HRchat Podcast

Compensation Management Tips with Perry Doody, CompTrak

• The HR Gazette • Season 1 • Episode 575

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In this episode of the HRchat pod, we consider reasons why compensation management is important during times of economic volatility and how it can help organizations address the challenges they may face.

Bill Banham is joined by Perry Doody, Co-founder of CompTrak, a cloud-based compensation management platform that enables better decision-making, employee empowerment and ultimately productivity. For nearly 20 years, Perry has brought organizational transformation across the financial, healthcare, and retail sectors - boasting clients such as RBC, Walmart, Raymond James and Nutrien.

Questions for Perry include:

  • Please introduce yourself and tell me about the mission of CompTrak
  • You recently shared a CompTrack blog post on LinkedIn focused on how an innovative compensation program can help to engage and retain top talent. In the post, your team offers 4 compensation trends that folks can focus on this year. Can you share some of these trends with us and explain why that matter? 
  • Why do you think compensation management is particularly important during times of economic volatility, and how can it help organizations address the challenges they may face?
  • How have you seen organizations' attitudes towards compensation shift over the years, particularly during times of economic uncertainty?
  • Which departments are most tricky when it comes to compensation management? 
  • Tell us a little bit about how your company's compensation management software has previously helped organizations navigate economic uncertainty.
  • Can you share any success stories or examples of organizations that have been able to weather economic uncertainty thanks to effective compensation management?

More About CompTrack

With experience that is a unique intersection of technology expertise and human resource savviness, CompTrak’s solutions are different. And in a marketplace where engaging and retai

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Speaker 1:

Welcome to the HR Chat Show, one of the world's most downloaded and shared podcasts designed for HR pros, talent execs, tech enthusiasts, and business leaders for hundreds more episodes and what's new in the world of work. Subscribe to the show, follow us on social media, and visit hr gazette.com .

Speaker 2:

Welcome to another episode of the HR Chat Show. I'm your host today, bill Bannon . And in this episode, we consider reasons why compensation management is important during times of economic volatility, and how it can help organizations address the challenges they may face. My guest today is Perry Duty , co-founder of compra , a cloud-based compensation management platform that enables better decision making , employee empowerment, and ultimately better productivity. For nearly 20 years, peri has brought organizational transformation across the financial, healthcare and retail sectors, boasting clients such as R B C , Walmart, Raymond James, and Re with experience that is a unique intersection of technology expertise and HR savviness. Contract solutions are different, and in a marketplace where engaging and retaining talent is critical to organizational success, Perry believes investing in people is an easy decision. Hey, Perry, welcome to the show today.

Speaker 3:

Great to be here, and thanks for reaching out, really looking forward , uh, to the upcoming discussion.

Speaker 2:

Perry , beyond my reintroduction there, why don't you start by taking a minute or two and telling our listeners a bit more about yourself and of course, the mission of Contract.

Speaker 3:

Sure. Uh, we started contract, geez , just a little over 10 years ago, and I've been in the compensation management space from the inception of my career. I actually worked for a firm , um, um, that got bought out, and it was from there when that , uh, firm , uh, called me back. They wanted me to work on some <inaudible> management solutions to actually help them , uh, solve the problem of , uh, retaining people and also paying out people based on the equity they had. So I got very familiar with , uh, LTIP programs and also got into the whole finance , uh, side behind the compensation management space. And it's interesting when we started contract , uh, my partner , uh, last a iln who's really the technology side of contract, and I'm the compensation side. Our mission was to really , uh, transform problems, compensation problems into opportunities and solutions. And it's, it's been really amazing over my 20 year , uh, journey to see how things have changed. Um, you know, one point in my career, I was the youngest person in the room. Now I'm kinda on the latter part, if you will, and , and , uh, I just love being around younger people and seeing what compensation management means , um, to them. So it's just been , uh, an incredible journey. We started with two of us and, and now our organization is up to 70 plus employees, and we're in various , uh, verticals as it relates to compensation management.

Speaker 1:

Thanks for tuning in to the HR Chat podcast. If you're enjoying this episode, we'd really appreciate it if you could subscribe and leave a five star review on your podcast platform of choice. And now back to the conversation.

