Live from World at Work Total Rewards 2026 with Special Guests Sean Luitjens & Paul Reiman

[00:00:08] [SPEAKER_01] Welcome everyone to a very special episode of the HR and Payroll 2.0 podcast. We are live at the World at Work Total Rewards event in San Antonio, Texas. And as always, I'm joined by the legendary Julie Fernandez. Welcome, Julie.

[00:00:20] [SPEAKER_00] Thanks so much, Pete. It's San Antonio and it is cold for San Antonio. Yeah, that's odd. That's odd. And let's talk about what's very special about this episode. We're joining some colleagues, esteemed colleagues.

[00:00:32] [SPEAKER_02] Yeah. Whoa. Right? WRKdefined WRKdefined I'm sorry. Do you want us to go? I'm like, I'm looking over my shoulder. Who's coming?

[00:00:39] [SPEAKER_01] I'm like, we only have four mics.

[00:00:41] [SPEAKER_04] That'd be you guys.

[00:00:42] [SPEAKER_01] Yeah. Yep. Yep. No, it's great, man. We got the boys from Totally Rewarding Chats here. Sean Luitjens and Paul Reiman from also, like I said, the WRKdefined Network. We're peers. So, great to have you guys. Yeah, stoked. Yeah. Thanks. So, here we are. This is my first World at Work event at all, especially Total Rewards, but I'm so excited to be here. Obviously dips very heavily into my world of the pay and payroll and HCM. And, of course, Julie is in and around the benefits and comp and Total Rewards world a lot. So, look, it started yesterday, if I'm correct. Yep.

[00:01:11] [SPEAKER_01] What have you guys taken in in the last 24 hours? What do you think? Is this your first one?

[00:01:15] [SPEAKER_00] Oh, goodness. No, you guys are like OGs, right?

[00:01:17] [SPEAKER_03] I was trying to explain to my wife that I think my first one was in 2004. Oh, all right. So, I've been in and around it for about 22 years now. I've spoken, I think, nine of the last 15. So, I've been here a lot.

[00:01:27] [SPEAKER_00] I knew it.

[00:01:28] [SPEAKER_03] It's bigger, right? I think that's one of the cool things about this event is it's growing. And they've got ambitions for it to be even bigger next year. It probably will come up in the conversation. So, there's an energy level.

[00:01:37] [SPEAKER_01] There's multiple sort of lanes of world at work, right? There's Total Rewards. But what's the other one? There's another couple, aren't there?

[00:01:44] [SPEAKER_03] There's a few different tracks when you're here. Of the professionals that are here, there's definitely comp nerds like us. There's some people that are more benefit-centric. But they also have an HR at TR, which is for the... Think of the solo HR practitioner or the multi-disciplined HR practitioner. Yeah. How can they sort of scale up? Yeah, yeah.

[00:02:00] [SPEAKER_01] So, there's not multiple world at work events. There's one and then there's... Oh, I see what you're saying. Is that what you're saying? No, sorry. Like, there's only one event here. Okay.

[00:02:08] [SPEAKER_02] But you could speak more of like... Well, so they have this annual conference. Yeah. Right? So, think of like, you know, whatever's coming to Nashville. Payroll. Paycon, yeah. Paycon. Yeah, global paycon, whatever. That type of thing. Okay. And there are multiple tracks here. So, you'll see some on compensation, some on benefits. Yeah. You'll see some on, you know, how to be a better professional. Obviously, I have not attended any of those in 25 years. He skips those. I skipped those. Yeah. There's all those different tracks that are there. And then they do have local affiliates. Yeah. There's 49 local affiliates throughout the country. Okay.

[00:02:37] [SPEAKER_02] And they'll have their own sessions through the year. Yeah. And so, smaller regional ones. Yeah. Nice. But when you're here, there are those kind of different types of tracks. And then in each one of those, there is usually a, you know, like anything else, you know, you're new to it. How do I do this? Right. And then there's some advanced stuff. Yeah. And then this year, we made it all of like three minutes and 47 seconds in without saying AI. Yeah. Yeah. There's some AI. Oh, we're going to get to that. There's some cool, well, there's some cool like interactive sessions where Paul can talk about more where he's leading somewhere. It's kind of hands-on. Yeah. So, there's lots of different formats.

