Talent Report+THRIVE

In this episode with James McDevitt, Vice President of Human Resources at MRA, we talk pre-boarding, onboarding, and orientation best practices! James shares real-life stories and advice from his 25+ year HR experience and proves his belief that a company’s most valuable assets are its people!

Listen to Discover:

1. According to the most recent Gallup Poll, about 1/3 of U.S. employees are engaged in their work and workplace. How can you increase this number? 

Let's Connect:

James' LinkedIn Profile  

Transcript:

INTRO | 00;00;00;03 - 00;00;23;05

Hello, hello, everybody and welcome to 30 minute THRIVE, your go-to podcast for anything and everything HR, powered by MRA - The Management Association. Looking to stay on top of the ever-changing world of HR? MRA has got you covered. We’ll be the first to tell you what’s hot and what’s not. I’m your host, Sophie Boler, and we are so glad you’re here. Now, it’s time to THRIVE!

Sophie Boler | 00;00;23;17 - 00;00;49;16

Well, with all the conversation around employee engagement and retention, we thought it would be a great idea to really tackle that topic today on our podcast and follow up to Jim Morgan’s episode last week on candidate experience. So according to the most recent Gallup Poll, about one-third of U.S. employees are engaged in their work at their workplace.

Sophie Boler | 00;00;49;16 - 00;01;17;01

And we’re talking a pretty low percentage. So one way that we can increase employee engagement from the very start is by really focusing on the employee experience with a strong onboarding program. And in fact, according to another study from TalentWise, 91 percent of employees stick around for at least a year when organizations have an efficient onboarding process, which is a pretty large percentage.

Sophie Boler | 00;01;17;14 - 00;01;49;29

So today I’m joined with James McDevitt. He’s our vice president of human resources here at MRA, and is an absolute pleasure to work with. But James comes with a ton of experience, having worked in HR for more than 25 years and really has a lot of operations experience working for both large and small companies. But while James has transformed human resource organizations into a strategic vehicle for growth, he really holds the belief that a company’s most valuable asset are their people.

Sophie Boler | 00;01;50;24 - 00;01;54;09

So welcome, James. Let’s talk onboarding process.

James McDevitt | 00;01;54;09 - 00;01;55;22

Thank you. Thank you for having me.

Sophie Boler | 00;01;56;00 - 00;02;07;24

Absolutely. But before we get to the actual onboarding talk, we should first talk about the preboarding stage. So do you have any suggestions for preboarding a brand-new employee?

James McDevitt | 00;02;07;25 - 00;02;32;15

Absolutely. And as you said, employees are the most valuable assets of any organization. Without the people, there is no product, no services, no nothing. So it’s really important that employers do everything they can to engage, to motivate, retain, and develop their employees. And as you suggested, that really starts even before they start. Pre-boarding is an important part of the process.

James McDevitt | 00;02;32;15 - 00;02;50;27

It’s often overlooked. And sometimes not a lot of thought goes into what happens before they start. But a lot of it happens after they start. So what tends to happen? People are not sure when they’re supposed to start. They’re not sure what the dress code is. They’re not sure of where they’re supposed to be. They turn up at the wrong location.

James McDevitt | 00;02;51;07 - 00;03;12;28

They turn up at the wrong time, and suddenly you’re off to a bad start. You really are. So I think it’s really important to put a process in place where you recognize the importance of pre-boarding. So for example, make sure you call and speak to the candidate now that you hire before they start. Make sure they know where they’re going.

James McDevitt | 00;03;12;29 - 00;03;30;08

Make sure they know what time they’re supposed to be there. Make sure they know what the dress code is, but also plan ahead. Have a backup. What happens if the person is supposed to call, who would ideally be the hiring manager as a really important step in building that relationship? But what if the hiring manager gets sick?

James McDevitt | 00;03;31;20 - 00;03;51;00

Is there someone else there that can make the call? Likewise, on day one, even before the orientation starts, they’re supposed to arrive and meet somebody. What if that person got stuck in traffic? You should have a backup plan to make sure that whatever happens, that the new hire, the new employee is clearly communicated with.

Sophie Boler | 00;03;51;09 - 00;04;11;04

Right. And I think just speaking to my experience for the pre-boarding process, I really like that my team really provided a good idea of what my first week would look like before I even started. So it made me more comfortable to know, “Hey, on Monday, I’m going to do this, on Tuesday, I’m going to do this. This is what I should wear.

Sophie Boler | 00;04;11;12 - 00;04;21;12

This is what time I should show up.” And also just getting welcomed by other people not even on your team. It was really comforting.

James McDevitt | 00;04;21;13 - 00;04;33;08

Absolutely. And another good practice is sometimes companies will have like a “swag bag” of stuff on day one. That’s pretty cool. How cool would it be to get that before you even start?

Sophie Boler | 00;04;33;11 - 00;04;35;00

Get you a little energized before.

James McDevitt | 00;04;35;18 - 00;04;40;28

Get excited, get the swag to them before they even start. They’re going to be excited to be there.

Sophie Boler | 00;04;41;06 - 00;04;59;12

And then they can bring their swag onto their desk too. But let’s go into more of the onboarding part. And this is the time to really make a good first impression. So, onboarding is way more than just the workspace that they’re at. So, tell us what’s on your onboarding checklist?

James McDevitt | 00;04;59;28 - 00;05;18;22

So I think the first and most important thing is to make the employee welcome, to make them feel welcome. To make them feel like they’ve made the right decision and made the right choice. The reality is that employees today can choose to go, frankly, almost anywhere they want to go. So you have to convince them they’ve make the right choice.

James McDevitt | 00;05;18;22 - 00;05;42;12

It’s really important you make that impression on the first day. As I said earlier, make sure someone is there to greet them. Someone’s expecting them. You don’t want to turn up and there’s somebody in reception. “Hi, I’m James McDevitt.” So make sure that we’re expecting them. Make sure there’s a backup in case the person expecting them is not there. One thing I remember when I came over to the States a few years ago now,

James McDevitt | 00;05;42;12 - 00;05;59;18

that has stuck with me ever since, on the first day the CEO of the company, who’s also a co-founder of the company, I am very confident saying would have been a very busy man, took the time out on his first day to come and meet all the new hires and speak to us for at least 30 minutes

James McDevitt | 00;06;00;02 - 00;06;27;09

about the history of the company, why the company was founded, and the culture of the company. That happened over 20 years ago, and I still remember that conversation. So not just the hiring manager, the hiring manager’s key, if possible, if the hiring manager’s in the same location, they should be there. But get senior leadership, get the CEO if possible. If the CEO is not available, some other senior leader that can talk about the company, they can talk about the history of the company and where this person fits in.

James McDevitt | 00;06;28;11 - 00;06;40;03  

As I said, you really want to make this feel welcome, this person feel welcome. You want to get them pumped that they made the right decision. And they’re excited and looking forward, not just to day one, but to day two, day three, and day four.

Sophie Boler | 00;06;40;12 - 00;06;52;28

Absolutely. And you kind of gave us a little overview on your checklist, but do you have any examples of a really bad onboarding experience that companies can kind of listen to, to stray away from?

James McDevitt | 00;06;53;00 - 00;07;14;26

Sure. There’s unfortunately, there’s more than one I can think of. I think a lot of companies fall into this trap as well, where day one tends to be the “HR day” and you stick them in a room with very competent HR professionals. But they’re going through a relatively dry topic in terms of benefits of accidental death and dismemberment insurance and making sure you fill out the forms.

Sophie Boler | 00;07;14;26 - 00;07;15;06

All the fun stuff.

James McDevitt | 00;07;15;06 - 00;07;36;13

All the fun stuff. And if you’re in an environment, like in a manufacturing environment, you maybe have to go sit through a safety presentation and you can see that the new hires and the new employees are literally switching off and thinking, “Why am I here?” So sometimes you have to do that. You have to go through benefits, you have to go through safety, but make it fun, make it exciting.

James McDevitt | 00;07;36;26 - 00;08;01;01

Another example from the same company when I came to the U.S., the other example from the orientation I remember the payroll manager came and was explaining how you get paid and that’s obviously a good thing. But again, some of that is a little bit of a detail in terms of timesheets and things like that. But she made it fun and exciting and as a payroll manager, she had a little PayDay candy bars and she would ask questions.

James McDevitt | 00;08;01;12 - 00;08;04;29

And if you got a question right, she threw a PayDay candy bar at you.

Sophie Boler | 00;08;05;10 - 00;08;07;11

That’s an incentive.

James McDevitt | 00;08;07;11 - 00;08;32;12

So make it fun. Make it exciting. Don’t make it boring. You got to fill out the I-9. You got to fill out benefits, paperwork, but make it fun. Make it interesting. And another example of where it didn’t really work was someone I know traveled a long way, actually relocated to the position. And on the first day, this person was an attorney and she was all dressed up, all smart, as you would expect an attorney to dress.

James McDevitt | 00;08;33;01 - 00;08;52;23

And she showed up to her office. And that’s a good start. Her manager wasn’t there and she wasn’t quite sure and her laptop didn’t work, and she ended up having to scramble around under the table in her best clothes, trying to figure out how to plug her laptop in and thinking, “Why am I here?” So those are simple things that can be avoided.

Sophie Boler | 00;08;53;08 - 00;09;06;24

Absolutely. And I mean, nowadays we see a lot more remote employees. So what about the remote employees? How do you apply that same process that you just talked about if a new employee is remote?

James McDevitt | 00;09;06;24 - 00;09;30;18

It’s the same principles. It’s harder. It’s easier if you’re all in the same place. And it’s obviously harder if you’re not, but it’s basically the same principle: Get them pumped up, get them excited, make them feel like they’ve made the right decision. If it’s possible to get them into another company location near where they live, try to do your best to do that and have somebody greet them and have lunch with them and all the rest of it.

James McDevitt | 00;09;31;05 - 00;09;56;21

If that’s not feasible, can you get their technology to them before their first day? Can you get a laptop to them, for example? Give them instructions on how to log in, work with the IT team to get their email on, all the connections set up so that if you are doing orientation sessions on day one, Zoom is a wonderful technology at times, but Zoom can be our friend on orientation day with remote workers.

James McDevitt | 00;09;56;21 - 00;10;23;03

Get them involved, make sure the hiring manager, again with the pre-boarding, the hiring manager’s spoken to them already. They’re building that relationship. Get them to speak with their teams. Even though they may be sitting in their living room or wherever they’re sitting, make them included, make them feel included. One good practice that a lot of companies do is have lunch with the new hire on day one and wherever possible, maybe get the team involved.

James McDevitt | 00;10;23;03 - 00;10;42;25

Again, if you’re all in the same location, that’s not too difficult. If you’re in different locations, that’s hard. So think ahead. Maybe send them a food delivery voucher, coupon, gift card in advance so they can order lunch so they can be having lunch on the company while at the same time everybody else is having lunch. Again, it’s the same thing.

James McDevitt | 00;10;42;25 - 00;10;48;16

Make them feel they belong, make them feel part of the culture. Make them feel like they’ve made the right decision.

Sophie Boler | 00;10;48;21 - 00;11;02;24

Right. And I mean, we’ve covered a couple of different terms so far—pre-boarding, onboarding—and now we’re going to go a little bit into orientation. So could you talk a little bit about the difference between onboarding and orientation?

James McDevitt | 00;11;02;24 - 00;11;26;19

Sure.  Now those two phrases can be a little interchangeable sometimes, but technically orientation is really about the initial welcome on the first day or the first couple of days that you have the new hire becoming the new employee and becoming the regular employee, so to speak. So it’s really the initial welcome. And the goal there, as I said, is to make them think they’ve made the right decision by choosing you.

James McDevitt | 00;11;27;03 - 00;11;42;29

Onboarding is more of a longer term process where you’re really helping them learn how to do their job, how to be effective in their job, how to build relationships, cross-functionally on project teams, etc., etc. So onboarding is a longer, broader process. Orientation is the first impressions.

Sophie Boler | 00;11;43;05 - 00;11;59;15

Okay, thank you. And what is the best way to really help a new hire integrate into the organization? How do you teach them about your company’s core values and mission and history without plopping down a bunch of papers and saying, “Read”?

James McDevitt | 00;11;59;19 - 00;12;18;02

Yeah, absolutely. And that you just highlighted the one thing I don’t think you should do, although these days, people don’t necessarily give you a file and a bunch of papers. They say, “There’s a website, go read” or “Go watch that online video and I’ll come back at lunchtime again.” Again, how exciting is that for the new hire?

James McDevitt | 00;12;18;02 - 00;12;43;18

Are they are they pumped to be here? Because I spent 2 hours watching online videos or reading forms online? No, talk to them. You should have a plan. You should have a “who does that person need to know” to be successful in their role? What relationships do they need to start working on? Those are all important. So have a plan, but make sure the plan is flexible enough so that it’s individualized by the person or the role.

James McDevitt | 00;12;43;18 - 00;13;03;01

In some organizations, it’s important that you know this person and other organizations, it’s important you know that person. Don’t just have people meet everybody for the sake of meeting everybody. So have a plan. When you talk about the culture of the organization and the values of the organization, make sure you yourself are demonstrating those values so they can actually see them in action.

James McDevitt | 00;13;03;01 - 00;13;31;22

If you’re in an environment where it’s very customer, very member focused, you show them how that works in reality. Give them examples, talk to members of the team, demonstrate those values in action. As I said, meet the team, meet the key stakeholders. Appreciate some of the generational differences that exist out there, but really be inclusive, be positive, and again, get them jazzed to be there as part of the team.

Sophie Boler | 00;13;31;22 - 00;13;39;18

Great. And I mean, this might differ depending on what company you’re at, but how long should a typical onboarding process take?

