Combined CollABorative February 2024 - Human Centricity: Trends in Recruiting, Hiring & Retention with Guest Speaker Lauren Winans, CEO of Next-Level Benefits

IFS Combined CollABorative: Think Tank – Human Centricity: Trends in Recruiting, Hiring & Retention with Guest Speaker Lauren Winans, CEO of Next-Level Benefits

Date of Meeting: 20 February 2024 10:00 AM US Eastern Time

Lauren Winans Background:

• CEO of Next-Level Benefits 6 years at IFS
• Corporate HR for about 20 years
• Corporate HR roles at large global organizations, specifically the employee benefits and compensation functions
• Five years ago, started an HR consulting business
• Helping HR teams in small, medium and large businesses tackle their HR projects, their people projects, look at things a little more strategically, but also help from a tactical hands perspective.
• Does a lot of work on an interim and fractional basis.
• Has a team of about 31

Presentation:

I've been really focused on developing employee culture, employee experience, engagement. Creating strategies with people at the center of them, working really closely with leaders across an organization, as well as those in the boardroom. And so, a lot of the things I'm going to talk about today, I would ask that you take it with that lens of, how can I make this apply to me and what I'm doing, as well as, how can this apply to our organization as a whole? So, there may be things that you're going to get out of this that's going to be different than someone else on the call. And that's great. Hopefully I'll be able to broadly touch on some things and then when we get closer to the end of the call when we have time to really chat informally, feel free to ask specific questions and I'll answer to the best of my ability.

So, to get started I want to start talking about today's talent trends. There are five trends in particular that I think are pretty important right now. I think naturally we all want to attract talented people. We all want to treat humans like humans. I mean, these are the price for entry, right? These are the basics, so I'm not going to spend a lot of time on HR 101, Talent 101, but I am going to spend some time focusing on some trends in the marketplace right now. And then what I'd like to do with the two job descriptions, I'd like to apply those five trends to each job description. And we can maybe see where there could be some opportunity for improvement or where you're already knocking it out of the park with these job descriptions. So, I thought that might be the best way to tackle it today. And then of course, we'll will open up for discussion.

Slide: TODAY’S TALENT TRENDS – AI In Recruitment

• OK, so the five I've listed here, I mean these aren't groundbreaking, but I do think that these are worth talking through. And so when I think about something that is dramatically impacting the way we think about talent today, AI is #1. These weren't meant to be in any particular order, but it just so happens AI's number one, and I actually do think AI is #1. So, AI being used in recruitment today, it really does play a crucial role in how we're acquiring talent, how we're recruiting, what that candidate process looks like. And so, it really has enabled a more efficient candidate screening process, selection process, and then it also helps to enhance decision making. Where I'm seeing the most impact with our clients as well as just generally keeping the pulse on the industry, I'm seeing the biggest impact right now in this the candidate screening portion of the recruiting process. AI is really picking up and filling in the gaps of where our applicant tracking systems have gone off the rails for us a little bit. I don't know if anyone on the call has recently started a new position and has just gone through a recruiting process, but there are a lot of really talented people out there who might apply to a position and just because the keyword isn't showing in their application or maybe your job description isn't matching up with the type of people who are applying to it. We've built these elaborate systems that are bypassing some really talented individuals. And so, where I'm seeing the most benefit of AI right now, it's naturally going to get bigger and better as time goes on, but where I'm seeing the biggest value is during candidate screening, when AI is applied at the proper points of the process, you are able to use applicant tracking, but can we use AI to identify some specific phrasing, specific keywords, specific demographics, specific skills, whatever it may be that you want to see in your candidate pool. It's a nice supplement and a nice parallel to the applicant tracking systems. A lot of applicant tracking systems, the companies now are investing in AI resources and tools that run in the background of their existing systems, and some haven't gotten there yet, but it's honestly something that if you have any leverage or ability to have these conversations in your organization as it relates to the recruiting process, finding out where AI is in your process, and if it's not yet there championing getting it in the process I think will help tremendously. As I said, candidate screening is really where I'm seeing the biggest impact right now. Really getting the right people into the candidate pipeline and that starts with, who are we pulling from, and are we pooling the right people. And if applicant tracking isn't pulling the right people, what are some other ways that we can rise some resumes and applications to the top. So, when we look at these job descriptions in a little bit, I am going to be maybe asking a few of you because it's hard to look at a job description and know whether or not AI within the recruiting process, but we can maybe talk about that, have you been leveraging AI through the process to date? Is that something you talk about within the organization and if it's not something that's come up, give an opportunity to bring it to life.