[00:03:06] [SPEAKER_00] One thing I really love about the growth in this area is it used to be you had a benefits leader and a compensation leader. And now, almost everywhere, especially in large enterprise, you have this total rewards leader, right? So, Comp and Ben come together. But it comes together with all these different things as well. Payroll is wedged in there sometimes, you know? Yep. Wellness is becoming a whole thing all on its own. So, I think it's natural that it's growing and super healthy. And I bet it's just going to keep going that way. Yeah.

[00:03:31] [SPEAKER_01] Totally. This is such an important part of the HR, you know, all the lanes of HR, right? I mean, compensation is why we're all coming to work, right? I mean, let's be honest.

[00:03:38] [SPEAKER_02] You don't pay. Nobody's in the office. Yeah. It's not difficult.

[00:03:41] [SPEAKER_01] Yeah, right?

[00:03:41] [SPEAKER_00] Unless you're TSA, I guess. Thanks, guys.

[00:03:44] [SPEAKER_01] Thank you. Well, was it nice to see that? I saw so many people thanking them in the airport. I mean, you know, it's like payroll, right? I mean, when the lights don't come on, nobody cares until like, oh my goodness, we can't switch the light switch on. Yeah, I thought that was really nice, refreshing positivity in the airport yesterday. I saw a lot of that just thanking and hugging. And I'm from Chicago.

[00:04:05] [SPEAKER_03] There's no positivity at the airport. No positivity. All right. But yes, there is at least there wasn't the negativity. Let's put it that way.

[00:04:12] [SPEAKER_00] That was our version. That's something. Step forward.

[00:04:14] [SPEAKER_02] I think it's a lot like payroll. And you know, I've talked about this in the past, right? Yeah. There's a lot of opportunity to do better and help with all the information that's out there now. Yeah. But in the past, right? I mean, who has, who here that's listening has sent a letter to, you know, payroll or to HR and said, hey, thanks for getting my paycheck. Never. 52 times. Never. Right. Yeah. It's right next to in the drafts next to the one that says, thanks IT for my email working. Yeah. Right.

[00:04:41] [SPEAKER_02] Like, so I think there's, there's very similarities there and they are, you and I've talked a lot, Pete, about converging those two departments because they have to, much like you said, Julie, in the past. Yeah. Comp and Ben are now merging. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

[00:04:54] [SPEAKER_01] We've even been exploring a little bit. I might be selfish here about my payroll championing, but one of the things that I, I sort of talked about a few years ago is this idea that, you know, payroll and the pay experience are getting obviously the facilitator, but there's so much more behind the scenes of that. And we've actually even brought on a few leaders who are finding where we're finding where payroll is getting nestled underneath total rewards with comp and Ben. And I love that alignment. I thought it was a little bit of an enterprise thing, but we've come across a couple of mid-market,

[00:05:22] [SPEAKER_01] small market employers that are doing that. And maybe that's out of necessity. You know, when you're down market, you kind of got people wearing multiple hats. My wife, for example, works in a small company. She's, she, she's in the finance department, but they have her, they found out she has an HR background and they're like, Hey, so she's kind of like the part time local HR. But no, I love that. I, I, to me, that sounds very purposeful, right? When you think about the experience people are having with their compensation, it's much bigger than that pay slip that's coming out every day. Right. And there's a lot of thought that needs to go into that.

[00:05:50] [SPEAKER_01] And I think all of those things need to work very, very synergistically to bring about an experience for the people to help them fill their goals. And not everybody's goal is to make the most money. Sometimes it's, you know, I joke around about my daughter, right? With her dog. I always say like, you know, having time off with the dog and pet insurance is key to her. Right. I mean, that's, you know, but, but, but really, you know, every employee's got this different lens and, and, and desire that they have for their pay. I love that there's more of a, of a,

[00:06:16] [SPEAKER_01] of a concentrated effort to make, make that an experience. Right. And all around. So, well,

[00:06:21] [SPEAKER_03] that's a very cool one thing I learned when I was in house. I think we talked about this when you were a guest on our show that as technology has made some parts of all of those jobs easier. Yeah. The connectedness becomes more important. So if there's a payroll issue, odds are it wasn't actually payrolls issue. It was most of the time. The benefits weren't set up right or no, the raise actually wasn't entered into the system. So we didn't know that we should change your pay rate. Right. So bringing those roles together creates a more sort of centric process mindset. Yeah. Yeah. I know that was my mission when I was in house. Like you, you fix it all,

[00:06:51] [SPEAKER_03] like make sure it works end to end from hire to check. Yeah. Got to work. Agreed. Yeah.