Speaker 2:

I love that. Um, I'm about to hit the big four oh , Perry <laugh> in just a couple of weeks, so, so I , I'm now, I'm , I'm now joining , uh, a different demographic, I guess. And , uh, it's important to give back to the young folk , uh, and because they are the future. So you recently shared a contract blog post on your LinkedIn profile. I was, I was doing a bit LinkedIn stalking ahead of this interview today. Yeah . And it was focused on how an Innovative Conversation program can help to engage and retain top talent in the Post. Your team offers four conversation trends that folks can focus on in 2023 and beyond. Can you maybe share some of those trends with us now and explain why they matter?

Speaker 3:

For sure. And , uh, it , it's interesting. Um, I, I, when I went to school, my background is in finance, and I later on got an mba actually, where I met , uh, my , uh, business partner Lase . If I had to do it all over again, it would be human resources for multiple reasons, not only in terms of building a business, but to me, the most successful companies I see out there, their HR departments are strategic and operational. They really , um, are on top of things. They're looking forward, they're looking at trends. And , uh, what I really liked , uh, about the blog that the team put together is kind of looked at all aspects of, of where things are going, starting with human productivity and technology. We know, and I've been to several , um, sessions and listened to multiple podcasts. We're just not gonna have the labor that we once did going forward. So we have to be smarter about how we do things and, and be more productive. And what I've seen in , in compensation management is we've tended to throw people in manual effort at the whole management of compensation management, build spreadsheets, send them out, chase people, collect them, analyze the data , uh, run reports, then do this all over again, then do it all over again. And the other interesting thing is, you know, being in this space for so long, I've actually gone through now where people are retiring people with really in depth knowledge about that compensation cycle. So bringing a platform where it's automated and literally where you can take something that takes two weeks to go through a cycle, collect the data and have it real time , and the cloud, the , the cloud's been an incredible enabler where it creates that secure , uh, infrastructure where you can start to do things real time . So getting those productivity gains allows them more time for the real interesting part, the analysis, the calibration, really understanding, okay, have we allocated pools and paid people appropriately? The other big trend I see is , uh, employee self-serve. Uh , it used to be in , in our , uh, compensation management. You'd go through your year end cycle, and at the end somebody would sit down with you, have a conversation, and then they'd hand you a letter or , um, uh, a piece of paper with what your bonus was and, and what you received. Well, what we're doing with contract is we're giving , uh, an employee a complete online experience. We're not only are they in touch with the company at year end and getting the information and the transparency around why they're being paid, but we can keep them engaged all year round by giving them updates during the year , uh, opening up , uh, uh, specific components of their online portal to elections , um, showing them what variables are gonna be used in the upcoming year and , and how they're gonna actually be compensated and, and employees want that. It , it's interesting, there is a whole generation of employees now that grew up, like literally from when they were babies using , uh, iPads and, and iPhones and, and just used to having information at their fingertips, not having to go out and actually request information. And so our platform really brings , uh, the employee to the center of the whole experience. And then the other trends we're seeing as well is companies wanna get creative around how they're compensating people. Um , it used to be that you'd have a compensation plan and everyone would participate in the plan, and at the end of it , you'd do the calc, and this is what they would get. And what we're seeing is that different things are important depending on the person. So yes, a cash bonus could be very important to a person, but to another individual, it might be an education opportunity. It might be ltip long-term incentives where they may get equity, it may be travel, it just may be opportunities, it may be an extra day off. And so those companies that are very strategic understand that they have, if you will, different personas of employees and can adjust their compensation plans. It's really important that you deploy a system that is flexible enough to change with needs. And the final trend we're seeing is really humanizing leadership. Uh, we're seeing this in terms of people working from home and being remote where it can be challenging, where you don't have that personal interaction anymore. So ensuring that you can actually connect with people and do it in different ways , um, using a platform, giving people updates. So information is not static, but dynamic is very critical. And so I find this time very exciting, and I think it highlights how important HR needs to be in a company, especially one that is growing and wants to actually achieve. Its, its , uh, business objectives.