Slide: TODAY’S TALENT TRENDS – Enhanced Employer Branding

• Moving on to the second one, enhanced employer branding. I think we all have seen wonderful examples of that, whether that be through looking at a companies About Us page or learning more about their mission statement, their vision, their values, but building that strong employer brand, it still remains very essential to attracting top talent. So, really the emphasis should be on any examples or language around showcasing your culture, your values, opportunities for career growth within your organization is always really helpful. I think most of us see job postings and job descriptions where the very bottom might be a handful of paragraphs about the organization and the type of environment in which you'd be working. Any way that you can infuse your brand into all aspects and all areas of the talent process is tremendously helpful. You want talent to know what you're looking for and what your company represents before they are fully ingrained in the candidate recruiting process. You want them to know that going in, so any opportunity that you can showcase that whether it be on a website, on a LinkedIn page, through the job description and job postings, through a micro site that might just be able to showcase all the different ways that you are focused on your vision, mission values and how that trickles down through your organization and is a way that even frontline employees can resonate with and are very clear on, anyway you can articulate that, describe that videos out there, is really going to be impactful, because that now with the way technology is most candidates are interviewing you as an organization just as much as they're expecting to be interviewed. So, company branding, it really deep employer brand, it's great to showcase especially if it's something that you're marketing group is already doing internally, and you might have sustainability reports out there and all sorts of wonderful tools and resources. You should definitely be showcasing that through the recruiting process.
• Yeah, I've even had some clients and even in my corporate roles, we've really showcased some folks that have really started from the ground up in the organization and really showed the timeline of their career development and they put some messages out there in 92 second video where we were interviewing them on what was it like when you first started? How is the company evolved? And in 9 times out of 10, people who are great examples of showing what a career path could look like in your organization have nothing but wonderful things to say. And so it really does turn out to be a really powerful video that can be placed anywhere really. It can be on your main website. It can be on your career page, it can be something that is regularly shared as an embedded link on all job postings. There are so many ways that you can really leverage your employer brand and showcase here's what we're about, and here's some examples of what that looks like.

Slide: TODAY’S TALENT TRENDS – Skill-based Hiring

• So, #3 then I'll move on to skill-based hiring. So, this has been one I've had on my mind for many years. I'm so glad that it's getting more press in the HR industry than it probably ever has, but really focusing on your candidates’ abilities and potential rather than traditional qualifications and degrees. Not every job requires a degree. Not every job requires someone to have several years of experience doing a certain skill. I think that especially as the world evolves and changes and we're leveraging AI and other technologies and new ways, we have to find more creative ways to staff the workforce and think about how the potential of someone who may be applying for a position, or the potential of a certain demographic of people that we want to be part of our organization. How do we how do we get them to apply? How do we get them to be part of our company? And so, skill-based hiring is one of those things that I think can look very different depending upon which organization you are. This can look as simple as what it states right here, just not necessarily focusing on those traditional qualifications or degrees. We have a client and I just find this so impressive, so I have to share it. They have a clinical psychologist that is part of their HR team, and they spent a lot of time diagnosing, so to speak, what type of people they want in a particular function and a particular role and what that makeup of that person looks like. And this is totally independent of where they went to school and what degrees they have and what skill sets they've obtained over the course of their career. It's really about for example, in a sales organization, you really want extroverted people who love to talk, who love to get out there and share more about the company, who want to meet people, engage with them face to face, who can take no for an answer, and it doesn't defeat them. There are so many different qualities I think that you can really create a persona around certain aspects of your org chart that can be really powerful. And I think that is really the first step in determining, what type of skills and let's define what skills mean to us as an organization, what type of skills are we really looking for, for the person to have in this role? And then moving on to and, are there some additional qualifications and or degrees or certificates or experiences that we are looking for in addition to some of the skills that we hope to pool into this particular position or this particular function. So, I'm excited to see that that's evolving in a way that makes sense. And when we look at the job postings, what I always like to translate into the job posting is be very clear about what you're looking for. Yes, we all want independent motivated self starters. I mean, how many times have you seen those words in a job posting? Yes, we want that. We want that for all positions, right? You can still write that, but that's not the only thing you're looking for in a particular position. You may also be looking for someone who is a problem solver, a critical thinker who can think creatively on the fly with collaboration, with a team of four people. I mean, you can get as specific as you want, and I think that that is really what number 3 here is all about. Getting as specific as possible about what type of skills you're looking for and not necessarily relying on traditionally what you see in a lot of job postings out there.

