay you this much, right, you know, and this much, so they can actually see like, oh my gosh, I'm gonna get I'm gonna get rewarded as I grow. And and, you know, it's kind of almost circular, potentially, where that might happen, you

 

David Turetsky: 21:05

I know, this is gonna sound maybe rude to know, earlier generations. But if you got used to getting paid because you develop a new skill, then it does become Pavlovian, that the next time you develop another skill, you're going to want to get paid for it, not the kind of entitlement methodology of hey, I'm working year after year after year, just keep paying me more because I'm here. And I'm keep on I keep producing. But wouldn't it be cool to have a different paradigm about pay of instead of paying just because the clock changed? We're paying people differently, and more based on what they actually do to impact the company?

 

Steve Brink: 21:46

I'll take it a step further is that, you know, it will say we have a 3% merit budget, how many people will wake up in the morning saying, Oh, I got a 2.5, or I got a 3.2% increase? And I'm more motivated than I was before in terms of turning out, instead of getting a 3%. I got 3.5%, I'm more motivated, right? It's not so that that, you know, whether it's any generation to me is that that kind of merit increases that are you, you know, you're one of those costs, inflation and wage, whatever you want to put to that, is it really about what value are you delivering to the client, to the to the company to the company, and then actually say, but to do that, you got to gain skills, right? So it's kind of shifting that. And it's like, the whole benchmark process could be blown up.

 

David Turetsky: 22:30

Hey, are you listening to this and thinking to yourself, Man, I wish I could talk to David about this? Well, you're in luck. We have a special offer for listeners of the HR Data Labs podcast, a free half hour call with me about any of the topics we cover on the podcast, or whatever is on your mind. Go to Salary.com/HRDLconsulting, to schedule your FREE 30 minute call today. Is that a prediction for the future? Or is that something you see might be happening in the shorter term? I mean, obviously, IBM is doing it right now. But

 

Steve Brink: 23:03

I don't know, I guess, I don't know the pay. If they're doing that at this second.

 

David Turetsky: 23:07

No, I know. But it's not a it's not a long putt to think that, you know, once they get skilled, they're gonna do it. So you would

 

Steve Brink: 23:14

you would think, yeah,

 

David Turetsky: 23:15

because we've done that in the past with compensation programs is that once you achieved a certain skill or competency, you got paid more for it, you are being asked to do it.

 

Steve Brink: 23:24

Yeah.

 

David Turetsky: 23:25

So is that something though that you would hope? Or you would see that being the future of compensation?

 

Steve Brink: 23:31

The answer's yes. I don't know what he says. Is that I do think in terms of that, that,

 

David Turetsky: 23:37

By the way that was a softball, Steve.

 

Steve Brink: 23:39

But it's the shift away from that just an ever increasing fixed costs, right. But shifting that to kind of say, well, there's got to be a quid pro quo exam. Now, this whole loops around, what about hiring and this kind of thing, but if you're paid transparency, and you need certain skill sets, either you develop it internally, right, and they're gonna get paid that way, or you're gonna hire externally to be if you can't train somebody to do it. Right. Right. And so so it starts breeding itself. Right. And you're getting away from that, you know, again, about the motivation of a 2% merit budget, or whatever it is, is it a really a driver of behavior?

 

David Turetsky: 24:13

No it becomes an entitlement.

 

Steve Brink: 24:15

Right, yeah.

 

David Turetsky: 24:16

And we all know what entitlements are. People think that they deserve it just because.

 

Steve Brink: 24:20

Because I've been here this long and...

 

David Turetsky: 24:24

But they don't think about the fact that they're 2% or greater 3% has compounded since they've started.

 

Steve Brink: 24:29

Yeah.

 

David Turetsky: 24:30

And if they actually looked at the math, because they had a graph that showed them, how it would go from their beginning pay all the way up through how many years they've been there, they would see about how much the company's actually invested with them over time in low inflation periods as well as in high inflation periods.