[00:06:56] [SPEAKER_01] So guys, what's just, you know, look, you're gearing up, obviously. I know you're presenting a little bit. You guys have been here for a minute. What's hot this week. What are you hoping to hear? What do you, what do you, what are you thinking as far as you're going into the week?

[00:07:06] [SPEAKER_03] I don't like doing this, but there is a lot of talk about AI because there always is. Um, I think the focus of this week is less about AI is going to change the world and more about what do I do now? Yeah. Right. Land the plane for me, please. Like, what can I actually do in the office tomorrow? So there's a whole space over on the other side of the floor here where it's like hands on keyboard. Like, yeah, let's open your choice and let's figure out action. What's a good prompt look like? What's a bad prompt look like? Yeah. Data. Should I put in? Shouldn't I put in?

[00:07:34] [SPEAKER_03] So I think there's a lot around bringing those things to life for sure, which is a newer emphasis.

[00:07:40] [SPEAKER_01] Yeah. Yeah. Just give them where we're at with that life cycle. I mean, look, the HR and the payroll and all of the communities, sub communities within those lanes are very good about taking care of each other. And I noticed there's a lot more, especially around AI of that happening. Right. People coming together. How are you, you know, how are you using it? What are you doing? Where are you succeeding? Where are you scared? Yeah. I think that's really, really awesome. But I don't know. Are these events bringing that out and capturing that real like that genuine, genuine sort of community? I hope so. I think I think it is.

[00:08:10] [SPEAKER_02] So I actually, I'll piggyback a little on where you were, the vibe, right? I think the vibe last year around AI was oh shit. Yeah. Right. I mean, that was the vibe and like, what is it? What's it going to do? When are the droids going to take over? Yeah.

[00:08:23] [SPEAKER_02] And this year you're going to be owed. Right. And this year you're seeing kind of the sessions go back to this is what we still need to do and how AI helps you do it or specific AI things are actually happening. So I think that kind of, I think people are still freaking out about the rules and I think it's going to bifurcate into two different spaces. Right. You can have people who are like, I've been doing kind of Excel, nothing, not thinking work. They still need to have an oh shit moment to be honest. Yeah. Right. Yeah. You know, I don't know payroll as well, but I am not yet run into the total rewards department that is over

[00:08:53] [SPEAKER_02] Over budgeted and overstatched. Yeah. Not yet. Right. Like that department does not exist. Yeah. And so I think you've got seen a lot of people like, okay, actually pretty cool. Yeah. I can do a lot of this stuff that used to be tedious and really work on the things that I want to do. And wouldn't it be cool if. Yep. And even if they're data nerds, like before I can only take in five of these things, now I can take in 20 of these. Yeah. Yeah. And make really informed decisions. Yeah. And I think that's the change from last year of like, last year's a little bit of like, don't worry, we're still going to be careers to like, how do we actually use

[00:09:23] [SPEAKER_02] this? Should a vendor be responsible for the AI piece? Yep. What do you have to learn? Like that has really changed this year. And I think that's why you saw like, you know, sorry, Paul, you're not the only one out there in the session. There's some really cool people. Only one with a bow tie. Only one with a bow tie. There you go. There you go. I love the bow tie. Some really cool people off that are practitioners, not just vendors. Yep. Walking through the AI skills lab area, which is super cool. It is. That's right.

[00:09:48] [SPEAKER_00] I think that's so important because benefits and comp teams, total rewards people are usually part of a specialized team, right? So they deal with like payroll. They deal with some of the most, you know, touchy, touchy feely information everybody's afraid of. So you can't just go through the regular routes and ask the same folks internally. How can I use my AI? You really want to hear from your peers and colleagues. And there might not be a huge team internally to your organization.

[00:10:13] [SPEAKER_02] That's why I'm such a big driver, the affiliates and then these meetings. It's a huge chance to come, which is why it's so cool. It's practitioners in there sharing what they've done. I mean, let's be honest. When's the last time you were like, you know, I want to go meet somebody new, fun and cool. Let me troll over to HR. Yeah. That's not where people go. Usually if someone says go to HR, what's your first thought? Yeah. Like that's the thing, right? And so I think they are in this insular world where it is and you can't talk about stuff, right? Yeah.