James McDevitt | 00;13;40;00 - 00;14;02;16

So I think that’s a trick question because the answer is, I don’t think it ever ends. Again, orientation is you’re setting yourself up for success within the organization. Onboarding, you’re now going to take that to the next level on how to do your job. But your job evolves. You evolve as a person. You develop, you’re continually, hopefully continually, learning, doing new things.

James McDevitt | 00;14;02;25 - 00;14;09;10

You’re being trained on how to do new things. You’re learning how to do new things. Effectively, onboarding goes on continually ...

Sophie Boler | 00;14;10;04 - 00;14;11;04

Forever.

James McDevitt | 00;14;11;24 - 00;14;37;17

It frankly does. Yes. I mean, what we’re effectively doing, if you think about it, and if you do it properly, you spend all that time and effort hiring somebody, you spend all that time and effort getting them on board. You find, you spend all that time and effort training them how to do a job. And then if you stop, if you just stop, that person will become disengaged.

James McDevitt | 00;14;37;17 - 00;15;00;12

They will become ineffective. They will leave the organization. And you have to do all of it again. You are effectively, good practice is to effectively continually to re-recruit your new hire as if you’re trying to get them pumped up, as if you’re trying to get them to do their job well and trying to get them engaged and want to be there and want to get out of bed in the morning and come to work, so it doesn’t end. If the employee doesn’t feel the love, then you know what?

James McDevitt | 00;15;00;12 - 00;15;01;26

Someone else will get them to feel the love.

Sophie Boler | 00;15;02;20 - 00;15;15;19

And you mentioned generational differences quickly in your last statement, and there’s been a lot of talk about generational differences. So how does this really come into play in the onboarding process?

James McDevitt | 00;15;15;27 - 00;15;46;18

Sure. So, as you said, generational differences, perhaps for the first time, significant generational differences in place across society with the boomers and the Gen Xers and the millennials, sometimes it’s hard to keep up with them. I think the important thing to remember, though, is, is that people are different, people are individual and whatever strategy you have, it should be individualized to the person. As I mentioned before, have a plan, have a structure, but make sure it’s individualized to that person.

James McDevitt | 00;15;46;26 - 00;16;12;12

I think some of the key elements are a strong communications plan, making sure that you communicate clearly with the new hire, the employee so that they understand, give them the opportunity to ask questions. Don’t just tell them; communication is two-way. Have an inclusive culture, so they feel part of the team. And I think, something I haven’t really mentioned before, but I think the role of the hiring manager is really key and I think lots of studies out there show that the relationship between the hiring manager and employee is crucial.

James McDevitt | 00;16;12;26 - 00;16;28;18

The hiring manager needs to be part of the pre-boarding, needs to be part of the onboarding, needs to be part of the orientation. And they really need to build that relationship with the new hire. And if that is successful, regardless of the generation, I think I think it will be a successful experience.

Sophie Boler | 00;16;29;15 - 00;16;42;00

So what are your thoughts on having a new hire get involved in a big project right away? Does that give them a sense of responsibility right off the bat or should you steer away from that? What are your thoughts on that?

James McDevitt | 00;16;42;05 - 00;17;02;27

I think I’ll go back to the individual role of the individual again. I think it has to be individualized. There will be some cases where you have someone who has got the skills, got the experience, got the knowledge and can jump straight, in and you have other people that may not be there yet and that’s okay. And you will know that when you hire them through the process, and people get hired to do different things.

James McDevitt | 00;17;03;12 - 00;17;20;00

So I would say it needs to be down to the individual and I would say the key is to set the new hire up to succeed. Do not set them up to fail. So if they don’t have the skills and the capabilities and experience to take on the big project, take it slow.

Sophie Boler | 00;17;20;15 - 00;17;39;18

Okay, good advice. So here at MRA, we assign mentors to all of our new hires and they’re really there to just kind of be a leader and for the new hires to go to if they have questions and be a role model. So what are some suggestions you have for mentors of new hires?

James McDevitt | 00;17;40;01 - 00;18;02;06

Sure. So I think when we talk about mentors, there’s really two roles that can really help a new hire come on board and be effective quickly. There’s the mentor and there’s the buddy. The buddy is a more informal process. Someone that can help answer all the silly questions like, “Where’s the bathrooms and what time do, you know,…”

James McDevitt | 00;18;02;06 - 00;18;10;02

“My boss said this. What did he or she really mean to say?” Particularly someone with local accents and variations. “What did he say? I don’t quite understand what he said!”

James McDevitt | 00;18;12;13 - 00;18;36;15

All those silly questions that you may not want to ask your manager. And that’s, you know, that’s fine. So someone that goes to lunch with you, someone that explains, “Oh, this is what we did and this is how we do it,” someone that you can bounce thoughts off, that’s really important. The role of a buddy has been proved to show a real success in terms of transitioning somebody in the workplace, talk about being inclusive, talk about being part of a team, a buddy can really help that process go through.

James McDevitt | 00;18;36;15 - 00;19;05;16

A mentor is probably more of a formal process and traditionally tends to be someone maybe a bit more senior, is more structured, someone that maybe has more experience in the role, that can coach and guide maybe someone with less experience, and help them with career advice and suggestions on the role. And a buddy isn’t necessarily someone you would go and ask, “Well I tried to do the job this way and it didn’t work. What do you think? How could it be done differently?”

James McDevitt | 00;19;05;16 - 00;19;21;27

Whereas a mentor could play that role. “So I have this idea. We did it in my last company and it really worked really well there. I don’t want to go to my manager and say this right now because I don’t know if it’s worked and failed or if it’s been done here before or not.”

James McDevitt | 00;19;22;08 - 00;19;44;10

A mentor can help be a guide with some of those questions. So I think both have a have a role to play. And previous organizations, we’ve certainly invested a lot of time in the buddy system, for example, and we hand-selected individuals and even trained them in some ways on how to be a buddy and what to look for and understand adult learning and how do people learn.

James McDevitt | 00;19;44;10 - 00;19;51;14

And some people are very visual, some people are not. And that’s all important to be a successful buddy.

Sophie Boler | 00;19;52;02 - 00;20;06;06

And I think the buddy system and mentor system has really helped me personally too, as a newer employee. But what are some ways that a company can provide this continuous onboarding support that you mentioned?

James McDevitt | 00;20;06;07 - 00;20;31;06

So as I said, onboarding doesn’t end on day three or day four. It’s really continuous. And this is where companies who succeed build cultures where personal development and continuous improvement is part of the culture, where the manager sits down with the employee on a regular basis and not just once a year because it’s annual review time, because someone in HR sent them a form and said, “We have to fill this form out.”

James McDevitt | 00;20;31;20 - 00;20;51;25

No, it’s a real dynamic process where we sit down as a team, as teams, sit down with individuals to say, “Okay, how’s it going? Was it working? Last time we met, we were going to do this. Did it work? Did it not work? What did you learn? How would you do it differently?” Asking the questions, “What help do you need? What do you want to do?”

James McDevitt | 00;20;52;04 - 00;21;17;06

Really important questions. In my role in the past, managers have come to me and said, “Well, I think so-and-so would be a really good person for this role.” And I said, “Well, have you talked to them about it?” No, that’s crazy talk. Why would I do that?” But in a culture of personal development and continuous improvement, people would know what does Sophie want to do in the next couple of years.

James McDevitt | 00;21;17;06 - 00;21;37;05

Where do her interests lie? Is she looking to build on the creative side, is she looking to go into management roles? Is she looking to change functions? I think that’s all really important and I think successful personal development, continuous improvement programs are again, it’s not just about going on a formal training class.

James McDevitt | 00;21;37;15 - 00;21;42;16

I’m going to send somebody who wants to be a manager, I’m going to send them to a manager class. Yeah. It doesn’t quite work like that.

James McDevitt | 00;21;43;06 - 00;22;07;21

Much, much more than that. So, so talk about on-the-job learning. Talk about skills and experience that you can pick up on the job. If you’re looking to go into management or supervision, maybe you can take a leadership role in a project, cross-functional project. What we’re going to ask you to take a leadership role here where you’re working a cross-function maybe it’s in a matrix environment where no one person can say yes, but five people can say no.

James McDevitt | 00;22;08;10 - 00;22;31;12

Work on those skills—meetings, working, pulling meetings together, agendas together, keeping meetings on time. Those are all important skills that you need to learn once you’re in management. So broaden the mind, broaden your experience. In some organizations, they’re set up in such a way that you can actually move between functions quite easily.

James McDevitt | 00;22;31;12 – 00;22;53;09

And MRA, for example, is one of those as an HR organization, we have a lot of HR professionals and we have a lot of people in blended roles. They might do some compensation, they might do some recruitment, they might do some learning and development, and a lot of those roles are built on the fact that we’ve had conversations with those members of the team who’ve expressed an interest—

James McDevitt | 00;22;53;09 - 00;23;09;22

“I’m interested in doing this”—and we figure out, does that work? Does that person have the right skill set, and if so, with a bit of coaching and mentoring, to your point, we can make it happen. So I think the key is regular one-on-ones, proactive discussions on what it is you want to do, what help you need to get there.

Sophie Boler | 00;23;10;20 - 00;23;29;26

And everybody wants to be an employer of choice. And I think a good onboarding and orientation process is one way to be that employer of choice. So you really want a new hire to go home after their first day of work and share their day with their family, their friends, and be like, “Wow, this is awesome. I had a great first day.”

Sophie Boler | 00;23;30;02 - 00;23;55;04

And that will encourage other future candidates hopefully to join the company as well. But on the opposite side, if they go home and complain, nobody’s going to want to join that company. They’re not going to want to come back. So like you said, these processes are key and it’s all about leaving a good first impression. So do you have any last impressions that you want to leave our listeners with today?

James McDevitt | 00;23;55;05 - 00;24;13;29

Absolutely. And you made the point that a bad orientation or a bad onboarding, certainly these days, employees will not stick around. They don’t stick around. The studies are out there. The statistics are out there. The results are in. People don’t stick around. So what can you do to make them stick around? And we’ve talked about some of the ideas.

James McDevitt | 00;24;13;29 - 00;24;27;25

I think at the end of the day, it’s a bit of an old cliche with an employer of choice, but especially these days, I think it’s absolutely true. Employees have a choice. When they get out of bed in the morning, they have a choice. They can come to work for you or frankly, they can go and work for somebody else.

James McDevitt | 00;24;28;03 - 00;24;46;18

Our role is to get them to make the choice to come and work for us on day one and on day two and on day three and in year four, and in year five. That’s why it’s a continual process, it’s a continual recruitment. We want them engaged. We want them to feel part of the team.

James McDevitt | 00;24;46;18 - 00;24;48;08

We want them to come into work in the morning.

Sophie Boler | 00;24;48;17 - 00;25;10;17

Absolutely. Well, thank you for all of your advice today. I mean, it was great. And thank you for being on the show, too, and really continuing the candidate experience talk and onboarding process. It’s something that’s never going away, like you said, but something organizations really need to stay on top of. So we will be continuing this conversation next week.

Sophie Boler | 00;25;11;13 - 00;25;34;15

But if you have any further questions or just want to get connected with James, we have linked his LinkedIn profile in the show notes below along with some other resources that you can take a look at. But James, thank you again. I had fun. It was good talking to you. But other than that, we will see you next week!

OUTRO | 00;25;35;01 - 00;25;54;06

And that wraps up our content for this episode. Be sure to reference the show notes, where you can sign up to connect. For more podcast updates, check out other episodes on your favorite podcast platform. And as always, make sure to follow MRA’s 30 minute THRIVE so you don’t miss out. Thanks for tuning in, and we’ll see you next Wednesday to carry on the HR conversation.

In this episode with MRA Vice President of Workforce Strategies, Jim Morgan, we begin the employee experience conversation by talking about how the candidate experience has changed, and how organizations need to adapt to that change! We cover the initial candidate contact point, interview best practices, and individualizing your candidate process. 

Listen to Discover:

1. Leading up to the pandemic, we were starting to see the labor shortage. And now coming out of it, it is here in full force. 