Speaker 4:

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Speaker 2:

Okay. So let's just follow that through a little bit, Perry . Yeah . Why do you think , why do you think that compensation management is particularly important at the moment during these times of economic volatility ? Volatility, which is caused by a whole bunch of things. Um, not all of them are economic, you know , there are other contextual things, the war in Ukraine, for example, as for extra pressures on, on different economies, and, and how can it help organizations address the challenges that they may face?

Speaker 3:

Yeah , I I think the last time we really went through somewhat of a , a global crisis , uh, like this was the economic meltdown in 2008 and nine . So a lot of employees haven't experienced this. Uh, and when you talk about inflation, there hasn't been much inflation until the last year and a half, two years. And so what this means is companies have a finite amount of dollars or resources that they can allocate. And so it becomes increasingly important that they do it in the most , uh, optimal way, and also reflects the company's values. And, and those values include equity, include , uh, accounting for diversity. Um , and typically , um, in an environment like this is that you have to almost get into the mindsets of what is important to the employee. And being transparent is critical. People wanna know, okay, if, if there is a pool of, let's just say 5%, and I'm getting 3%, why is that? Does it relate to my performance? Is it a legacy thing? So I would say compensation management in any environment is important, but in challenging times like this where you ha where you have a limited amount of resources, you really have to be on top of your game. And you also have to be innovative and creative. As I mentioned earlier, for some people, the increase might mean everything. For other people, it might be an opportunity to take a day off it . Uh , it might be an opportunity to do some personal development. So staying in touch with your employees and also being flexible and agile , um, agility is the value of our, our , our company. And we like to extend it out when we're working with our , our clients because we expect compensation plans and management to change. Uh, if it's static, I would say then that probably a company is not doing the right things. They should be reviewing their compensation plan all the time. And the , and the ones that we've been working with certainly have made some changes with this , uh, current economic environment.

Speaker 2:

Okay , thank you very much. So, how have you seen organizations' attitudes towards compensation shift over the years? You mentioned that, you know, you've started this, there are two of you and you've grown the business. So you've, you've been there , you've , you've seen it, you've done it all . How have you seen attitudes change over the years, particularly during times of economic uncertainty?

Speaker 3:

So , so I, great question. I I , when I look at my own journey, which is 20 years , um, when I came in, compensation was very much a per like, very personalized. Um, you know, you'd get your letter at the end of the year, or you'd get your offer letter. And it was highly, highly confidential. And, and typically , uh, at least in my experience, we didn't talk about, or I didn't talk about my compensation with other , uh, employees. It was almost a , a taboo topic. And what I've seen over the years is that's changed 180, it's become much more transparent. Um , even things like documentation around the compensation plan is made available to employees. Um, you're seeing in some jurisdictions where when you post for jobs now, there is a salary range placed. And, and so this transparency is that companies have to really , um, not only understand their compensation plans, but present them in a way that when year end is over and , and you're awarding something, you can tie it back to what the plan is. And you almost have to be able to justify decisions that you made. Um, and, and, and that, that has been a big shift. So it , it's hard to argue against the value of transparency, however, backing that value up with material, with the way that you communicate , um, compensation, your philosophy on compensation is, is very important. It used to be , um, and I can remember in my career that if you wanted a substantial bump, you'd almost have to leave the organization. What I'm seeing companies do is they're getting on top of that, they're really pouring resources into identifying , uh, employees and putting them on a career path and, and reaching out to them. And it's , it's interesting , uh, data today can actually help in that journey in identifying opportunities where you might be at risk of, of losing an employee. So certainly , uh, the transparency is a big one. The other thing I've seen is companies get very creative with their compensation plans and how they reward people. Uh , more and more companies are using long-term incentive plans and equity to retain people where previously that tended to be for a very small group and typically senior employees in an organization. And I th I'm seeing that now being more extended out, which I think is a good thing to more employees who make them feel like owners in the company. So, and, and, you know, during economic uncertainty, what you do have, which costs you nothing, is flexibility and agility is how can you be creative with the same pool of resources? Uh, and a big part of that in , in , in my mind is just engagement and communication. Um, and, and that's been , uh, like I said, I , I think a lot of companies are deploying strategies around that and being very successful.