[00:10:42] [SPEAKER_02] Yeah. Sit in there and say like, I need to talk about this financial situation or someone's pay. Yeah. There's no one there.

[00:10:48] [SPEAKER_01] But, you know, that's part of the problem. Like we got to shake that like guidance counselor, you know, stigma of HR and realize that it is a strategic partner to the business. They're not there to harm or, you know, be the fun police, as I like to say sometimes. They're, you know, hopefully there to sort of guide the, you know, guide the business hopefully and guide people to their best as well. So, yeah. Yeah. So, look, what are you guys personally hoping to get out of this week? Anything you've got personal agendas otherwise where you're kind of hoping to learn certain things?

[00:11:16] [SPEAKER_00] Besides this. Besides this.

[00:11:18] [SPEAKER_01] The highlight.

[00:11:18] [SPEAKER_00] The highlight of the week.

[00:11:20] [SPEAKER_01] Yeah. Yeah. Any certain restaurants you're trying to hit? Any swag you're looking for? We had a little swag conversation before this. I hear you guys have some good stuff.

[00:11:28] [SPEAKER_02] I don't know. We got the hats behind us. I know we got to do at least one session. Are the hats? I can't see actually behind me. Are they right there? The hats are down on the front. No, no. There's those hats, but the cowboy hats. Oh. Cowboy hats with lights are behind us. Yeah. All right. All right. Yeah. I think there's, it's interesting with the swag. I want to go through and kind of align sometime the brand to what they're giving away. Yeah. Thing. So that's, that's why I'm so.

[00:11:50] [SPEAKER_00] That could be crushing. It is. Crushing.

[00:11:52] [SPEAKER_03] That's why I'm so proud of our, as you know, I take it personally to win the swag war every year. As a business owner, I should probably have different objectives than winning the swag war.

[00:12:00] [SPEAKER_01] But like. Your marketing team will appreciate that.

[00:12:05] [SPEAKER_03] But I think that we try to project it's more fun. Right. So we have a card games cards against humanity style for those who want to play it. Like it's different. And it's like, we try to make it clear. Like it doesn't have to be boring.

[00:12:16] [SPEAKER_01] Yeah. You can have fun with this.

[00:12:17] [SPEAKER_03] Have a little personality. We've been trying to figure out.

[00:12:19] [SPEAKER_01] There's another vendor that has the cards for against HR, one source virtual, one of our sponsors. And we've been trying to figure out how to play that live on air with the HR executives and HR tech executives. So if we can figure that out, maybe we need to pioneer that. And that could be a really great segment on our show or your show, any show. I would love to see somebody do it.

[00:12:37] [SPEAKER_02] Yeah.

[00:12:37] [SPEAKER_01] That could get crazy.

[00:12:38] [SPEAKER_02] That could get crazy. You had to make sure who's got the seven second delay. Yeah. Yeah.

[00:12:43] [SPEAKER_01] The logistics of it were really hard. We were trying to figure it out because apparently it became a thing in the pandemic. Playing on Zoom. Yeah. Virtual game. Or whatever. Yeah. Totally. So there's a way to do it, but you've got to all have the same set of cards, I think. And there's just some logistics that we couldn't figure out well. But if somebody can figure that out, I think it would be a good time.

[00:13:00] [SPEAKER_00] I think it would be us. Yeah. If anybody could figure it out. If anybody could do it. It's right here. Well.

[00:13:04] [SPEAKER_01] It is. It is.

[00:13:04] [SPEAKER_02] It is important to bring the fun. I do think when people fun. I know when I referenced where I was this week, my oldest said, so you're back to the pay dork festival. Nerds.

[00:13:16] [SPEAKER_03] I prefer nerds. I know.

[00:13:18] [SPEAKER_02] I think there's other. Yeah. That's not the worst probably version of it as they've aged. But I think it is making it fun and doing whatever. And then that engages the community. Right. I think that's the thing that's really cool is you can get people chatting together. And then they're more alike to work with each other and share stuff. Yeah. Yeah. Absolutely. Absolutely.