Bios:

Jim Morgan, Vice President, Workforce Strategies 

Let's Connect:

Jim's LinkedIn Profile 

Transcript:

INTRO | 00;00;00;03 - 00;00;23;04

Sophie Boler | 00;00;23;18 - 00;00;46;27

Sophie Boler | 00;00;47;22 - 00;01;02;12

Jim Morgan | 00;01;02;21 - 00;01;04;24

Sophie Boler | 00;01;04;28 - 00;01;18;16

Jim Morgan | 00;01;18;20 - 00;01;40;13

Jim Morgan | 00;01;40;26 - 00;02;04;01

Jim Morgan | 00;02;04;01 - 00;02;22;06

Sophie Boler | 00;02;22;12 - 00;02;30;11

Jim Morgan | 00;02;30;11 - 00;02;45;06

Sophie Boler | 00;02;50;16 - 00;03;02;27

Jim Morgan | 00;03;03;08 - 00;03;11;14

Sophie Boler | 00;03;12;12 - 00;03;28;15

Jim Morgan | 00;03;28;15 - 00;03;34;09

Sophie Boler | 00;03;35;09 - 00;03;53;20

Jim Morgan | 00;03;53;25 - 00;04;06;09

Sophie Boler | 00;04;06;09 - 00;04;28;11

Jim Morgan | 00;04;28;28 - 00;04;29;02

Jim Morgan | 00;04;30;09 - 00;04;40;16

Sophie Boler | 00;04;41;04 - 00;04;58;27

Jim Morgan | 00;04;59;15 - 00;05;14;06

Sophie Boler | 00;05;14;06 - 00;05;20;15

Jim Morgan | 00;05;20;28 - 00;05;27;06

Sophie Boler | 00;05;27;13 - 00;05;44;01

Jim Morgan | 00;05;44;15 - 00;05;46;04

Sophie Boler | 00;05;46;05 - 00;05;46;13

Jim Morgan | 00;05;46;13 - 00;06;09;00

Jim Morgan | 00;06;09;00 - 00;06;25;28

Jim Morgan | 00;06;26;09 - 00;06;53;09

Jim Morgan | 00;06;53;16 - 00;07;09;28

Jim Morgan | 00;07;10;07 - 00;07;21;11

Sophie Boler | 00;07;21;11 - 00;07;31;14

Jim Morgan | 00;07;31;24 - 00;07;54;06

Jim Morgan | 00;07;54;06 - 00;08;18;21

Jim Morgan | 00;08;18;22 - 00;08;38;08

Jim Morgan | 00;08;38;08 - 00;08;50;29

Sophie Boler | 00;08;51;06 - 00;09;09;18

Jim Morgan | 00;09;09;20 - 00;09;27;14

Jim Morgan | 00;09;28;08 - 00;09;45;27

Jim Morgan | 00;09;45;27 - 00;10;05;21

Jim Morgan | 00;10;05;21 - 00;10;27;27

Jim Morgan | 00;10;27;27 - 00;10;51;14

Jim Morgan | 00;10;51;26 - 00;11;07;16

Sophie Boler | 00;11;07;27 - 00;11;27;29

Jim Morgan | 00;11;27;29 - 00;11;46;14

Jim Morgan | 00;11;46;14 - 00;11;47;24

Sophie Boler | 00;11;48;02 - 00;11;54;12

Jim Morgan | 00;11;55;06 - 00;12;14;20

Jim Morgan | 00;12;15;01 - 00;12;35;00

Jim Morgan | 00;12;35;07 - 00;12;52;09

Jim Morgan | 00;12;52;29 - 00;13;10;24

Jim Morgan | 00;13;11;00 - 00;13;27;17

Jim Morgan | 00;13;27;17 - 00;13;44;08

Jim Morgan | 00;13;44;08 - 00;13;59;27

Jim Morgan | 00;14;00;04 - 00;14;22;28

Sophie Boler | 00;14;23;11 - 00;14;36;06

Jim Morgan | 00;14;36;12 - 00;14;54;03

Jim Morgan | 00;14;54;04 - 00;15;09;19

Jim Morgan | 00;15;10;06 - 00;15;36;24

Jim Morgan | 00;15;37;07 - 00;16;11;27

Sophie Boler | 00;16;21;06 - 00;16;36;04

Jim Morgan | 00;16;36;04 - 00;16;53;00

Jim Morgan | 00;16;53;00 - 00;17;10;23

Jim Morgan | 00;17;10;23 - 00;17;24;24

Sophie Boler | 00;17;24;24 - 00;17;35;15

Jim Morgan | 00;17;36;14 - 00;18;03;23

Jim Morgan | 00;18;04;09 - 00;18;20;13

Jim Morgan | 00;18;20;13 - 00;18;46;07

Jim Morgan | 00;18;46;08 - 00;19;06;16

Jim Morgan | 00;19;06;16 - 00;19;28;27

Jim Morgan | 00;19;28;27 - 00;19;47;05

Jim Morgan | 00;19;47;29 - 00;20;03;05

Jim Morgan | 00;20;03;18 - 00;20;21;20

Jim Morgan | 00;20;21;26 - 00;20;51;04

Jim Morgan | 00;20;51;04 - 00;21;21;20

Jim Morgan | 00;21;38;17 - 00;21;41;00

Sophie Boler | 00;21;44;01 - 00;22;06;11

Sophie Boler | 00;22;07;07 - 00;22;18;26

Jim Morgan | 00;22;18;26 - 00;22;31;12

Sophie Boler | 00;22;31;18 - 00;22;52;29

Sophie Boler | 00;22;52;29 - 00;22;55;03

Jim Morgan | 00;22;55;04 - 00;22;56;08

OUTRO | 00;22;57;05 - 00;23;19;13

Description: In this episode with HR Content Manager, Debbie Morgan, we wrap up the compensation conversation by giving you answers to YOUR questions! Debbie shares practical ideas business leaders can use today when it comes to compensation planning, including pay compression, employee attraction and retention, inflation, competitive pay strategies, and more.

Listen to Discover:

1. Pay is not based on inflation! Salary is a cost of doing business, and inflation is tied to the economy and the cost of purchasing goods. Inflation is tied to the cost of living, while salary budgets are tied to the cost of labor.

Bios:

Debbie Morgan, Manager, HR Content 

Let's Connect:

Debbie's LinkedIn Profile 

Resources:

Are you an MRA member that participated in this year's Compensation Trends Survey?

The report can be viewed on the MRA Website through the user dashboard. If you participated in the report, simply log in to the website, head over to your user dashboard, and locate surveys on the grey bar! From there you will see your report under “View Survey Reports”.

Are you an MRA member but did not have a chance to participate in this year's Compensation Trends Survey?

The full report can be purchased for $545, with applicable sales tax. To do so, login to the website, head on over to your dashboard and locate surveys on the grey bar. Click on it and it will take you to the survey page, scroll down to Purchase Survey Results and follow the steps on screen for the report you wish to purchase.

Not a MRA member yet?

Access our executive summary This is a small portion of the survey that includes key information from MRA's Compensation Trends Survey.

Transcript:

INTRO | 00;00;00;03 - 00;00;23;05

Hello, hello, everybody, and welcome to 30 minute THRIVE - your go- to podcast for anything and everything HR, powered by MRA - The Management Association. Looking to stay on top of the ever- changing world of HR? MRA has got you covered. We'll be the first to tell you what's hot and what's not. I'm your host, Sophie Boler, and we are so glad you're here. Now, it's time to THRIVE.

Sophie Boler | 00;00;23;18 - 00;00;51;25

Sophie Boler | 00;00;52;15 - 00;01;15;06

We talked to Mike and Brittany about this and they had great things to say. So we had over 1400 people register for the event, so we know it's a huge topic of interest to all of our listeners and our HR colleagues out there. But today, like I said, we're really here to just wrap it all up and we had a number of questions come in through our chat function.

Sophie Boler | 00;01;15;17 - 00;01;36;08

So we're going to take a look at some of the questions our members submitted. So the first question we really hear a lot when it comes to strategic compensation planning. So the data from the conference survey is collected months prior, but how can employers know what is happening in the current market to really plan for the coming year?

Debbie Morgan | 00;01;36;18 - 00;02;15;11

Yeah, that's a great question, Sophie. And I guess before we get too far into this, thank you for that great introduction. Yeah, I have over 20 years of crazy comp and benefits experience in what we're in right now, is definitely a unique market. So for companies that want to stay on top of it and really be up to date with those increases because they've been so turbulent and just so frequent last year, you're going to look at how, well, employers are going to have to do the math here.

Debbie Morgan | 00;02;16;08 - 00;02;47;21

So using those math skills, most people are going to start with the last increase that they gave people or the pay rate that people were at. Usually it's going to be starting January. That's the most common date to use. And you look at those on an annual basis and let's say the recommended increase is 4%, you're going to take the last pay increase and increase that by 1.04.

Debbie Morgan | 00;02;48;01 - 00;03;02;12

Now the "one" is "one" for one year later and then the .04 is the 4% that's trending and that'll get you where you should be for the following January if you originally started with January.

Sophie Boler | 00;03;02;18 - 00;03;10;25

Okay. Good to know. And then when we talk about crowdsourced compensation, is that a reliable source?

Debbie Morgan | 00;03;11;12 - 00;03;49;19

Yeah. Be careful when looking at crowdsourced data. I know if regular survey data is lacking or if you feel that it isn't keeping up with what you're hearing on the market, it's very tempting to give increases based on what your employees tell you or what you're hearing on the streets that other companies are offering. But, you know, a great example of that is when you see those giant billboards saying "now hiring up to $30 per hour" focus on that "up too", because you don't know what position that is referencing.

Debbie Morgan | 00;03;49;27 - 00;04;02;12

You don't know, you know, how much experience they're requiring to enter at that pay rate. So, you know, just be very cautious with that. Your most accurate data is going to come from surveys.

Sophie Boler | 00;04;02;15 - 00;04;12;22

Okay. So going along with that, can you tell us any other reliable sources that employers should use to do their market research on compensation?

Debbie Morgan | 00;04;12;22 - 00;04;47;25

Surveys are really going to be the best the best resource for you. Know the type of position that you're trying to cost out for. So if it's something that you're struggling with locally and you're recruiting locally for, try to use local data. If this is a position you're going to be recruiting from nationally, look at larger surveys that, you know, span a larger area: chambers of commerce, sometimes can be useful for that. ONET is a free resource.

Debbie Morgan | 00;04;48;11 - 00;05;16;16

It's put out by the Department of Labor. It's ONETonline.org. If you haven't used that before, you can make it very specific to the position, put in different specifics about it. Levels of education, levels of experience, things such as that, and also find that information based on your zip code, which is really great. Of course, MRA has awesome surveys for either local or national survey data.

Sophie Boler | 00;05;16;24 - 00;05;31;24

Okay, thanks, Debbie. Those are some great resources to take advantage of. So I have another big picture question for you. We're hearing that business is going to decline the rest of the year. How does business plan in such uncertain times?

Debbie Morgan | 00;05;31;24 - 00;06;00;09

Right now, it's so tricky. And the best recommendation is with cautious optimism, which I know sounds very vague and maybe a little frustrating for some people. But there are signs that show it could be related to industry. It's really too soon to tell, but really just take a look at what's happening in the environment and keep an eye on that and have your game plan ready if things start to fluctuate.

Sophie Boler | 00;06;00;17 - 00;06;18;08

Okay. And we talked a little bit about attraction and retention of employees the past couple of episodes. So we want to talk about that a little bit more with you today. So when posting a job, should the pay range really reflect the actual range or the budgeted range for a role?

Debbie Morgan | 00;06;18;18 - 00;06;58;14

That's going to depend on your company's strategy. Best practice is to use your current ranges because that's what's going to be communicated to employees. That's what managers are familiar with. And that way everyone is on the same page. If you are looking at hiring in the future, let's say six months down the road and you're putting, you know, your plan into place for that and you know you're going to be shifting your salary ranges, then you may consider doing that, but make sure before you begin promoting those different wages that managers, supervisors and everybody involved in the process is on the same page.

Sophie Boler | 00;06;58;25 - 00;07;11;28

Okay. And also related to attracting and retaining current employees, is there any guidance you have for what to provide current employees when offering a sign on bonus to any new hires?

Debbie Morgan | 00;07;12;16 - 00;07;50;07

This is something that we've heard employers are struggling with right now, that, you know, current employees who've been there maybe five, ten years are wondering, "okay, everybody that's coming in is now earning what I am." So what some employers have been doing is offering them different types of incentives or different things that they will find value in, such as paid time off, maybe the opportunity to flex the schedule if there are new job postings, give them the first option at either signing for them.

Debbie Morgan | 00;07;50;07 - 00;08;01;17

If you're a union organization or just letting them know first that there's going to be an opening and give them the option to kind of apply for that.

Sophie Boler | 00;08;02;08 - 00;08;16;00

But because of these bonuses and increases, we're also hearing concerns about pay compression. So can you review any best practices to address pay compression and any suggestions you have for an employer?

Debbie Morgan | 00;08;16;09 - 00;08;20;14

Yeah, pay compression is like the newest buzz word.

Sophie Boler | 00;08;20;14 - 00;08;21;01

Hot topic!

Debbie Morgan | 00;08;21;14 - 00;08;42;07

The news, hot topic and you know, not in such a great way. But again, it's going to be look at your salary structure and make sure that it's set and that it's sound and that you're following it. If you have designated pay ranges for certain positions, make sure you aren't red lining those and you're not going too far outside of those.

Debbie Morgan | 00;08;42;18 - 00;09;08;06

If you're going to start hiring new employees more towards the middle of those pay ranges, how does that look for the employees that are already in those jobs? If they've been there for several years and their first reaching the middle of those ranges, you're hiring new people there. What do you need to do to make that more equitable for the employees that have some tenure with you?

Sophie Boler | 00;09;08;06 - 00;09;18;12

And what would you say is the best way to solve pay compression for entry level positions because of the recently increased starting pay rate?

Debbie Morgan | 00;09;18;12 - 00;09;41;26

Sometimes that's an indication that you're going to want to look at where your pay ranges are right now. Again, if you're bringing on new people and you're consistently hiring them closer to the middle of your range, do you maybe need to shift that range? So they're now starting towards the bottom and then adjust the employees that are already there as well.

Debbie Morgan | 00;09;42;04 - 00;09;51;27

So if there's say, a three year employee that's closer to the middle, when you shift that new range, what's it going to take to keep them in the middle of that new range as well?

Sophie Boler | 00;09;52;03 - 00;10;10;06

Okay. And what is the best way to address a situation where you have an employee that's hired and they're earning a salary that's higher than someone in the same role with a good performance history and who has been with the company for several years. Advice on what to do for that situation?

Debbie Morgan | 00;10;10;06 - 00;10;40;15

Yeah, look at the new hire and really key aspects of the job. Is their level of knowledge about the same as the person who's already in the position is there? How many years of experience do they have in that type of role? What other things are they bringing to the job that may be compensable? And how does that compare to the person who's already in the job?

Debbie Morgan | 00;10;40;24 - 00;10;48;06

If it's very much the same, take a look at the people who are already in that role and even the playing ground level off.