Slide: TODAY’S TALENT TRENDS – Adaptation to Changing Working Environments

• # 4, Adaptation to change, adaptation to changing working environments. This is really a tough one. Really when you think about it, there are some positions that lend itself to being able to incorporate flexibility where possible. When we talking about flexibility, we're talking about flexible work arrangements. We're talking about flexible scheduling. We're talking about really just empowerment wherever you can afford to deploy it to your employees. And we know that there are certain positions that are hourly positions that require you've got to be on call or you've got to be doing XYZ during this particular time period. And maybe flexibility isn't reasonable, but I think what I like about this being a trend is that even if you can't incorporate the type of flexibility that someone sitting in an office may have, or someone being able to work remotely may have, if you're using that lens to look at all of your positions and all of your job postings and how to improve that, to articulate how they can, how they're is flexibility in their role. I mean, and even be something as simple as you get a full 90 minutes for lunch or you don't have to be on call past 6:00 PM, just thinking through different ways that you can incorporate flexibility and defining that for different roles, I think is a really important thing to be considering.
• And #4 two, I interpret it as incorporating flexibility where possible, but even just what's in bold, adaptation to a changing working environment. I mean, there is going to be so many changes. We think about all of the changes that have occurred just over the last 5 to 10 years, there is just going to continue to be more changed. And it's thinking ahead of how do we bring existing talent along, as well as how do we find ways to showcase how we are adapting to change to those who we want to come and work with us. And so I see it as flexibility as being something just because it’s in the world right now of this push and pull of personal life, family life, well being, having enough time to take care of yourself. All these different things that are definitely top of mind right now. But if we think about the longevity of what adaptation to a changing working environment really means, there's so many other aspects to it that we should be thinking about and start to prepare for. And technology is one of those things that is going to drastically either improve or maybe change a little too quickly. Then we're ready to handle. But it's just something to keep in the back of your mind that while it feels like incorporating flexibility is the hot topic right now, that is a sub-header to a variety of other things that we need to just be aware of, and be ready as they come up and as we can prepare for them.

Slide: TODAY’S TALENT TRENDS – Pay Equity and Transparency

• And then lastly, pay equity and transparency. Really focusing on fair compensation practices and sharing ranges when possible, more broadly. Whether it be internally or as part of a job posting, perhaps even explaining your compensation philosophy on a career site or within a job posting, and also making sure any internal employees that are already currently a part of the organization, understand how compensation is derived and determined, is pretty important. It's a trend that broke open here over the last handful of years. It's something that has been on the horizon forever, but has really come to a head over the last few years, and it's something that new talent highly respects and is able to quickly identify if they truly want to apply to your position. So, it helps to make that talent pool more focused on those who actually want the position and actually want to work there. And then it also instils trust and a level of transparency internally as well. There are a host of issues that come with transparent compensation programs. I definitely understand that. So, I think broadly speaking some level of achievement in equity and transparency as it relates to pay is a win, even if it's incremental and a slow step to getting there. But those companies who are doing it and doing it well, are really reaping the benefits. Like I said, if you're clear on what your structure is and everyone knows it, and that people coming in as well as people that are currently working there, understand how their skills are valued and what dollar amounts applied to that, as well as understanding that compensation is more than just that base salary, there's a variety of components that go into how you're compensated and how you're valued in your position within your organization. All of those things are just critically important to creating a culture of trust, a culture of growth, and one where people do feel included and that they're not necessarily being treated unfairly, depending upon a certain factor, whether that be gender, race or some other component. So, like I said, if you can even just do a little bit, that's great because you're going to add upon that and continue to grow on it. If you want to get there quickly, just dive in. It might take a couple of years for everything to smooth itself out, and if you're already there, that's fantastic. It's something that is a trend. Any time I'm looking at data, it's a trend for people who are looking for positions as something they want to see incorporated into their job search. And it's also something that recruiters and talent acquisition specialists are really happy that they're able to have open and transparent conversations with new talent. It makes those conversations go a lot easier. And like I said, it really does make decision making a lot easier. You don't get to the end of the recruiting process and find out that this person is twice as expensive as you thought they were. If you can find that out very early, you end up saving yourself a lot of time. So those are my those are my talent trends that I would share with you. There's a variety of other ones out there, but I think these ones are the most important. And these are the ones I'm going to be thinking of when we're looking at the job descriptions.