[00:13:36] [SPEAKER_00] And when you've been around the block, you have to show that it is possible to have fun. We would be here if we didn't have some kind of fun. Right.

[00:13:42] [SPEAKER_01] Totally. Take life less serious. Yeah. You can't. This will make you go insane. I mean, I've had a 30 year career in HR and payroll. And I, you know, I think I would have gone insane if I didn't try to make it, you know, make it fun. And how do we get the. We talk about this all the time on our show about getting the younger generations to want a career in HR or benefits or comp, total rewards. How the hell do we do that?

[00:14:01] [SPEAKER_02] Well, I mean, I actually opened this morning session, basically said who no one chose TR, right? Yeah. Maybe someone chose it in college. But if you were a freshman, you know, in high school going, you know what I want to do when I grow up? I want to be in total rewards. Oh, yeah. Like, bruh, you lie. That's not a true story. No.

[00:14:20] [SPEAKER_03] Nobody chooses total rewards. Total rewards chooses you. Right.

[00:14:24] [SPEAKER_02] And we actually on our show, we usually ask when they get their career where they were before. Yeah. We've had a couple.

[00:14:30] [SPEAKER_01] Yeah.

[00:14:30] [SPEAKER_02] That have said, you know, I was in college and I did an internship and I really thought this was cool. But they come from and it is it is a mind blowing wide array of ways that people get into HR.

[00:14:40] [SPEAKER_01] Oh, yeah. We ask that as well. It always commonly starts with I needed a job. So from there, just on prison. That's a good. Yeah. We've seen it all. Bakery.

[00:14:49] [SPEAKER_02] Oh, we are way behind. We do not have. Nobody that went to prison. We don't have that.

[00:14:54] [SPEAKER_00] I mean, there was a story and some context that I'm probably skipping. Yeah, but don't. Don't.

[00:14:59] [SPEAKER_02] Because just leave it right there.

[00:15:00] [SPEAKER_01] That makes it even better. It might have been me because I've given a speech on my career. I gave a speech on my career. And if you know my career, it started in the Marines. And I actually audited HR data when I went in the Marine Corps in a shared service center. Right. I thought back then it was a white collar prison, but it would turn out to be a career. But I've actually been in HR since I was 18, unbeknownst to me. And here we are.

[00:15:21] [SPEAKER_02] That's how they get you in.

[00:15:23] [SPEAKER_01] You don't even know you're in HR. You're drafted. We call it drafted. Yeah. So look, I have three really fun news articles I thought we could riff around about if you guys are cool with that. Yeah.

[00:15:34] [SPEAKER_02] FYI for those that when we co-broadcast this, Pete refused to share. I did not share it. You have not even seen it. We're sharing at the same time.

[00:15:43] [SPEAKER_01] Exactly. So this is going to be live sharing here.

[00:15:45] [SPEAKER_00] So zooming on the eyeballs and the facial expressions. I think these will be easy.

[00:15:49] [SPEAKER_01] I got to put my serious face on it. I think they'll be easy. They're very relevant stories that have come out lately. And I thought it'd be interesting to talk about it. So along the lines of benefits and total rewards, right? We've talked about how, you know, you've got to get really layered with that. You've got to have a number of different things to meet the personas, to meet the challenges, and so on and so forth. Right. And the four-day work week comes up a lot. And that's a benefit for some people. It's very effective for some organizations. But I want to talk about this for a minute because there was a recent study on the four-day work week and the impact to the business and what they found out.

[00:16:19] [SPEAKER_01] And so one of the interesting things that I found was is that during this study, right, and this was done over the U.S., Canada, the U.K., and Ireland, right, over an 18-month period. And what the study came away and found was is that workers were able to cut about four hours a week on average out of their day and landing on a sweet spot of about 34 hours a week where prime work is getting done. So there was some fluff in there even when they were on a four-day work week.

[00:16:43] [SPEAKER_01] And Fortune magazine actually pointed out that for these groups of people, it actually drove a 15 percent revenue growth across their businesses and among other things. But what are your thoughts on the four-day work week as a – maybe a form of compensation or a benefit or whatever? And what are your thoughts on it maybe becoming a permanent thing? Four days, 40 hours.

[00:17:05] [SPEAKER_02] Four days, 32 hours.