Sophie Boler | 00;10;48;17 - 00;11;15;01

Gotcha. And then inflation was also a key topic in this year's Compensation Trend Survey, and we had a number of questions relating to this topic. But during the event, we actually had a member comment that during the last period of high inflation, which was in the seventies and eighties, a period I don't remember, it was really common to tie in the cost of living allowances to the Consumer Price Index.

Sophie Boler | 00;11;15;01 - 00;11;20;14

So is there any indication that companies will begin implementing COLA adjustments again?

Debbie Morgan | 00;11;21;03 - 00;11;53;17

Some companies have, and that's not always best practice because inflation is a very different concept than wages and you're paying somebody for labor. Inflation is based on the you know, what it costs to live and wages are based on the value of a job, how in-demand a position is. So while they still relate to business, they're two different directions of that.

Debbie Morgan | 00;11;53;25 - 00;12;11;18

So they shouldn't be based off of each other. When inflation increases, that doesn't necessarily mean wages should increase, just like when inflation comes down, you're not going to lower what you're paying everybody either. I don't think you'd get a favorable response for your employees.

Sophie Boler | 00;12;11;21 - 00;12;22;12

Right. And you kind of covered this in your last response. But how do organizations really combat expectations that salary increases will match the inflation rates?

Debbie Morgan | 00;12;24;00 - 00;12;49;22

That's a great question. And I know a lot of people, a lot of companies are asking that same question because employees do come to that. My children asked me about this when they got their pay increases this year and why aren't they keeping in line with inflation? And they're really two different concepts. Inflation is related to what it costs to live and what it costs to purchase goods.

Debbie Morgan | 00;12;49;22 - 00;13;19;28

And basically, you know, your groceries and things such as that where, you know, businesses look at the value of a job and what the market is driving for that job. It's more based on, you know, is the job high in high demand? And you know, what is it going to take to keep that employee in that market versus having them go to one of your competitors?

Sophie Boler | 00;13;20;13 - 00;13;34;26

Okay. I gotcha. And we've also heard that employers are really being more creative with their pay strategies. And you've covered a little bit about this, too, but what are some effective hourly incentive compensation strategies that you've seen?

Debbie Morgan | 00;13;35;06 - 00;14;02;15

A lot more employers are looking at that as well, because even though your neighbor down the road might be increasing wages, that doesn't necessarily mean that your budget has room for that. So employers are looking at things that are either more cost effective or no cost at all, such as flexible work schedules. Some companies are that we're going to bring employees back into the office are continuing to offer the option of working from home things, other little benefits like pet insurance or child care. You know, additional paid time off really speaks to some people as well. One of the biggest suggestions is to listen to your employees and find out what they value and see if you can do something related to that.

Sophie Boler | 00;14;32;26 - 00;14;40;06

And what recommendations do you have for companies to manage the frequency of salary reviews in these changing times?

Debbie Morgan | 00;14;41;16 - 00;15;06;22

Well, you know, again, if you look at your salary structure and if you have one in place and you feel that it's very solid, stick with that. And if it seems to make sense that your annual reviews are keeping pace with the market, then it may not be necessary to do anything. If you haven't done a salary review, this could be a really good opportunity to do that and kind of tighten things up.

Debbie Morgan | 00;15;07;14 - 00;15;15;12

Take a look at what the market is and how that's pacing and try to develop your your process around that.

Sophie Boler | 00;15;15;28 - 00;15;28;15

So what if a company has already made several wage adjustments to remain competitive regarding merit? What percentage increase should employers use to stay competitive?

Debbie Morgan | 00;15;28;29 - 00;15;54;17

Well, the predictions for the upcoming year, so for 2023, are around 4%. That's what we've been seeing from a lot of the most popular resources, including MRA's, our CompTrends. So, you know, take a look at that. Even though you've made adjustments in the past, that was pretty much to get in line with what everybody was doing at that time.

Debbie Morgan | 00;15;55;23 - 00;16;02;14

Companies are still forecasting for next year. So stick with that. And, you know, look at doing market increases.

Debbie Morgan | 00;16;03;24 - 00;16;05;01

Keep doing what you're doing. 

Sophie Boler | 00;16;05;20 - 00;16;27;01

And in addition to being creative with pay increases, employers are also being creative with their total rewards. So at MRA, we often say it's not a benefit if the employee doesn't see it as a benefit. So what are some of the most creative benefits that you've been seeing and the most impactful ones for employee retention?

Debbie Morgan | 00;16;28;07 - 00;17;10;21

Again, it's going to be tied to what your employees want. One of the most popular benefits we've been seeing is tied to time off or additional vacation days, maybe adding another holiday, maybe providing the option to flex time or work from home or other things have started to creep in. Everybody knows about the COVID pets and you know, now that people are heading back into the office or maybe they're moving to a four day workweek, so those days are longer, you know, pet insurance or helping with like doggy day care or child care have become popular benefits as well.

Sophie Boler | 00;17;10;28 - 00;17;21;18

And you mentioned PTO in your last statement. So is two weeks of vacation for new hires still competitive or do you have other recommendations for that?

Debbie Morgan | 00;17;21;18 - 00;17;45;20

Yeah, I'm going to give you the it depends answer. Entry level positions, some manufacturing positions, things such as that may still do two weeks, but most other professional positions or when you're hiring people with experience, even a couple of years of experience, two weeks is not going to be competitive. It typically will start at at least three weeks.

Sophie Boler | 00;17;45;29 - 00;17;59;27

Gotcha. Okay. Well, I have so many more questions, but it looks like we might be out of time, unfortunately. But can you tell the listeners where to go to get any more information on their compensation questions?

Debbie Morgan | 00;17;59;27 - 00;18;34;12

Absolutely. Our survey team is an incredible resource as everyone listening to this probably knows. CompTrends was one of our most popular surveys. I think to date, as you mentioned, 1400 viewers or participants. So it's definitely what people want to know. And they work with us, do that every day. Our compensation team as well is incredible and they've been working with our members to find really creative solutions to some of the things that are going on.

Debbie Morgan | 00;18;35;08 - 00;18;56;02

Inflationary responses when companies are concerned about that. But just taking a look at their pay structure too, our hotline is an amazing resource also. They're, you know, answering questions all day, every day. So if you have a quick ask or are looking just for a resource, give our hotline a call too.

Sophie Boler | 00;18;56;22 - 00;19;24;11

And thank you too for all of your hard work, and for the listeners, you can definitely connect with Debbie on LinkedIn and she's there to answer your questions. So we have links to some of these resources in the show notes below and have put Debbie's LinkedIn profile in there too. But otherwise, we will see you next week when we're joined with Jim Morgan to talk more about talent attraction, candidate experience, the onboarding experience, all that fun stuff.

Sophie Boler | 00;19;25;05 - 00;19;49;26

But thank you again, Debbie. This was awesome. A lot of great information, and we will see you guys next week.

OUTRO | 00;19;50;13 - 00;19;56;25

And that wraps up our content for this episode. Be sure to reference the show notes where you can sign up to connect for more podcast updates. Check out other MRA episodes on your favorite podcast platform, and as always, make sure to follow MRA's 30 minute THRIVE so you don't miss out. Thanks for tuning in and we'll see you next Wednesday to carry on the conversation.

JUST IN: The results are in for MRA’s 2022 Compensation Trends Survey, and expert Mike Kopczynski is here to give you answers! Does your organization need to re-think it’s compensation strategy? We’ll cover pay increase, compensation strategy, talent shortage, total rewards, and more.

Listen to Discover:

1. With the dynamic environment of the last two years, more and more companies are investing in a compensation strategy. What should be included in the strategy?

Bios:

Mike Kopczynski, Custom Surveys and Business Research Lead

Let's Connect:

Mike's LinkedIn Profile

Resources:

Are you an MRA member that participated in this year's Compensation Trends Survey?

The report can be viewed on the MRA Website through the user dashboard. If you participated in the report, simply log in to the website, head over to your user dashboard, and locate surveys on the grey bar! From there you will see your report under “View Survey Reports”.

Are you an MRA member but did not have a chance to participate in this year's Compensation Trends Survey?

The full report can be purchased for $545, with applicable sales tax. To do so, login to the website, head on over to your dashboard and locate surveys on the grey bar. Click on it and it will take you to the survey page, scroll down to Purchase Survey Results and follow the steps on screen for the report you wish to purchase.

Not a MRA member yet?

Access our executive summary This is a small portion of the survey that includes key information from MRA's Compensation Trends Survey.

Transcript:

INTRO | 00;00;00;03 - 00;00;23;03

Hello, hello everybody and welcome to 30 minute THRIVE, your go-to podcast for anything and everything HR, powered by MRA - The Management Association. Looking to stay on top of the ever-changing world of HR? MRA has got you covered. We'll be the first to tell you what's hot and what's not. I’m your host, Sophie Boler, and we are so glad you're here. Now, it’s time to thrive!

Sophie Boler | 00;00;23;17 - 00;00;55;14

Well, I'm excited to continue the Compensation Trends Survey series and really move into more of the results of the survey. So last week, Brittany went into the ins and outs of the production of the survey. But this week I'm joined with Mike Kopczynski, Customer Surveys and Business Research Lead here at MRA. And Mike has over 20 years of leading research teams and really plays a key role in the production of MRA surveys, which is awesome.

Sophie Boler | 00;00;55;27 - 00;01;11;09

And you actually just spoke at the Comp Trends event last week, which was great, and I know that went well, but really this week we want to go into the results of the survey. So welcome to the show, Mike. How are you doing today?

Mike Kopczynski | 00;01;11;10 - 00;01;25;08

Great, Sophie, thank you and yeah, thank you for having me on board. Last week was pretty intense. Yeah, it was fun to express the results. Inform members, obviously, of this year's challenges of this year's findings.

Sophie Boler | 00;01;25;09 - 00;01;25;29

Absolutely.

Mike Kopczynski | 00;01;26;09 - 00;01;26;25

Thanks for having me.

Sophie Boler | 00;01;26;29 - 00;01;40;13

For sure. Well, really, just want to start out by asking the main question that's on employer's minds right now, and that is what percent pay increase can employers expect based on the survey results?

Mike Kopczynski | 00;01;40;22 - 00;02;06;03

Yeah, it is typically asked in our survey, and one of the questions that we historically trendd is payment merit increases. And as you alluded to, 4.0% is this year's number. It's the highest incremental increase that we saw in 15 years as we've tracked the survey and many companies are using that to pin their number based on their merit increases on top of base pay.

Mike Kopczynski | 00;02;06;11 - 00;02;08;07

So 4.0% this year.

Sophie Boler | 00;02;08;21 - 00;02;28;24

And 4%, it's a lot. I mean, considering that past years have been 3%, but we've even heard this upcoming year that some companies are going as far as 4.7%, which is huge. So how can an employer really plan to adjust to this pay increase?

Mike Kopczynski | 00;02;29;02 - 00;02;58;28

Yeah, very true. In prior years, as you mentioned, most salary increases were pegged around 3.0 to 3.2%, with a great resignation, inflation and other factors, employers really had to, you know, jostle around. They had pressure to increase their budgets, increased salaries. And then that being said, all employee this year, all employee groups this year, were given at least a 4.7% increase in actually the production of workers.

Mike Kopczynski | 00;02;59;13 - 00;03;11;10

Some of those are areas or some of those industries where they work on the plant floor were given over 5%, up to 5.2%. So major differences from two years ago.

Sophie Boler | 00;03;11;12 - 00;03;26;15

Absolutely. And I mean, with the dynamic environment of the last two years, more and more companies are really investing in a compensation strategy. So what percentage of employers surveyed have a compensation strategy?

Mike Kopczynski | 00;03;26;19 - 00;03;55;17

Yeah, well, just over half of employers are saying that they've had or are creating, let me say it this way, over half of the employers surveyed said that they have a compensation strategy and another 21% are developing one. So it's about 76% in total, if you think about it that way. The reason for a comp strategy is to help make quick decisions and to actually help communicate those decisions in a more formal setting.

Sophie Boler | 00;03;56;00 - 00;04;11;20

Right. So now that the listeners have that info, can you tell me what makes this compensation survey really stand out from the others that are out there? Brittany kind of covered some of this last week, but we want to know your thoughts on it.

Mike Kopczynski | 00;04;11;23 - 00;04;35;29

Well, Brittany’s a part of our survey team, and definitely helps manage and do our reports. It's a challenging time for employers and to offer them with timely insights and that's really a goal of MRA and MRA survey department in general. That's what we try to do is give them full access to information that we gain or them glean from employers right off the cuff.

Mike Kopczynski | 00;04;36;13 - 00;04;51;28

MRA has a history of doing this and producing accurate and timely information. Organizations understand that the changes and trends that are occurring have occurred in compensation and this year, and no doubt compensation was really a main focus for a lot of employers for sure.

Sophie Boler | 00;04;51;28 - 00;05;03;13

And Brittany also covered a little bit of this, but this compensation survey has been going on for over 20 years, which is a long time. So how do you guys do it?

Mike Kopczynski | 00;05;03;19 - 00;05;26;11

Yeah. And to your point, though, there is a lot that goes on behind the scenes. We stay in tune with the current business climate as well as trends. That is occurring within compensation. Along the way, we tweak the instrument to align with what members really need. Those needs are captured through various channels such as MRA’s 24/7 Hotline from MRA’s HR business partners that are actually in locations where they sit at employers’ locations and then other insights gleaned from MRA’s surveys. We manage about 14, 15 different annual surveys throughout the year. So compensation, we get our compensation data from all types of industries, of all types of employee groups. That said, though, and most importantly, the insights come from employers. They come from local companies with similar needs.