Job Descriptions:

So this is a field technician role for the US. The other one we're looking at is more of an IT role in the UK. So, we wanted to pick two different examples to go through. We also tried to pick from two different regions because obviously things look different from that perspective as well.

Field Technician Feedback:

• F: When I first look at this here, there might have been some things that were removed for whatever reason as it was copy and pasted into this document. So, location was probably included, but just didn't copy and paste over, but that is something that you want to make sure that every area of the job description is filled in and it's accurate. That will make a difference in sourcing the right talent that you're looking for. When I look at the content here, what I've noticed is this could use a quick refresh around punctuation and also just drilling down onto the focus. Like if I look here, “If the idea of speaking to customers and addressing their Lottery machine service break-fix, installation and preventative maintenance needs appeals to you then we’d love to hear from you at Scientific Games.” So that may be true, but there might be a better way to say that. And I think that there could be just an opportunity to refresh the language a little bit, take a look at whether or not the use of “if” might not necessarily be the strongest word choice. But what I do like about this section, is a little more light-hearted than just a basic sentence of here's what the jobs about this is what you need to know. It's speaking to me a little bit. I like too that there is reference to customer first focused. So clearly, this is probably a value of Scientific Games and something that they want people to understand that is very important to the culture of the organization. And then also focusing on some of the things that are included in being an employee, I think is really great too. This sentence bugs me just a little bit. I apologize to Scientific Games. “If we are a good fit you would spend your days caring for customer needs and looking after any concerns they may have about their lottery equipment service.” Yes, I think this might be a little too far in the direction of placating to the candidate. I would maybe change the sentence to get the point across without using the term “If we are a good fit.” Because I think ultimately, what you're trying to showcase in a job posting is why you're a great employer. Why this role is important and valuable to the organization. How you in this position of a field service tech, how you contribute to the overall goals of the organization. And I think we all know that if you're a good fit, you're going to end up in the interview process. And if Scientific Games is a good fit for you, that will be showcased in the job posting. If you articulate all those things we just talked about. I just feel like language could be edited a little bit, but I really do like that you're focused on explaining what you're going to be doing, you're going to help them resolve issues you're going to be making recommendations. You're going to be part of a team that's customer service focused, so cheers on that. It's definitely great to pool together. Here's how you're going to be helping people, and those that are interested in a cover customer service mindset are going to gravitate towards those words. So those are good word choices there. I think too, being able to carve out in a quick bulleted section of what you would be responsible for is really important, itemizing the benefits as well as really important. But there is some redundancy here, right? So, it wrote out a lot of these things up here. And then also recap them here. I think it could probably be a better layout to have the description really be focused on the company, what type of culture you have, the type of people that you want to be working there, what are some of those adjectives, what are those skills? And then maybe having a paragraph detail specifically, here's how a field service technician is going to be able to align to our company goals, and what their responsibilities are going to be, and just briefly touch on it, and then really hit them hard with the bullets. When you're looking at something, I don't know if you're anything like me. I scroll to the bullets and in most cases and so I would put your most important impactful information in a bullet format and use your summary section to really articulate your company, what you're looking for, why you're looking for it, and how they can add value. Let's just Scroll down here and see what's left. Requirements. I mean the requirements section. When we think about some of the things we talked about at the top of the call here, I think one of the best things to do when you're thinking about requirements for a particular position is think about it through the lens of the existing workforce and whether or not the people who are currently in that role. Are these rock stars already killing it and you're adding another rock star, or do you really want to upskill or level up a little bit on any new talent