Speaker 2:

Which departments are the most tricky to, to handle when it comes to compensation management? I , is it sales? Because, you know, I , I'm , I'm guessing quotas and , and , and commissions and whatnot can change quite quickly?

Speaker 3:

Great question. So , um, it , it's interesting. So sales, what I would say is , uh, companies, when you have a business that is really driven by different results may change performance metrics from year to year, they may change weightings as things become more important. And, and so what, what I've kind of also seen is that , um, there are companies we work with where every employee is on a bonus plan of some sort. And depending upon whether they're in supply chain, whether they're in administration or they're in the front office, in sales components of those plans can be different, but they're using a similar framework. So it's really important that you actually have a , um, uh, a platform that not only could accommodate different variables. Um , companies are using multifactor , uh, indicators to actually determine what your bonus may be. What I mean by that is business results, a personal indicator, a performance indicator of some sort. And then they're also kind of incorporating what I would call more subjective components where somebody or colleagues can provide feedback. So you're kind of taking into account multiple facets and then being able to actually run the calculation. The , the other thing, and not to get too technical about our platform, but I'm a big believer that at the end of , uh, the day, you still need the , uh, flexibility to override a number. So it's fine to do all the calculations, but there always are some factors that you may wanna work into somebody's compensation. And, and that's really important as well. The other thing I'm seeing on the , uh, pay equity and diversity inclusion are , is , uh, for companies to allocate separate pools, recognizing that there may be employee groups that historically have been underpaid. So they're using those segregated pools to help get those employees up while having a more discretionary pool across the organization. So it's, it's , um, sometimes your , your sales commissions could be very straightforward, but it comes back to companies are being more innovative and creative and trying to incorporate these different factors into the comp plans.

Speaker 2:

Excellent. Thank you very much. Uh, before we go any further listeners, shameless plug, regular listeners of this show will know that I'm not scared to do a shameless plug plug. Uh , please , please do check out an episode that I did with , uh, Dave Johnson from way back when, gosh, at least a couple of years ago , uh, specifically on , uh, compensation management for salespeople. And indeed, if you enjoy that interview , uh, there's a whole podcast series from the Canadian Professional Sales Association that I did with Dave specifically on that subject matter. But anyway, back to this conversation today. Um, okay , let , let's get into maybe some, some use use cases now, if you don't mind. Yeah . Tell us a little bit about, about your company's compensation management software and how it's helped organizations. And perhaps you can, you can name drop a few success stories or examples of organizations that have been able to weather economic uncertainty thanks to effective compensation management that you help them with.

Speaker 3:

I'll , and , and thanks for the opportunity. So one , one of the things I I see that is very common amongst our clients is they have a strategic lens on compensation, but they also recognize that in order to , uh, fulfill that strategic lens, they have to put things in place to really operationalize it properly. And so I , I like to talk about our , our flagship client, who is with us from the beginning , uh, Canada's largest bank. Um , they had some really interesting platforms that had just come out of the , uh, uh, financial crisis of 2008 . And we started working with them and we had to account for things like special rules , um, a multi , uh, national workforce. So interesting. When we used to open up contract to the employees, we would do , uh, a webcast at eight in the morning and eight in the evening. Cuz we had to hit every, every time zone , uh, across the world. But this was a good example where spreadsheets were being utilized. Um, and you can just imagine when you have employees throughout the globe , uh, sending out spreadsheets, collecting them , uh, how tedious and time consuming that can be. And it was a real partnership with that organization because nuances matter in compensation management, it , it's not like an H R I S where you can take one instance of a platform and just deploy it across multiple organizations. Things like nomenclature , uh, special rules from business to business, how they would actually do the calibration , um, the reporting. And so we worked with them. Um, we displaced , um, hundreds of spreadsheets , uh, multiple legacy systems, and we literally were able to kind of condense their year end cycle in terms of the time days to collect those spreadsheets to go to a real time experience. When Covid hit , uh, we are able to take the same client with a lot of our other clients and go to online statements for employees. So that experience where I told you of handing your year end letter to an employee, obviously couldn't happen in 2020 . So we're very proud that we're able to decommission not only the number of spreadsheets and the time it takes to collect that information, but also de-risk it from a security perspective as well. Using the cloud. Uh, the security around the cloud infrastructure just goes , uh, a tremendous way. And , um, calibration, when I use that term calibration, reviewing numbers and ensuring that , um, they are done in the most optimal way. Having a real time , uh, solution just goes so far. Um, and we've seen this with all our clients in some form or another, every client that works with us had a heavy reliance on spreadsheets or legacy systems, and we are able to take them away from that.