Sophie Boler | 00;05;54;20 - 00;06;06;19

And as we mentioned, the survey’s been going on for 20 years and it's changed a little bit throughout the years. So what have you personally seen over the years to accommodate the changing business environment?

Mike Kopczynski | 00;06;06;24 - 00;06;37;21

Yeah, indeed. 20 years is a long time. If you think about it and just a historical standpoint, there has been a lot of occurred in those years, even dating back to 2008 when the Great Recession hit, people were freezing a lot of wages. So there was a lot of insights and a lot of learning from that era. Then you go back, then you add ten years after that until the pandemic, the last two years, 2019, 2020 into the 2021, there was just a whole slew of uncertainty that employers were faced with.

Mike Kopczynski | 00;06;38;03 - 00;07;04;09

So wages were frozen in some remote many instances were frozen at those times. And then two years later, here we are almost a 180 degree turn with the retention and hiring efforts that a lot of companies are faced with today. So it's almost a shift or a priority shift in all that time. But basically it's a lot of a lot of research that we do internally.

Mike Kopczynski | 00;07;04;26 - 00;07;21;13

The department takes its time, we walk, we talk internally to not only survey department, but also other areas of the company, as I mentioned, that help provide insights and provide us with some good questions that we could then formulate and passed back to members for their opinions.

Sophie Boler | 00;07;22;01 - 00;07;38;24

For sure. Yeah. And like you just said, I mean, there's been a lot of different priority shifts throughout the years with business trends. And one of them right now is talent shortage. So talent shortage is a hot topic right now. What questions did you ask to address this?

Mike Kopczynski | 00;07;39;04 - 00;08;06;23

Yeah, as 2022 started, it really became apparent that the great resignation would continue. In fact, it continued really strongly, much more so that many members knew about or had an understanding of the need to hire as well as retain became very crucial. Well, those recognize that base pay attracts talent and that total compensation is a significant factor in that fostering of employee commitment to a company.

Mike Kopczynski | 00;08;07;15 - 00;08;52;14

The additional survey questions that we added this year, to get at inflation to get at some of the goals of what was really happening in the economic climate, in understanding what total rewards policies would change, and identify exactly how much wages and total rewards were changing and at what levels to level set and to identify with. If a company needs to add on to their base salaries or add it onto their different types of philosophies on how they formulate their business plans and then finally understand other tactics that employers are using to provide additional compensation, such as variable pay, perks, other benefits.

Mike Kopczynski | 00;08;52;25 - 00;09;10;20

And all these things came into play, came into focus more this year because a lot of people that were looking for jobs, those that were new candidates or were comparing, were comparing what they had versus what they what a new company could offer. And if it was better or worse, that's how they made the decision.

Sophie Boler | 00;09;11;00 - 00;09;26;04

Right. And I mean, given the high inflation rate now, what are companies really doing for employees that I mean, in recent months, organizations have been looking for other ways to pay. So what can you say about that?

Mike Kopczynski | 00;09;26;11 - 00;09;53;01

Yeah, base pay is absolutely a critical component to an organization's philosophy and providing competitive compensation pegged to market conditions is absolutely a necessity. So that is clearly, first and foremost that employer needs to manage. However, secondly, though, variable pay options in the form of bonuses and there are many types of bonuses. There are referral bonuses, holiday bonuses, attendance bonuses.

Mike Kopczynski | 00;09;53;11 - 00;10;16;23

All these new things were developed in the last couple of years to attract and retain employees. That's one of the reasons that we tried that is to promote and give additional incentives. So this year, part of the survey information we learned is that 66% of organizations are providing some type of variable pay option. Two years ago, that was only 23%.

Mike Kopczynski | 00;10;17;08 - 00;10;46;12

So almost a three time increase in that behavior from employers. So it really is it really goes to show that there's a lot of activity going around compensation. And I think that's the challenge. And even the pitfalls that a lot of companies face, if they're not doing some of these things. So I think that's the whole goal, is just to let the information to our employers and employers that are MRA members and have them at least understand that these options available.

Mike Kopczynski | 00;10;46;29 - 00;11;04;19

Bottom line, though, an employer's goal is to ensure that they are retaining and keeping employees and that keep them happy in this current labor market. You know, in essence, finding the balance to offset the cost of living while also managing the cost of labor. So it's a really a balancing act.

Sophie Boler | 00;11;04;19 - 00;11;16;03

Yeah, for sure. And total rewards is also key in the compensation conversation. So do you have any advice for both employers and employees about total rewards?

Mike Kopczynski | 00;11;16;21 - 00;11;36;23

Yeah, total rewards. And I think that's it from the from the outlook of an employee. They may not even be aware of the total rewards, really. It's all about. So part of the idea is really to help it understand how to communicate that better to them. Organizations really need to be quick leaders and it could be your managers. It could be for folks. Well, whenever you talk to employees, the resources to communicate, pay decisions. So how do you do that effectively, I guess. I mean, so I’ve got a couple of bullet points that actually illustrate some of these things. Also, another point would be consider using compensation statements in that communication. So if you're not aware of what a compensation statement, it basically is a piece of paper that identifies the total reward.

Mike Kopczynski | 00;12;04;26 - 00;12;30;14

It’s got, it's compensation, it's benefits. It's all those things that go into what an employee earns that is offset, offset in addition to base pay. So there's a lot involved with that. And I think that's what's missed when we look at it from the from only the lens of an employee. And then thirdly, help employees understand how pay and merit are actually calculated and conducted.

Mike Kopczynski | 00;12;30;29 - 00;12;53;03

You know, a lot of companies use these, as I mentioned earlier, compensation strategies. And part of that is that they need to how do they actually collect their data? Are they using crowd sourced information or the actually using information that's coming from employers through survey data? So that's a huge a huge learning and a huge conversation that could happen.

Mike Kopczynski | 00;12;53;21 - 00;13;15;27

Now, providing and learning as well as what variable pay options are available for your organization. A lot of these are cultural based. So if your organization has a, you know, just be aware what your culture can stand for. And employees, you know, are definitely willing to accept whatever you have. But I think the idea is you have to make it fit within the culture that you have.

Mike Kopczynski | 00;13;17;01 - 00;13;38;10

Just a couple other things here. You know, stay in tune with the market. You know, I think a lot of companies, when they look at their total rewards, they need to be consistent with what's going on in the marketplace, doing a or having the survey that is done every year or every two years at the minimum, at least, pegs you to what the current conditions are.

Mike Kopczynski | 00;13;38;19 - 00;13;57;05

And I think that's very important that the pay is where all that, especially when it comes to retaining and even hiring some employers. And absolutely finally, kind of, you know, have the conversations. Right. And I think that's what's becoming more and more apparent to organizations yet. It's really it's not there yet, but still struggling with that.

Sophie Boler | 00;13;57;05 - 00;14;04;19

And you're saying how important these conversations are, but are organizations really having these conversations or how many are having them?

Mike Kopczynski | 00;14;04;24 - 00;14;36;06

Yeah. Sophie you're right in, they really trained 31% of those organizations that we surveyed this year are saying that they are trying to conduct have conversations, but that's only 31%, less than a third of all organizations. So, you know, it really comes down to this. If you want to increase retention, increase your communication strategy, because I think that's that would help a lot of employees understand where they are, how their salaries are pegged to market conditions and then what the organization is doing for them.

Mike Kopczynski | 00;14;36;16 - 00;14;43;10

Those are just massive, you know, indications that a company is there for you. Right. And if you don't communicate that, how then?

Sophie Boler | 00;14;43;10 - 00;14;54;04

That’s some great advice you gave. But you talk a lot about compensation strategy. So if a company does not have a strategy, where do they start to begin?

Mike Kopczynski | 00;14;54;17 - 00;15;14;18

Right. Good point. You know, I mentioned the compensation statements, you know, but what it really comes down to this, employees come to work for a variety of reasons. What is the top, First and foremost, it's really to get paid. Right? Right. So pay is a huge indicator, a huge factor when it comes to what an employee really wants from an organization.

Mike Kopczynski | 00;15;14;26 - 00;15;17;05

So to be competitive, it's huge.

Sophie Boler | 00;15;17;15 - 00;15;22;20

But employers should include more than just increasing wages, correct?

Mike Kopczynski | 00;15;22;22 - 00;15;43;07

Indeed. Yeah. No, they absolutely have to. When compensation experts actually scope a project, you know, there's a lot of things that they do in that endeavor. How do you determine how much to pay? Somebody goes back to the market you're in, what location you're in your city. You know what? With city and state you actually live in make a significant difference.

Mike Kopczynski | 00;15;43;24 - 00;16;01;29

Where do you find your employer employees? Where do you find them? You know, how do you define your labor market? You know, are you going off to school? Are you going out to colleges? Where do you recruit? Are you recruiting directly from, you know, job postings and stuff like that? So all those all those variables come into play.

Mike Kopczynski | 00;16;03;03 - 00;16;25;27

What are your current challenges? Many organizations, it's a cultural thing. You know what your challenges internally are. You are you struggling to keep employees on all job levels? And if that's the case, then there are certain challenges that you need to fix there. Do you have guidelines in place that provide direction and reduce ambiguity? So what are your policies?

Mike Kopczynski | 00;16;25;27 - 00;16;58;21

What policies have changed? You know, maybe you need to look at that and possibly change some of those down the road. And then based on some of these answers, you can make a good guess. You can make a good guess of where to start and actually where to fill some of the gaps. So not knowing how a job is formulated from both angles, from the employee side and even on the employer side, you know, could be a very detriment or downfall for the organization if you can't justify pay decisions within the management team, how can you justify it to employers and or candidates?

Mike Kopczynski | 00;16;59;03 - 00;17;20;05

So it's a pretty big challenge to overcome that. Survey results this year informed us that I mentioned earlier, 53% of organizations have a comp strategy. 21% are looking to do that or are developing one. That's great. But as I mentioned, there's a lot of work specifically in this current business climate. So comp strategies, becoming more and more.

Sophie Boler | 00;17;20;18 - 00;17;36;23

Absolutely. And we often tell our members here at afraid it's not a benefit unless the employee sees it as a benefit. So did this survey really provide ideas around what are some creative benefits that employers should be using and considering?

Mike Kopczynski | 00;17;37;25 - 00;17;59;19

It did. The intense competition for labor really has demanded that employers differentiate themselves this year more so than other years. You know, and we will definitely, there's some aspects of the survey that were creatively developed as a result of just making sure that we hit upon some of those themes that are being created by employers.

Sophie Boler | 00;17;59;26 - 00;18;06;29

Right. And like you said, they should be offering other things like variable pay, perks and other benefits.

Mike Kopczynski | 00;18;07;01 - 00;18;25;03

Yes, absolutely. In addition to that, the offering, the right benefit to the right employee is key. A younger employee is less likely to want dollars, you know, given to them or in place for their for on care. They may want to they want help in reducing their tuition expenses.

Sophie Boler | 00;18;25;06 - 00;18;25;18

Student loans.

Mike Kopczynski | 00;18;26;03 - 00;18;48;02

Loans or helping pay for their first home on a down payment or receive the down payment on the opposite side of the coin, whatever is. If you're a little bit older, you are watching to save a little bit more for your retirement fund or you're you're actually saving for your children, your grandchildren's tuition. So there could be other options available down that road.

Mike Kopczynski | 00;18;48;09 - 00;18;53;10

And that's actually what we're seeing, is that some of those creative and unique perks.

Sophie Boler | 00;18;53;22 - 00;19;08;08

Are absolutely right. You've shared a lot of great insights and a lot of good advice for business leaders and organizations just as a whole. So do you have any parting advice or any information to share with our business leaders?

Mike Kopczynski | 00;19;08;22 - 00;19;33;13

This is such a great topic and this year has been really challenging and so to express this information, I think it's just a critical time and we're historically trying to produce this information in time for budgets. So we tried to step that back and tried to feed this data or try to express this data a little bit or forthcoming to employers.

Mike Kopczynski | 00;19;33;13 - 00;20;02;29

So with that being said, decisions have always been held so tightly. In the last ten, 15 years, though, I think it's becoming more and more open now. The transparency of communication of pay and even from the higher levels of employees and employers, we want to marry that together a little bit more. So communicate more often. That being said, though, we have to ensure that both the employee and the employer feel that fee is actually adequate and fair.

Sophie Boler | 00;20;02;29 - 00;20;03;08

Right.

Mike Kopczynski | 00;20;04;04 - 00;20;28;01

You know, secondly, is the grass really greener on the other side of the fence, you know, with a lot of people that have moved jobs, that have, you know, crossed over as a result of the great resignation, are our companies taking those risks seriously? And what has happened to those? And for those employees, are they really in stress roles that pay higher?

Mike Kopczynski | 00;20;28;24 - 00;20;50;13

And what are you doing for them? Are you training them adequately? You know, are they really being pushed to, you know, promote within a little bit more? So what about like additional or internal training activities and tactics? I think employers today need to kind of look at themselves a little bit more so and have those options more available.

Mike Kopczynski | 00;20;50;24 - 00;21;27;03

So succession planning, what I think a lot of companies were forced into identifying, I lost an employee that was with me for so many years that I don't know what to do. So I think to have a plan in place that I think that's the learning, I think that came out of this is that there's a lot more insight available to employers, but there's some work that they need to do to make sure that they have all these things in place or from internal training, succession planning to promoting, you know, promoting with them, I think new things that are becoming business strategies that will be taking place.

Mike Kopczynski | 00;21;27;03 - 00;21;50;20

Sophie, lastly, I think organizations need to ask some tough questions. Outside of pay, why do employees really come to work? Do they enjoy working here? Do they recommend this place as a great place to work? You know, additionally, how many employees are engaged, how many are passive? How many or worst detractors do they know your products and services and brag about them to their friends?