that's coming in into this particular role? That should shape how these requirements shake out. And what I like about this is there's a lot of mention of specific skills that you are looking for. That's really important and I think also too, I'm seeing that, “Proven self-starter with motivation and ability” I said earlier self-starter with motivation and ability, this could be something to expand upon. But overall, I think the requirements are very clear and they're either easily understandable. I think there could be an opportunity to add more color to think more critically about. This is clearly going to be a skills based hire right? So, think more about how can we articulate exactly what we're trying to say. Maybe we even use some different adjectives. That are a little bit less general and more specific to what it is we want, and is there a way that we can also incorporate if there is flexibility in this role, how do we incorporate that into the offerings. And then also, I think looking at it too of an employer branding opportunity. There could be another section down here below the requirements that really can dive deeper into who Scientific Games is, who their clients and customers are, have you been awarded with any awards, certifications, anything that can give people more information about the organization in a succinct way is going to be helpful. I think overall this is a really great start. I think there's a couple of opportunities here to make the language more crisp and concise, and I think that there could be some ways to incorporate in more information about flexibility, if there is any, as well as strengthening that employer brand and have it come through a little bit more through the job posting.
• R: I truly appreciate all the feedback. We were forced to use our job descriptions, and I was able to convince our HR team that we needed use job postings to try to attract folks. Instead of saying you have to lift 50 lb and you have to do this and that and blah blah blah and it’s not very inviting. So, we came up with this version, but I like some of the feedback that that you provided.
• F: I would say you're probably 75% of the way there. It's just a matter of reframing some of the context and using maybe some stronger words to really frame it up with like hey, you're going to want to work here. Let me tell you all the ways why you would want to work here. And why this role is going to be great, and how it's going to add value. Because you're already killing it and listing all of the benefits. And I think the requirements are probably spot on. Maybe you could add a couple more, but not much. I think it's really about the top portion and just making sure that that you're clear and you want people to keep reading it. You want them to know, yeah, I want to work for this company. Let's see if I'm qualified to get down to those requirements to see if it's, I'm going to apply now. So it's almost there, it's just a matter of word choice and making people keep reading. I mean, we get so many things thrown in us a day when people are searching for jobs, sometimes it's overwhelming the amount of words they have to read, so if we can make things more concise and really showcase the company, that usually will get them to keep moving down the page and ultimately hit apply.
• R: Again, appreciate the feedback. I'm all open. I need any information, any feedback I can get, because we're struggling with trying to get people hired, and that you made a comment on the location, we hire all over the US so they plug that in as needed and then maybe tweak it based on hours and certain criteria and requirements for that State that we have to abide by.
• And I would tell people, don't worry about putting too much information up top. So, for example, we worked with a client who had asked us to dust off their job descriptions and they were really hung up on, well, I don't want to write the functional area that it is. I only want to write the position title and I only want to write the actual business unit, but we don't want to write who it reports to. Put as much information as possible in there. It is helpful. It provides more context to people. They can see that this job reports to Field Service Tech Lead, or maybe it's a Manager, they get a better sense right off the bat of how you could be structured, particularly if they come from this industry or they come from this type of role in their past. So, I always tell people don't get hung up on ohh, we only want to like give like two or three pieces of information about what the job is really like because we don't need to share all of that information. I mean, don't hide anything. It really does help to put as much out there as possible. So, like you said, location if things are going to change a little bit based upon location, that's great. You want it to be as customized as possible to the role, to the location, to the function, and don't feel like you're putting too much information as it relates to the actual job where the editing comes in, is the description portion really.

Principle Software Engineer Feedback:

• F: This next one here is principal software engineer. Now I'm getting the benefit of seeing this live on there where they're posted, their job posting. So, looking at it on a Word doc versus here is just going to naturally be different. It looks like they are clear up front that salary is negotiable. Which we think about our pay equity and transparency conversation earlier. I would probably like to see a range here, or at least a starting salary so that people can understand what they would be getting into with this particular role. And if it doesn't meet their salary requirements, they can just pass this one by and not end up in the pipeline. So I would probably take a closer look at that. There are certain positions, though, you don't have to be transparent due to some legislative requirement, you may want to be vague and I respect that and understand that. But I would say probably 8 times out of 10 you can throw a range up there and feel pretty confident that you're not exploiting any trade secrets. It's going to be pretty consistent across the board, so you don't have anything secret to withhold. So, it's worth putting something there, but I know I did take a closer look at this one before we started. I mean, I wouldn't say closer, but I did scroll through and one of the things I did like about this was, they were trying to articulate flexibility where there is flexibility. They were also very clear on that they've tailored a well being and benefits package and they articulated what all of that looked like. And they're illustrating the requirements in a little bit of a different way. So, it's not just saying requirements and a list of bullets here, it's this role will require you to and then what we need from you, I like that phrasing of really helping people to understand, hey, this is what this role is going to require you to do. Here's what we need from you, here's the skills that you need to be bringing to the table. Softening that language a little bit always helps people to continue to read through it. It's a little less black and white and more dynamic. And then, what I really liked and wanted to point out was these competencies. You don't have to use the term competency if it's something that is maybe a little stuffy or maybe over the heads of a lot of people in the organization because it's just not vernacular that's spoken a lot. But you can maybe use a different word to illustrate, these are the things that we are going to be evaluating you on. These are the competencies. This is where your performance is really going to be evaluated on, and that's ultimately what this section is, and I really like that they've taken the opportunity to do that. They also were tooting their own horn here at the bottom, and I encourage you to do that from a branding perspective. They're talking a lot about hey, they're recognized as a disability-confident employer. They've been recognized by the Times for being one of the top 50 employers for women. Any recognition that you can showcase as well as explaining a little bit more about your customers. That you hire people from all walks of life. I really thought that the last portion here was pretty powerful, but again, you got to get people to come all the way down.

Questions / Answers / Feedback / Responses:

Slide: TODAY’S TALENT TRENDS – Enhanced Employer Branding

• F: I was just going to add on that point. I think to your point, culture and values, so you mentioned sustainability is 1, right? But what are the things that your companies stands for, plays a big role in that you can emphasize that tie people to the purpose of the organization beyond maybe whatever the value proposition is. The other one you have listed here that I think is really important is showing what opportunity for growth exists within the business because we know that's really important to people. The only other thing I was going to add is, I see examples of this all the time, more and more, which is good on LinkedIn of people especially using video with employees from all different levels of their organization speaking about whatever it is that they like about the company or their role or part of the purpose, and it makes it so much more personal. And I was just going to say, when you think about this topic, we have to remember that people connect to people. So, you can put out this great graphic on like the stat you've achieved from your sustainability targets, and I'm not saying don't do that, but I think keep in mind the brainstorming about how can we make this personal? How can we showcase talent from all levels of our organization? All different kinds of roles and how can we help people connect to our people in a way where they're like, Oh my gosh, I would like to work there too.