Speaker 2:

Two more questions for you . Sure. We do wrap up for today . Um, earlier on in one of your previous answers , uh, and I appreciate that you're not an economist, and in fact, in in that answer, you mentioned that if you could do it all over again, you'd be an HR person, <laugh> . You did, you did mention the fact that , uh, from , from your experience, what we're going through right now, that the closest comparison would be , uh, what happened in , uh, 2000 8 0 9, should we, should we be worried that things will get as bad as 2008, 2009? Is it, is it gonna be, I've heard this term, soft recession, maybe it , it might get that bad, but what's your take on it?

Speaker 3:

I I don't think it's gonna be like 2008 nine one . One of the reasons I don't think it's, it's gonna be like that is I think we've learned , uh, from those experiences is , it's interesting. We work with some UK and EU clients that out of the 2008 , um, crisis, they actually changed , uh, the compensation plans, interestingly enough for a lot of their , uh, employees that were in a risk taking position. So it, the whole idea behind it was to really manage risk on a long-term basis, basis versus a short-term basis. So I think we've become aware of those things. Certainly , um, inflation is, is somewhat new , uh, I think for a lot of people, but in the US and, and Canada and, and around the globe, rates have gone up. I think we're kind of reaching the peak. But what I would say is I think we're living in just a , a very interesting time where there's no shortage of opportunity and the things that people are developing and we're seeing are gonna lead to productivity gains that we need. Um, you know, chat , we didn't talk a lot about artificial intelligence and what , uh, chat G B T means for compensation management, but there will be , uh, innovations relating to artificial intelligence on compensation management. So I, I, you know, the way I look at these o these times is when we have high interest rates or, or , you know, there's been some sort of event, it's an opportunity yes, in some ways to cleanse out the bad, if you will, but those companies that are always looking forward , they're gonna end up in a really good place. And, you know, from my experience is, is that we haven't seen a real slowdown because I, the, the HR space, in my mind, what came outta covid was just more focus. I think it was an area that was under invested in the past, and it just became apparent that we need not just compensation management systems , but good HR platforms , uh, and departments and, and most leaders, good leaders look at the long run. So as it relates to the next 12 months, I couldn't tell you what is gonna happen, but as it relates to the long term , I'm bullish on the future. Um , and that's been the one consistent thing about my career is that there have certainly been dips, but we've just come out of those dips stronger than ever, and it , and it's been quite remarkable on the innovations that we've made, especially in hr.

Speaker 2:

Beautiful. And just finally for today, Perry , how can our listeners connect with you? So maybe you might wanna share your email address, LinkedIn details, maybe all over Twitter, Instagram, TikTok, who knows? And of course, how can they learn more about all the cool things happening at Compre ?

Speaker 3:

Sure. So , so , uh, we are on LinkedIn. I'm on LinkedIn personally, Perry duty , you'll find me there. Uh, not on TikTok, although I hear everything that's going on from TikTok from my daughter. Uh, but we do have a presence and, and I'm always available. I can be reached at , uh, perry dot duty contract.com and just like this , uh, opportunity, love to connect with HR people, love to learn more on what's going on. And , um, one of the things I've learned over the years is , uh, only good comes from , uh, connecting with others. So , uh, really appreciate the time today to talk about these issues. And , uh, thank you for the opportunity.

Speaker 2:

Thank you. Uh, I , I love your energy. You , you come across as , uh, a a nice guy who wants to give back, so I appreciate you. Thank you very much for your time on this episode of the HR Chat Show. Great .

Speaker 3:

Thank you, bill.

Speaker 1:

Thanks for listening to the HR Chat Show. If you enjoyed this episode, why not subscribe and listen to some of the hundreds of episodes published by HR Gazette? And remember, for what's new in the world of work, subscribe to the show, follow us on social media, and visit hr gazette.com.

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