Mike Kopczynski | 00;21;50;20 - 00;22;19;28

You know, with companies experiencing larger than expected turnover and especially this last year and if you're fortunate, new personnel that they hired, it might be time to really gather some fresh insights from their employee base. So do some workforce surveys, maybe learn some of those things that fill in some of those gaps and then basically to inform your employees where they are within those gaps, to help them formulate those business plans and make a full round employee commitment to them.

Mike Kopczynski | 00;22;19;28 - 00;22;20;23

All right. Thank you.

Sophie Boler | 00;22;21;27 - 00;22;44;20

All right. Well, Mike, this has been great. You offered a lot of great information for everybody. So thank you for all of your hard work pulling the survey together and discussing more of the results. For those of you listening, we've added the link to the Compensation Trends Survey in the show notes, so make sure to go to our website and check out the survey there if you haven't.

Sophie Boler | 00;22;45;15 - 00;23;09;02

Other than that, we will be closing out our series next week when Debbie Morgan joins us to kind of wrap up some key points of the survey and make sure to connect with Mike and any further information on compensation trends. We've linked his profile in the show notes below, but thank you again, Mike, for everything's been great. I've had fun and we will see you next week.

OUTRO | 00;23;09;02 - 00;23;31;09

And that wraps up our content for this episode. Be sure to reference the show notes where you can sign up to connect for more podcast updates. Check out other episodes on your favorite podcast platform. And as always, make sure to follow MRA’s 30 minute THRIVE so you don't miss out. Thanks for tuning in and we'll see you next Wednesday to carry on the HR conversation.

Get a behind-the-scenes look at the making of MRA's Compensation Trends Survey. We asked the important questions to give you the answers you need. We'll talk about changing compensation, talent shortage, inflation, and give you a sneak peek at this year's Compensation Trends Survey!

Listen to Discover:

1. What makes this compensation survey most useful for business leaders--learn about aged data

Bios:

Brittany Rittershaus, Survey & Graphics Specialist

Resources:

Are you an MRA member that participated in this year's Compensation Trends Survey?

The report can be viewed on the MRA Website through the user dashboard. If you participated in the report, simply log in to the website, head over to your user dashboard, and locate surveys on the grey bar! From there you will see your report under “View Survey Reports”.

Are you an MRA member but did not have a chance to participate in this year's Compensation Trends Survey?

The full report can be purchased for $545, with applicable sales tax. To do so, login to the website, head on over to your dashboard and locate surveys on the grey bar. Click on it and it will take you to the survey page, scroll down to Purchase Survey Results and follow the steps on screen for the report you wish to purchase.

Not a MRA member yet?

Access our executive summary This is a small portion of the survey that includes key information from MRA's Compensation Trends Survey.

Transcript:

INTRO | 00;00;00;02 - 00;00;23;04

Hello, hello, everybody and welcome to 30 minute THRIVE, your go-to podcast for anything and everything HR, powered by MRA, The Management Association. Looking to stay on top of the ever-changing world of HR? MRA has got you covered. We’ll be the first to tell you what’s hot and what’s not. I’m your host, Sophie Boler, and we are so glad you’re here. Now it’s time to THRIVE.

Sophie Boler | 00;00;23;16 - 00;00;55;17

Hello, everybody, and welcome back to 30 minute THRIVE. Our episode today is part of our three-part compensation trends miniseries. As companies are attempting to find the perfect formula for recruiting and retention, compensation is the key. MRA’s Compensation Trends Survey is designed to guide organizations on topics such as economic and business outlook, pay increases, pay structures, and pay transparency.

Sophie Boler | 00;00;56;06 - 00;01;25;08

Today, I’m sitting down with Brittany Rittershaus to get a behind-the-scenes look at the making of this year’s Compensation Trends Survey. Brittany is the surveys and graphics specialist at MRA. She writes, produces, and designs the final survey reports and is one of the leads on MRA’s Hot Topics surveys. Brittany helps by producing the questionnaire and writing and designing the reports to ensure they are timely and relevant.

Sophie Boler | 00;01;27;02 - 00;01;30;19

Hello and welcome to 30 minute THRIVE, Brittany. It’s great to have you on.

Brittany Rittershaus | 00;01;30;22 - 00;01;32;26

It’s great to be here. Thanks for having me.

Sophie Boler | 00;01;33;03 - 00;01;55;26

Sure. I’m excited to hear the inside scoop on the latest Compensation Trends Survey for MRA. So MRA surveys are really here to provide insights to help companies compete and stay informed on business trends, and the Compensation Trends Survey is one of the most popular ones we do. So, what makes the Compensation Trends Survey so popular?

Brittany Rittershaus | 00;01;56;16 - 00;02;26;25

I think what drives this survey and makes it so popular for organizations is what we ask in the survey. We are constantly making sure we have the correct trends that occur within compensation and any changes that might occur. We really want to help organizations remain competitive, and this survey really does help them remain competitive because it has information that they need for their compensation strategies.

Sophie Boler | 00;02;27;03 - 00;02;30;11

So can you dive in a bit deeper into what this report looks like?

Brittany Rittershaus | 00;02;30;29 - 00;02;58;29

Yes. So, we do have over 40 questions that we asked in this survey, all focused on various compensation trends, questions. We also had 749 organizations participate and they reported on over 2,000 divisions or locations across the U.S. We also break out the data into various sections. We have an overall, which includes all the data no matter what state that they reported their data for.

Brittany Rittershaus | 00;02;59;13 - 00;03;07;26

We also break it out in Illinois, Iowa, Minnesota, and Wisconsin. And then there are also data cuts for industry and profits status.

Sophie Boler | 00;03;07;27 - 00;03;14;27

Wow. I know the survey goes through a lot of steps from start to finish, but what is the process of producing the survey?

Brittany Rittershaus | 00;03;15;21 - 00;03;35;02

So when we start out, we kind of get together with a bunch of individuals from our organization and just kind of ask, “What is going on in the compensation world?” We take a look and see if there are any questions that need updating or anything that needs to be added to the survey so that it’s relevant. From there, we go ahead and launch the survey.

Brittany Rittershaus | 00;03;35;03 - 00;03;59;27

We have people, you know, answer any questions that need to be answered, fill out. If there are required questions, we make sure they answer those and get them submitted. From there, once we’re able to close down the survey, we do have our data analyst go ahead and look through the survey, clean it up, and kind of produce the report. And from there, I take it and look at it from a holistic view and say, hey, this is really interesting.

Brittany Rittershaus | 00;03;59;27 - 00;04;10;29

Let’s talk about this. This is really interesting. We need to talk about this. So from there, kind of, the report is put together and produced into what you’re going to see coming up at the event.

Sophie Boler | 00;04;11;02 - 00;04;18;23

That’s awesome. So there were 45 survey questions in this survey. How do you determine the questions that should be asked?

Brittany Rittershaus | 00;04;20;05 - 00;04;47;14

It is a lengthy process to determine what questions to ask in each survey. Since Compensation Trends Survey—we’ve been doing this one for over 20 years, as we’ve mentioned—most of these have base questions that we’ve already figured out, ones that we know organizations need to know. However, when it comes to adding new questions, we do discuss with other lines of businesses that we have at MRA to kind of help and guide us.

Brittany Rittershaus | 00;04;48;02 - 00;05;15;23

One of the main departments that we do discuss with is our HR Hotline advisors. They’re constantly talking to our members and helping them out with any needs they may have related to HR. And due to that, they’re really the first to know if and what organizations are struggling with and what answers they need. And due to that, we can kind of incorporate that and fill the gaps with our surveys.

Brittany Rittershaus | 00;05;15;23 - 00;05;49;07

So we’re constantly tweaking and working on new questions with the advice that we get from them, with anything that they’re hearing from our members. This year an added component that we did was, since the talent market has been so difficult and making it challenging for employers to obtain the employees that they need, we did work with our Recruiting Services team to see what they were hearing and experiencing, to see if we could add any questions surrounding that.

Brittany Rittershaus | 00;05;50;26 - 00;06;08;26

All that to say is that we just really want to get a holistic view of what’s happening to organizations by listening to them, hearing what they’re struggling with, and incorporating that into our survey so that we have the best answers that we can.

Sophie Boler | 00;06;10;05 - 00;06;14;14

Interesting, and does that play a role in how MRA’s surveys are so robust?

Brittany Rittershaus | 00;06;14;14 - 00;07;01;12

What makes MRA’s surveys so robust is that we do have a large membership of over 3,000 organizations who do value our data and look at it. Across all of our survey offers, we have well over 2,000 organizations participating in our surveys, and most of these organizations hail from the Midwest, which gives us a strong local presence. However, we do have membership who have branches or locations in other states, which is why we take the time to collect data not just from local areas but also across the nation, just so that we have any data for those organizations who do have locations in various areas.

Brittany Rittershaus | 00;07;02;13 - 00;07;30;14

This is true throughout all of our compensation, business insights, trends, and policy surveys that we offer. We just want to make sure that we’re giving the best we can, and by offering our data across all of the United States, it does help give us a true picture of what organizations’ needs are. One thing to remember about our surveys is that the more people who participate, the more robust it will be.

Sophie Boler | 00;07;31;14 - 00;07;35;19

You talk about employer-reported data. How does that impact the data?

Brittany Rittershaus | 00;07;36;05 - 00;08;04;22

Another way the data and compensation trends can help is to be used to age data. Oftentimes, you might find yourself having older data that you’ve obtained, like say, even if you, it was released in March. By then the data has changed. There have been shifts, especially this last year, data has been going up very quickly and just changing rapidly, and aging

Brittany Rittershaus | 00;08;04;22 - 00;08;33;12

the data can definitely help to get you kind of where you need to be until you can get the newest, freshest data. For any information on that, we do have several resources that can help. The best rule of thumb is to use the merit increases, whether that’s with or without zeros. It really does depend upon your compensation philosophy and that’s something you can determine in talking with your internal HR

Brittany Rittershaus | 00;08;33;12 - 00;08;47;02

or even other business leaders that might be involved in determining that. But using the data in the compensation trends to age other data can definitely help you get to where you need to be if you are in a pinch.

Sophie Boler | 00;08;48;05 - 00;08;55;23

And I mean, MRA has been doing surveys for a long, long time now. But specifically, how long has MRA been doing the Compensation Trends Survey?

Brittany Rittershaus | 00;08;56;04 - 00;09;16;27

So this survey is over 20 years old. We started this one way back, probably early 2000s, I would say—hard to believe. And back when it started, it was called Adjustments and Projections. So it was a very tiny survey back then, and over the years we’ve just progressed it into what you see today, Compensation Trends.

Sophie Boler |00;09;16;27 - 00;09;28;10

That’s awesome. Cool history.

Brittany Rittershaus

Yes!

Sophie Boler

Well, there are a ton of other compensation surveys out there, but what makes MRA’s Compensation Trends Surveys stand out?

Brittany Rittershaus | 00;09;29;25 - 00;09;55;12

Yeah, so I think this one really stands out because we do ask a wide variety of compensation questions. While merit increases are important and something that many organizations want to know to help budget, plan for the future, what have you, it isn’t the only compensation topic that should get focused upon. We do take the time to focus on structure increases, economic growth, and business outlook;

Brittany Rittershaus | 00;09;56;04 - 00;10;14;20

pay transparency, which has really been booming in the last couple of months, even I would say years. How organizations recognize high performers. That is something we touch upon and we also look at total rewards as a whole and what organizations do with their total rewards.

Sophie Boler | 00;10;15;06 - 00;10;34;14

Absolutely. And I think that’s a great point to emphasize that there’s so much more that goes into the survey than just merit increase. But since the survey does cover all of these areas of compensation, what changes to the survey have you specifically seen over the years to accommodate the changing business environment?

Brittany Rittershaus | 00;10;34;27 - 00;10;50;26

I would say the biggest changes we have made have happened in the last couple of years just because of the pandemic. We always need to make sure we’re asking the right questions about trends or anything that’s going on in the HR world. And the pandemic really progressed everything.

Sophie Boler | 00;10;51;04 - 00;10;56;19

Right. As a result of the pandemic, were there any new questions that you had asked?

Brittany Rittershaus | 00;10;56;19 - 00;11;32;20

So this year we added a couple surrounding around what we’re calling the “Great Resignation” that was a result of the pandemic. With so many employees leaving, employers needed to fill those spots quickly. So what they ended up doing was raising the starting rate and by doing that, they were basically boosting the pay, but not boosting the pay of the employees who were there, which was causing pay compression. So that was the main focus this year, was to talk about the pay compression and what organizations are doing to mitigate that.

Brittany Rittershaus | 00;11;33;20 - 00;11;37;03

Just one of the many problems that have occurred from COVID.

Sophie Boler | 00;11;37;03 - 00;11;48;14

Right. And I mean, the pandemic hasn’t been the only large factor in compensation changes. Are there any other changes made due to talent shortage, for example?

Brittany Rittershaus | 00;11;48;25 - 00;12;30;00

Yeah. So as I mentioned, they were raising base pay and they still needed to do that for their current employees as well. So that’s why we have seen an increase in merit increases over the past year. But there were some companies that couldn’t give higher base pay. They had to get creative with it. So a lot of them did start to focus on total rewards, which would mean variable pay, any benefits they could, such as health and insurance, wellness, and some even included various perks, which that would be flexible work schedules, gift cards, paid parking, employee lunches … just anything to make them stand out and give them something that says, “I appreciate you.”