Slide: TODAY’S TALENT TRENDS – Adaptation to Changing Working Environments

• F: I have a few examples I'd like to share that are from this group of people or similar. And I think the point you made is an important one, which is, if we're talking about a role where flexibility typically has not been possible, don't just stay stuck in the hard and fast, well, no we just can't offer that. There's always a way to reframe what you're looking at. And so I'll give you a couple of examples. I had a conversation with Marco, for the future of Field Service Podcast a few weeks ago, and we talked about a couple of different things that the company is working on or working towards, which is service specific. And the point is the variables are different based on what industry, what role we're talking about. But the fact is what I'm trying to emphasize is there's always a way to think about it differently. So they're looking at both rotating schedules a bit to offer more flexibility and then also the idea for a field technician where one of the challenges is travel and that service is 24/7, so we need people to support that. Maybe also doing some rotations where people have a chance to do some back office work or some different types of roles at certain intervals. Maybe that's based on something going on in their lives. Maybe that's just based on a rotation of sorts, et cetera, but the idea of looking at what is the root need for people that want more flexibility and then how can we adjust things a little bit? Another great example was shared from a customer. They're using IFS planning, scheduling and optimization tool and one of the things that they've done because that tool schedules just based on a ton of different dynamic scenarios. They allow everyone to choose their own start and end date time for the day because the tool will adjust accordingly, but it gives people the autonomy of OK, I want to take my kids to school every day and I'd rather finish a little bit later or vice versa or whatever the life situation is. So that's another example. I think with technology, we're seeing more opportunities to think about a blended work environment where maybe you're doing remote service a couple days a week and in person service or whatever. So, I share a couple of those examples just to say, don't just be beholden to the structure that's always existed. Allow yourself and encourage your organization to think outside of the box and doing creative brainstorming doesn't ever hurt. You don't have to take every idea that comes up, but it's the way you start thinking differently. I was at a conference last year, just one more example, there was a gentleman who's been on the podcast and this is maybe pushing the bar a little bit more than some would be comfortable with, but they were similar thing, it's service. So, they were having technicians that were experiencing a lot of burnout and things like that. And they actually did a project where they went outbound to their customers and understood what the average SLA was provided by other service organizations and realized that they were unnecessarily taxing their technicians by promising an SLA of an hour when the industry standard was four. And so they changed to comply with the industry standard, and I mean obviously that's a big change you have to communicate that to your customers etcetera. But the point is, there's always an opportunity to provide more of that, I think it's choice, it's like you said, empowerment. It's feeling like there is a desire to meet some of those needs or to give some sense of choice, etcetera. So I think you're right that some positions require a lot more creativity than others, but I think it's a trend that won't go away and we have to start forcing ourselves to think things through differently.
• F: I think just to add to what you said, I think we also need to take into account that flexibility is different for different people. So different people, if you ask, what does it mean to you? For some people, it's the family events. For some people, it's sports. For some, I mean it's whatever, right? And I think we need to be able to accommodate these different needs. I think that's what's all about through again, flexibility of schedules. And the beautiful thing is the modern systems actually allow us to do that. So, the more the more we modernize with technology and various other things, and more predictability, the more flexibility we can gain out of the system.
• R: And I think to your point, it is different for everyone. And what this is really tied back to is the idea of humanity, the idea of, we don't want people to feel like they're constantly choosing work over life. We want to be able to help people do both, and the more we can do that, we're not talking about retention today, but I mean the more we can do that, the better you're going to have people that want to stay that are engaged and satisfied, et cetera.

• Q: Wanted to go back to your transparency for compensation. How does that evolve in it in an organization? Because I've been basically being a drone for quite a while and have not been very successful. And everybody has different opinions of what we should share, what we shouldn't share and it’s like it goes behind the Black Curtain, comes out and goes poof. OK, here's the job posting and your salary and bonus and etcetera, etcetera. And it's just like a black hole for my perspective.
• A: Yeah. No, it definitely is. I mean it can be if you let it. I think just because I've been doing this now for a while. When I first started in the total reward space, it really was a very closely guarded secret of how we determined compensation. And as time has gone on, I think what people have recognized is that it doesn't have to be. And oh, by the way, we're all using the same data survey tools to benchmark jobs. So, really there isn't a lot of secrets that we should be keeping from our potential hires, from our existing employees, from our leaders, our functional leaders across the organization, we can all know what it what it looks like. And so, what I always articulate to our clients in particular as the first step is, write it all down. Determine what your compensation philosophy is going to be and write it down. Determine how many compensation plans you actually have, and write all of that down. And your compensation team, whoever is a determining that is ultimately going to be responsible for articulating it. But a good compensation philosophy articulates what your position is on compensation and how it relates to your benefits package. And then it also articulate, how you look at compensation, whether it be, all of our roles start at the minimum of a salary range or the mid of the salary range. You can determine how much information you're comfortable revealing, but really, the first step is always start documenting all of these things and then decide what is going to become more public internally, and then eventually work your way up to a point where you're able to show ranges for each position within an organization. The transparency will take some time to get people there because you have to think about, oh, OK, I don't want to show everyone that I'm paying Sally more than I'm paying John, but it takes a little bit of time. So, document, analyze and then ultimately try to get yourself to a place where you can showcase salary on job postings and on internal postings and a little more transparently across the organization.

Podcast Link:

https://www.futureoffieldservice.com/2024/01/10/tetra-paks-proven-ways-of-supporting-field-force-wellbeing/

LinkedIn:

https://www.linkedin.com/in/laurencwinans/

Next Meeting: 19 March 2024 10:00 AM US Eastern Time
IFS Digitalization CollABorative: Tech Talk – R&D with Andrew Lichey, VP, Platform Product Management at IFS

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