 

Steve Brink: 24:45

Yeah, I mean, time is not an event. Right, right? An event is you learn a new skill, right? You know, I'm in a new role. I changed roles, I've upskilled, I have different competency, whatever. That's an event. event of just doing what you're doing. That's great, that's a value. But does it really need to actually be there. But again, it could be increased, because again, you can't get that talent, you don't want to lose somebody. So So there's, there's still that old element there of actually having people, they might get paid because of market conditions as opposed to a time.

 

David Turetsky: 25:20

I remember a long time ago, we would talk about and debate, the anniversary date increase versus the annual event, right, the annual merit increase process. And we said, well, you know, in terms of being able to solve for your budget, it's better to do the annual event rather than anniversary, because at the end of the year, if somebody got hired in December, and there was no budget left, they got screwed. So I guess what we're saying is, is that change that process, or think about changing that process to be instead of on an annualized merit event, we do it based on when someone achieves a new skill, gets a new assessed skill, has a certification.

 

Steve Brink: 26:00

And if somebody, if somebody got that in six months versus a year, why wait a year?

 

David Turetsky: 26:04

And by the way, by the way, encourage them to get more skills, right, so they get more increases, so they can become more valuable to you.

 

Steve Brink: 26:11

Yeah, the only flip on that is business perspective, are they just gaining skills, just to just to get paid more, and the company doesn't necessarily need that skill.

 

David Turetsky: 26:23

That's a different story. I think that's, that's,

 

Steve Brink: 26:25

There's a, I remember, I remember did HR project way back when, and they had a, I won't tell the company. But but but the company's philosophy was, they would move people around, you'd go to and to get promoted, you had to move around fairly quickly. So you'd come into a role, you'd make blow up and want to make a lot of changes, and then leave to go to another promotion to a role, but then you didn't stick with that with that leadership role. Because Because again, you change, you didn't see it through all the changes to it. So somebody else would come out of the mess, and they would change things back. Anyway, so so it caused quality issues in their production and other things. And so so you got to, we got to watch out, you know, from those behaviors, I do think it's definitely possible how we can set up a program to to definitely address that.

 

David Turetsky: 27:10

And you know, what it takes? Approval, getting your managers approval to get that extra certification. Well, I mean, but seriously, that that enables you to make sure that they're paying for a skill that's required in that job, or

 

Steve Brink: 27:25

That's where the that's where the whole career ladders and that, that career progression and where you can go and what you need to do that people can see what they can be. And that's laying out now a lot of companies do that. Right?

 

David Turetsky: 27:37

But that's also transparency!

 

Steve Brink: 27:38

Exactly. That was exactly, you stole my line!

 

David Turetsky: 27:40

I'm sorry.

 

Steve Brink: 27:41

So anyway, no that whole transparency of being being able to show growth in an organization and skill or upskilling is really an important element to actually that that transparency, of where you can go in the organization. How many people say, Well, I don't know where I can go!

 

David Turetsky: 27:55

Everybody says that! Because we haven't published the descriptions and the career ladders and other things, to enable them to understand that. And by the way, when they go to their manager to ask them, what's the manager say? I don't know, go to HR! So Steve, what do you think about the future? We've talked a lot about the past, we've talked about that 2022. Where are rewards going?

 

Steve Brink: 28:17

Personally, I think the old song The future's so bright and you need to wear shades. I think in terms of reward for the reward professionals, I think we're in a, in a niche now that we can be more creative than we've ever been before, to really address the challenges that we face on trying to acquire talent. How do we motivate people? And how do we retain talent in different ways? And and think outside the box and get more creative? Instead of saying, like you were saying before, well, we've always kind of done this way. Is that being able to change that? So I see that as, as a cool function. I'm not in here just to kind of say, I just want to keep on doing what we're doing. Right? No, let's get creative. Let's get excitement. Let's let's make as a positive people impact. You know?

 

David Turetsky: 29:02

Steve, as always, it's a pleasure talking to you.

 

Steve Brink: 29:06

Same here, Dave. Always great to talk to you.

 

David Turetsky: 29:08

Thank you very much for being on the podcast yet again. Cheers, take care and stay safe.

 

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