Sophie Boler | 00;12;30;03 - 00;12;39;01

Absolutely. And another key factor is inflation when looking at compensation. So is there anything specific to address with inflation?

Brittany Rittershaus | 00;12;39;10 - 00;13;05;03

Yeah. So in our economic and business outlook, we did add some inflation questions. What those focus on was if employers are doing anything about the inflation, what they’re doing to kind of help ease their employees’ minds, and how their employees are feeling about the inflation. Our data is employer reported. Because of this, it can help make the data stronger

Brittany Rittershaus | 00;13;05;03 - 00;13;29;05

when organizations are using the data. Oftentimes our data is used by organizations to benchmark where they fall and if they need to be doing more to help their recruiting and retention of employees. A good rule of thumb when looking at our data or any market data, for that matter, is to make sure you have a good understanding of your job market.

Brittany Rittershaus | 00;13;30;24 - 00;14;04;03

One thing we have organizations do when they’re looking at the data is to consider the size of the sample, but also don’t lose other elements of the data. These other elements could include company size, revenue, industry, or even profit status. Using this information can help you have a strong picture of where your organization might stand and any changes you might need to do to get you to where you need to be.

Brittany Rittershaus | 00;14;04;03 - 00;14;27;18

Knowing the data can teach you a lot, but that alone might not be enough to help. The data at first can initially be used to help formulate tangible goals, but later those goals can be used to help formulate a plan with other key employees in the organization. And that way you can determine the level of success you’ve achieved,

Brittany Rittershaus | 00;14;27;18 - 00;14;54;00

where do you plan to go with this data, and just ensure that you’re meeting your employees’ needs with anything regarding compensation, any trends that are going on, or anything really that you need to look at within your organization to just make sure you’re on top of it and giving it everything you can so you can be successful.

Sophie Boler | 00;14;55;18 - 00;15;00;06

Right. And could you talk a little bit more about the key focus areas of this year’s survey?

Brittany Rittershaus | 00;15;00;16 - 00;15;26;05

Sure. With compensation being a key driver this year to help recruit and retain employees, it was very important that we wanted to focus on merit increases. However, on that, we also wanted to focus on inflation. Since employees have been focusing on pay and demanding higher wages, there’s only gotten more complicated with inflation being on the rise. The big question is what will next year bring?

Brittany Rittershaus | 00;15;26;11 - 00;15;31;26

What is the next ripple effect that’s going to come out of all this?

Sophie Boler | 00;15;31;26 - 00;15;46;02

Absolutely. This survey really covers it all. As we wrap up the episode, are there any sneak peeks that you can offer our viewers of what’s going to be revealed next week when we start taking a closer look at the results of the survey?

Brittany Rittershaus | 00;15;46;26 - 00;16;11;05

The biggest teaser that I can offer without giving too much away of this report is that if you were to go back in time, say, just 5 years ago, no one would believe the shift in compensation that’s happening right now or even the workplace environment that has happened, especially with not how quickly it’s, taken place. It’s really been happening much faster than we’ve ever seen before.

Brittany Rittershaus | 00;16;11;05 - 00;16;44;25

To piggyback on this, the number of months between pay increases has shortened from 12 months or more to less than 12 months. This could be due to pay compression, given that 69 percent of employers strongly agree or agree that it has affected their compensation strategy. Or another factor that could be affecting it could be that over half of employees for office technical service, production, and maintenance feel that compensation is not keeping up with inflation.

Brittany Rittershaus | 00;16;45;08 - 00;17;00;08

It’s just been all over the place and employees really want more and employers are trying to give that while still maintaining their business. It’s been really rough on them and there’s so much in this survey that gives that away.

Sophie Boler | 00;17;00;08 - 00;17;21;28

For sure. And this is definitely an area to stay on top of and know what’s happening around you and what other businesses are doing. But the good thing is we will be continuing the conversation next week when we dive deeper into the survey results. So you don’t want to miss that. But Brittany, thank you so much for all of the great info on this year’s Compensation Trends Survey.

Sophie Boler | 00;17;22;07 - 00;17;46;15

I think this information benefited a lot of people and it’s a great lead-in to our Compensation Trends event happening tomorrow. But this was so fun and thank you again and we will see you next week. And that wraps up our content for this episode. Be sure to reference the show notes, where you can sign up to connect for more podcast updates.

OUTRO | 00;17;46;29 - 00;18;01;04

Check out other MRA episodes on your favorite podcast platform and as always, make sure to follow MRA’s 30 minute THRIVE so you don’t miss out. Thanks for tuning in and we’ll see you next Wednesday to carry on the HR conversation.

Susan Fronk, President and CEO of MRA - The Management Association dives into the history of MRA and its mission of helping businesses thrive. Fronk opens up into her personal and professional background, the greatest business challenges heading into the year, the benefits of 30 Minute THRIVE, and more.

Listen to Discover:

1. Over the past 38 years that Susan has been with MRA, she has seen a lot of changes. Main changes include: complexity and regulations HR professionals need to be aware of

Bios:

Susan Fronk, President & CEO | MRA - The Management Association

Resources:

For more information on MRA, visit www.mranet.org

Transcript:

Intro | 00:00:00:01 - 00:00:23:02

Hello, hello everybody, and welcome to 30 minute THRIVE—your go-to podcast for anything and everything HR, powered by MRA - The Management Association. Looking to stay on top of the ever-changing world of HR? MRA has got you covered. We’ll be the first to tell you what’s hot and what’s not. I’m your host, Sophie Boler, and we are so glad you’re here. Now it’s time to THRIVE.

Sophie Boler | 00:00:23:13 - 00:00:31:14

I am joined with Susan Fronk, president and CEO of MRA. Good morning, Susan. It’s great to have you on.

Susan Fronk | 00:00:31:17 - 00:00:33:13

And it’s great to be here. I’m looking forward to it.

Sophie Boler | 00:00:33:13 - 00:00:41:18

Good. Me, too. Well, as we dive in, I thought it would be a good start to start at your journey here at MRA. So how long have you been here?

Susan Fronk | 00:00:42:01 - 00:01:07:09

Well, I’ve been at MRA most of my professional life, and I hurried through college, was fortunate to be hired by a large manufacturer—2,200 employees, five plants, three bargaining units, 74 general foremen. They were all men at the time, and I was the factory employment supervisor, so I had a lot of on-the-job training. I worked for great bosses.

Susan Fronk | 00:01:07:17 - 00:01:27:05

That doesn’t always mean friendly bosses, or the nicest bosses. They were bosses who expect a lot out of me and gave me a lot of feedback so that I could do my job and be the best that I could be in human resources. So that was a really exciting time. And, you know, I learned to love manufacturing and I still do to this day.

Susan Fronk | 00:01:27:07 - 00:01:43:15

I love seeing what our members do and I really honored and respected the people that I hired into the plant and the people that I supported with human resource services. It was a great foundation for then moving to MRA.

Sophie Boler | 00:01:43:21 - 00:01:48:02

Absolutely. And you’ve been here for 38 years. That’s pretty impressive.

Susan Fronk | 00:01:48:08 - 00:01:53:02

I don’t want to ask how old you are. And before you were born, I’m pretty sure.

Sophie Boler | 00:01:53:03 - 00:01:59:17

Thirty-eight years is very impressive. So I would like to know what you started out as, at MRA; what role were you in?

Susan Fronk | 00:01:59:20 - 00:02:21:05

Well, it’s kind of funny, actually, because I was employee 16 and I was the “labor guy.” That was what I was hired to do. I was labor guy and I had just a few years of experience. So when I came on board, I was on the Human Resource Hotline, which is one of our most favorite and valued member benefits still today.

Susan Fronk | 00:02:21:15 - 00:02:46:20

I wrote content for our publications. I stepped into the classroom to do HR training. So, much less specialized and much more of a generalist. And I kind of loved that—it played to my strengths and I got to do a little bit of everything. But as labor guy, which was not on my business cards, but that’s what I was, I worked with a lot of our members, primarily manufacturing.

Susan Fronk | 00:02:47:06 - 00:02:55:06

If they had employee relations issues or specifically labor issues, I was the go-to and I loved that.

Sophie Boler | 00:02:55:12 - 00:03:08:14

Right. Like you said, it’s pretty inspiring that you’ve got to experience each component that makes up MRA. So you’ve been here for 38 years, like we said. So you’ve seen the ins and outs of the organization.

Susan Fronk | 00:03:08:16 - 00:03:09:02

I have.

Sophie Boler | 00:03:09:05 - 00:03:14:07

What is the biggest change that you’ve seen in HR since you started, as that labor guy.

Susan Fronk | 00:03:14:11 - 00:03:43:17

Where to begin? If you don’t mind, I’d like to flip that question and first tell you one constant. The constant, whether it was the first day I started here or today, is that you can’t have a great company without a really great human resource team. I have never seen an inspiring, rapid-growth, get it all right in the headlines for the right reasons

Susan Fronk | 00:03:44:02 - 00:04:10:01

kind of organization, if they didn’t have a really good, strong, proactive leaderly kind of human resource team. So that’s been a constant. So what has changed, and what hasn’t changed? Everything else has changed about human resources. But if I pull back from the details, I would say one thing is the complexity of the body of knowledge.

Susan Fronk | 00:04:10:22 - 00:04:42:05

Human resource people, when I began in HR, it wasn’t nearly as difficult to get your arms around everything that you needed to know—the complexity and interconnectedness of federal regulations, state regulations, sometimes down to county and municipal differences, coordinating all of those, varying expectations of employees, having five generations in the workforce. I mean, that’s all completely different. And then you add to that just the pace of change.

Susan Fronk | 00:04:42:08 - 00:05:17:07

So that’s not peculiar to HR. It’s business in general. Business is moving so fast with the advent of different technology and global business and mobile employees. All of those things just create the need to be very agile and kind of be able to pivot very quickly, which creates not only stress and anxiety for employees—because fear and anxiety, stress in employees makes the company less productive,

Susan Fronk | 00:05:17:07 - 00:05:39:15

it also isn’t good for your team. You want to make sure you know where you’re going. But human resources is at the vortex of all that. They have to deal with the pace of change. They need to support the team so that the team can support the organization and all of that in a much faster pace than 10 years ago or 20 years ago.

Sophie Boler | 00:05:40:12 - 00:05:58:22

And I think MRA’s ability to consistently stay on top of those business nature trends and changes is something that really sets us apart from others and something that I really admire about the company. So that being said, what is something that you really love about MRA? I know there’s probably a lot.

Susan Fronk | 00:05:59:18 - 00:06:31:19

There’s a million things, but we only have 30 minutes. So I guess I would say I love the way that I feel every day because I feel privileged to look through the windows of hundreds and literally thousands of members that we serve. They have trust and confidence in us. They turn to us for help with some of their thorniest people and productivity problems,

Susan Fronk | 00:06:31:19 - 00:07:10:17

and I take that responsibility really seriously. And I hope that I am still that sense of responsibility and trust and feeling honored to be invited in with everybody who works at MRA. But that’s one thing I love: the fact that it’s way beyond me. It’s way beyond anybody who works here. It’s about supporting great businesses so that they can be good employers, so that they can have a strong workforce, so that the people who work there can earn a good wage in a safe environment, to be motivated and support themselves and their families.

Susan Fronk | 00:07:11:19 - 00:07:35:17

We may do that in a tiny way, but I always see it as kind of ripples on the pond, and it radiates out. When you have good employers who have good, sustainable jobs, you have a good team, you have a strong community—that helps everybody. So being part of that bigger purpose is something I love and not a trait throwaway line.

Susan Fronk | 00:07:35:20 - 00:07:48:01

I love our members, I really do. I love learning about our members and the myriad things that they do. And that energizes me every day.

Sophie Boler | 00:07:48:06 - 00:08:02:13

Right. And that’s what MRA is all about. Well, we know that MRA work makes up a big portion of your life and it is probably one of your greatest joys. But what’s one of your greatest joys outside of MRA?

Susan Fronk | 00:08:04:17 - 00:08:05:22

When I’m not working, you say.

Sophie Boler | 00:08:05:22 - 00:08:06:12

When you are not working.

Susan Fronk | 00:08:08:00 - 00:08:42:23

I’m kidding. I do try to have a work-life balance. I would say just like every other human resource or CEO leader in the last 2 years, it’s a little out of whack right now, but we’re moving back into the lane, right, as a global community. We’re moving back into a more normal way. So when I’m not working, I think a lot of members may know that I own a farm and love hosting our new employees and managers at our farm to do a rookie reception and have fun and relax, and do that.

Susan Fronk | 00:08:42:23 - 00:08:50:19

I love nature. I love animals. So I’m really a farm girl at heart.

Sophie Boler | 00:08:51:04 - 00:08:51:18

I love it.

Susan Fronk | 00:08:52:00 - 00:09:20:19

I know, I do, too! And that’s oftentimes hard work, but a completely different kind of work than the brainpower and focus you put at work. I think it was Teddy Roosevelt who said, I might have that wrong, but I think it was Teddy Roosevelt who said, “The outside of a horse is good for the inside of a man.” I would paraphrase that for today’s vernacular and just say working with animals and nature is really good for the soul.

Susan Fronk | 00:09:20:19 - 00:09:43:06

Or at least it is for me. It’s so different and you clean a stall and you’re completely done. HR people can never say that. They can never say, “I’m done, I’m clocking out, I’m going home at the end of the day”—that just never happens. So office administrative, and intellectual leader work is very different than farm work. So I love my farm.

Susan Fronk | 00:09:43:19 - 00:10:01:18

My family—I have three young adult children. Seeing them learning and launching into life has been a joy. Some members also know that I met my husband through MRA, at an HR conference almost 30 years ago.

Sophie Boler | 00:10:01:18 - 00:10:03:05

Of course!

Susan Fronk | 00:10:03:06 - 00:10:23:15

Right! Spare me all the jokes about MRA being a full-service association because I’ve heard ’em all and it goes even deeper than that. Most people don’t know that my youngest brother, who I just saw this weekend, he lives in Pennsylvania. He met his wife through MRA because she was our survey manager. And before that, our compensation intern.

Susan Fronk | 00:10:24:01 - 00:10:46:21

And so they met on the MRA softball team. So we truly …

… and they've been married for 26 years. So it’s like, what do you need? We do it all! Maybe that’s a side business. Maybe that’s a side business we should do. So my joy is my farm. And just as a little sidebar, some people through either knowing me or through our DE&I

Susan Fronk | 00:10:47:00 - 00:11:11:20

probably 5 or 6 years ago when I opened, I talked about trees and how I love trees. I plant trees every year—one, two, five, 10, whatever it is—they memorialize people that have gone before me. They’ll be here long after I’m gone. And with just a little bit of care, they provide joy, shade, beauty, and oxygen.

Susan Fronk | 00:11:12:10 - 00:11:19:18

At that DE&I conference then we had on the table tiny little seedlings that they could take home and plant.

Sophie Boler | 00:11:20:03 - 00:11:22:16

That’s an awesome idea!

Susan Fronk | 00:11:22:16 - 00:11:24:14

Right, so I have two trees on order I’m planting.

Sophie Boler | 00:11:24:16 - 00:11:28:07

Oh yeah that’s awesome. I love that that’s your greatest joy.

Susan Fronk | 00:11:28:07 - 00:11:29:23

You didn’t know I love trees but I do.

Sophie Boler | 00:11:30:00 - 00:11:36:00

I didn’t. And I knew you loved horses. And I’ve actually gotten a chance to meet the horses and feed them.

Susan Fronk | 00:11:36:00 - 00:11:48:00

And truth be told, I like cows even better than horses. But yes …

… my two cows died of old age. And I need to … and that’s what I asked for, for Mother’s Day.

Sophie Boler | 00:11:48:00 - 00:11:49:13

A cow!

Susan Fronk | 00:11:49:00 - 00:11:52:22

Yes. Two. I don’t want them to be lonely.

Sophie Boler | 00:11:52:22 - 00:12:06:12

Oh, my gosh. I love that. Now, switching gears a little, unfortunately, but I'm curious about the opposite question. And we often ask our members what keeps them up at night. So what keeps you up at night?

Susan Fronk | 00:12:06:15 - 00:12:51:22

I think I’m like a lot of other leaders and I wouldn’t say just CEOs, but maybe most especially CEOs, because if you’re a good leader, you never pass the buck. You know you’re responsible for everything that happens in your organization and the experience that your employees and your customers have. It’s on your desk. So the last few years, I think I’m in the mainstream in that I’m really worried about my organization, most specifically, my people, the people who work here going through a pandemic, and all the different struggles that foisted on all businesses.

Susan Fronk | 00:12:53:02 - 00:13:16:23

Again, back to that, I learned so much from our members and I am really inspired by them. You know, the headlines you read in the paper about business are oftentimes more negative than positive. And that's just not the reality of it. That's not the reality I see with thousands of companies. There are stinkers out there, no doubt—none of our members—but most leaders, whether they’re CEOs or HR

Susan Fronk | 00:13:17:00 - 00:13:44:09

managers or plant managers or accounting managers, whatever they are, they lost sleep and spent a lot of time saying, “How can I take care of my team? How can I make this work for my organization? How can I make sure we come out of this strongly?” And I saw leaders, you know, ruin their health, their marriage, their peace of mind, whatever it was, because the buck should stop here.

Sophie Boler | 00:13:44:13 - 00:13:58:17

Right. And a lot of business challenges are, like you said, what keeps members, leaders, everyone, up at night. But what do you see as the greatest business challenge heading into this next year?

Susan Fronk | 00:13:58:17 - 00:14:25:08

Well, first, I guess I would say this is very nebulous, but I’ll explain. Nature abhors a vacuum. I didn’t say that. I don’t know who said it, but I’m repeating it. Nature abhors a vacuum. So when there’s a vacuum in nature, thoughts, other things, opposite forces, opinions—they flood in. They might or might not be accurate or support the direction we’re trying to go.

Susan Fronk | 00:14:25:08 - 00:14:57:05

So I would say uncertainty that has been created by, yes, the pandemic, but supply chain disruption, unprecedented inflation, the talent shortage, you know, with no end in sight for some things, businesses are worried about how do I, how do I make a plan? How do I determine these strategies will work? How do I reduce the fear and anxiety of my team?

Susan Fronk | 00:14:57:05 - 00:15:22:14

Because if you can’t paint a vivid picture of the future, if you can’t, if you can’t say this is your place in it, people will not allow you to lead them anywhere. You have to reduce that fear and anxiety. And with so much uncertainty in the business world, I would say that’s high on the list of most leaders’ goals and objectives.

Susan Fronk | 00:15:22:21 - 00:15:32:21

I need to make sure there isn’t uncertainty, that we’re communicating clearly, and that we bring our whole team with us no matter what the future holds.

Sophie Boler | 00:15:33:10 - 00:15:57:17

And a lot of the challenges that you just mentioned, we’re going to be having topics on in the near future in the podcast. So we’ll get to know more about those and cover them. But as we head into the next year, is there a motivational story that you can point out from a member or something that can, you know, give us more motivation for this next year coming up?

Susan Fronk | 00:15:57:23 - 00:16:40:20

Sure. It’s true that good leaders don’t beat their chest and say, “I am so much” or “I know so much.” Usually, there are people who say, “I learned so much” and they just keep learning and adapting and adjusting and sharing it with others. So there are many inspiring things that I’ve seen our members do. But one conversation during the “great recession,”—so 2009—was in my CEO Roundtable, and he’s a very soft-spoken, conservative CEO,

Susan Fronk | 00:16:40:20 - 00:17:02:02

and everyone around the table was saying, “How do you plan with this? How could you possibly put together a strategic plan? And I don’t know if it’s right. And what if it’s wrong and I’m doing this, but you're doing that?” And there was just a lot of wailing and gnashing of teeth. Again, I was right there with them saying, “Oh, my gosh, how do we do this?”

Susan Fronk | 00:17:02:13 - 00:17:18:15

And he just very quietly spoke and he said, “Stop.” He said, “There is no perfect decision. There is no perfect plan. Run your damn business,” and people burst out laughing

Susan Fronk | 00:17:18:15 - 00:17:20:17

because it just wasn’t expected from him.

Susan Fronk | 00:17:21:01 - 00:17:53:08

And I used that. I know, I know. I didn’t even swear. But that’s just so perfect. At times you get tangled up, you know, you get paralyzed with fear or the uncertainty saying, I don’t know what to do. You know, business leaders are expected to make it happen anyway and still work with realism—kind of left brain left/right brain—use data, use facts, use numbers, and then use your right brain and educated judgment.

Susan Fronk | 00:17:53:08 - 00:18:09:18

So you’ve got the analytics and you’ve got the good judgment and you need to move ahead. If you stand in the middle of the road, you’re going to get run over. And the fact of the matter is, with the pace of business, you can change. Go back to great communications and bringing your team with you.

Susan Fronk | 00:18:09:18 - 00:18:28:12

But adjustment, agility—that’s the name of the game today. So don’t be paralyzed from stepping forward and advancing. Have a good, clear purpose and logic coupled with good judgment, and keep communicating about those things. So run your damn business.

Sophie Boler | 00:18:28:21 - 00:18:32:01

I love all the analogies. It helps.

Susan Fronk | 00:18:32:02 - 00:18:34:18

I’ve learned so much from my members.

Sophie Boler | 00:18:35:10 - 00:18:43:12

We’ve discussed a lot so far. And I just have a couple more questions. I think the main one is how does this podcast benefit others?

Susan Fronk | 00:18:44:02 - 00:19:08:01

Well, I hope that they would find it as a go-to, that in the human resource profession, life is moving very fast. I listen to podcasts—I call it windshield time. I can still focus on my driving and listen to something I find interesting. And MRA has an army of human resource and business professionals that work here.

Susan Fronk | 00:19:08:13 - 00:19:41:21

I’m energized by them, too. And they bring more than 2,000 years of experience to bear on their topics. So it’s really a good collective and that makes it very powerful. We learn from our members, we see best practices, we do umpteen surveys and we really know what’s going on in the business community where people and productivity are concerned, and then you add the expertise of our army of 230 employees and together we serve up information that's relevant, timely, helpful, valuable.

Susan Fronk | 00:19:41:21 - 00:20:03:19

You know, at the end of the day, I tell our members, it’s our job to save you time and money. And so we help them do their jobs better and faster because that’s what this world is requiring. I would say one more thing: Especially through the pandemic, maybe always, but especially true the last 2 years, HR people have been like first responders.

Susan Fronk | 00:20:04:08 - 00:20:40:10

That’s what I’ve seen in our business community. HR people needed to take the COVID call at 10 o’clock at night to deal with talent shortages, to show up for strategic planning, prepared, ready to go in. It was a lot. And I think HR people serve others maybe to the detriment of serving themselves sometimes. So I see this podcast as one way to give back a little booster, to give back information and something that they can find helpful and useful and maybe a little uplifting in their day, where they can take care of their own professional development.

Sophie Boler | 00:20:40:16 - 00:20:45:08

Absolutely. And we’re going to cover a lot of different topics, which  I’m very excited about.

Susan Fronk | 00:20:45:08 - 00:20:45:23

I am too.

Sophie Boler | 00:20:45:23 - 00:20:50:03

Are there any topics that you are particularly excited about?

Susan Fronk | 00:20:50:03 - 00:21:22:19

Compensation this year. Nobody can find or keep the talent that they need. You know, everybody’s heard the “great resignation,” but there’s also the “great reset” going on—people changing careers completely, maybe deciding to do something or move somewhere. So there’s just a lot of turmoil in the talent marketplace right now. Compensation is a part of that because compensation is just table stakes.

Susan Fronk | 00:21:23:11 – 00:21:53:18

I’ve heard it and I believe it. Compensation is table stakes because if you pay somebody competitively, that doesn’t mean they’re going to stay. But if you don't pay somebody competitively, they will leave. So you have to get that right as just a threshold baseline of good human resource practice. And this year, with inflation and the talent shortage and a lot of other paradigm shifts, our members are intensely interested in compensation.

Susan Fronk | 00:21:53:18 - 00:22:27:11

So our compensation trends program on the 15th has a record number of attendees and we’re still 2 weeks away. We have 1,100 members registered. That says this is really a hot topic and so our presenters are very skilled. They see the landscape through our surveys and through thousands of conversations with members and they’re going to bring that to bear so that our members who tune in can get the information they need to carry back and try to get that equation right in their own organizations.

Susan Fronk | 00:22:27:21 - 00:22:53:06

And so comp trends in talent acquisition, talent retention. You know, people always think about I can’t hire someone, but if you can lower your turnover, if you become that employer of choice and provide what employers and employees need, you have fewer spots to fill, right? So employee retention may be even more important than talent acquisition, but they are two sides of the same coin.

Susan Fronk | 00:22:53:06 - 00:23:00:16

So I would be excited, and I think our members will be very interested, in compensation topics and talent acquisition workforce strategies.

Sophie Boler | 00:23:00:21 - 00:23:13:10

Absolutely. I’m excited to cover that topic too. So we’ve talked a little bit about this, but the podcast is open to both nonmembers and members. But what is the true benefit to members of MRA?

Susan Fronk | 00:23:14:11 - 00:23:51:23

Well, we honor our members and we partner with them closely. So we want to make sure that we always, although the podcast is open to everyone, to learn a little bit about us and become better practitioners and business leaders, we do save some special things for our members only and some of the things that we have that are being worked on this year and will be rolled out later, but still in 2022, like our learning management system, new technology for our wage and salary surveys and really responding to the need to be faster. Compensation,

Susan Fronk | 00:23:51:23 - 00:24:14:06

when you’re aging data a year—that feels like an eon ago, right? So we wanted to make it less a point in time and more evergreen and organic, so our members always get the latest information, at the same time working on MRA’s back office transactional kind of things to make sure when a member works with MRA, they’re hitting the easy button.

Sophie Boler | 00:24:15:00 - 00:24:18:04

Well, Susan, thank you so much for joining us today. I had a blast!

Susan Fronk | 00:24:18:04 - 00:24:19:14

Me too!

Sophie Boler | 00:24:19:22 - 00:24:42:00

And we’ll see you next time to continue the conversation on compensation trends.

Outro | 00:24:42:12 - 00:24:46:19

And that wraps up our content for this episode. Be sure to reference the show notes where you can sign up to connect for more podcast updates. Check out other MRA episodes on your favorite podcast platform and as always, make sure to follow MRA’s 30 minute THRIVE so you don’t miss out. Thanks for tuning in and we’ll see you next Wednesday to carry on the HR conversation.

In this sneak peek at MRA's 30 minute THRIVE podcast, Susan Fronk, President and CEO of MRA - The Management Association dives into the history of MRA and its mission of helping businesses thrive.

With business leaders and HR Professionals stretched to their limits in the last few years, MRA's 30 minute THRIVE podcast was designed to give you the resources you need to continue to THRIVE!

Learn More!

Visit MRA's website for additional HR resources at mranet.org

Guest Bio

Susan Fronk, MRA - The Management Association

Transcript

00:00:05:03 - 00:00:35:12

00:00:36:09 - 00:01:07:03

00:01:07:27 - 00:01:12:13