[00:17:06] [SPEAKER_01] So, yes. But what's interesting is is they're basically saying the 34, if you think about – yeah, if you go a four by 40, right, you're talking about cutting that one day out. When they work five days, they're spending a day doing nothing. Yeah. Basically nothing. But in theory – And it comes down to that 34 hours.

[00:17:22] [SPEAKER_02] If you bring someone to a four-day work week, is their theoretical work week 32 hours or 40 hours?

[00:17:27] [SPEAKER_01] Well, it would be 40 hours over four days, right?

[00:17:29] [SPEAKER_03] Over compressed days. It's like when you're a firefighter, you do your 12-hour shifts and stuff. Yeah, I'm a nurse. So just time shift.

[00:17:34] [SPEAKER_01] I've used it in contact centers for HR, and it worked wonderfully. We had great coverage. People were happy. You got a day off. Yeah. Yeah.

[00:17:41] [SPEAKER_03] So there's a general answer, and then I think there's a within-our-space answer. Yeah. So within rewards. I actually had the opportunity to lead somebody who worked a four-day sort of time-shifted work week. And with the right person, it was magic because she felt like she could do what she needed to do. All the work still got done. Yeah. It just got done on a different day, and it meant that our team meetings couldn't be on Friday. That's all it meant at the end of the day. Yeah. And it was magic. And because she valued it, she stayed. Yeah. Right?

[00:18:08] [SPEAKER_03] And candidly, I hope she doesn't listen, but she was cheaper than the replacement by far.

[00:18:11] [SPEAKER_01] That was actually one of the key findings. 57% reduction in the likeliness of that employee to leave the company. Totally correct.

[00:18:16] [SPEAKER_03] Like, she could have gotten another job and wouldn't have had to deal with me multiple times over the course of our tenure. But she stayed because she was not confident that somebody else would trust her to do it.

[00:18:25] [SPEAKER_01] Yeah.

[00:18:26] [SPEAKER_03] So it worked brilliantly. So as a result, I'm a natural fan. Like, I think I like the concept. I am as well. It just requires the right person and a lot of trust. Like, people have to be committed to getting the job done in those four days. It can't be a reason that things take longer. Yeah. It needs to be a reason things get done faster, actually. Compressed. Right. It's going to get done sooner. So as long as the people have that right commitment, I think it's a fantastic thing. It meets people where they're at. Yeah. It appeals to a diverse set of people.

[00:18:53] [SPEAKER_03] But it does require a different trust that not everybody has. And not all workers are really well-geared for that. Like, they need a different timescale, if you will.

[00:19:02] [SPEAKER_02] I think the practicality of it is what will get in the way at some point. Yeah. So I don't think it works for every role. So especially in a size role. Well, now the problem becomes, you know, Paul gets to do a four-day work week, but I can't because either my manager doesn't. Yeah. So as the company bought in, I like the stat that more people stayed. I think that'll be the case until it happens. Yeah. I think it leans into just flexibility. Exactly. It'll be the bigger story. Yep, totally. So I'm definitely a work-life blend person.

[00:19:28] [SPEAKER_01] Yeah.

[00:19:28] [SPEAKER_02] If I work 10 hours in a row, you definitely don't want to be between hours 6 and 10 if I'm working, right? Yeah. I have to take a mental break and go do something and go play somewhere.

[00:19:37] [SPEAKER_01] Yeah.

[00:19:37] [SPEAKER_02] But I'll also work part of the weekend. But that's the way I work best. And I think that's kind of the secret to this stuff. Some people need four-day work weeks because they need three days to, like, compress and be ready and be super efficient. Yeah. And some people need five days because coverage, but also they just burn out. Yeah. Yeah. There's just a number of ways. So I think it's a cool concept. My practicality always is how do you deal with those issues? It's like if you give bonuses to one team in the same area and not the other team.

[00:20:07] [SPEAKER_02] How do you make it right? It's going to create huge satisfaction for one team. What about the other team?

[00:20:11] [SPEAKER_01] Yeah.

[00:20:12] [SPEAKER_02] And so I think the practicality of making it happen, I'm all for it. Like, get out and play one of my new favorite books is, you know, Work Won't Love You Back. Yeah. Yeah. And so, like, that's a great book. So I'm all for, like, making it work so that you can make life work. But I think the hard part is going to be adaptation. Yeah. And I think who's going to have to carry the load in managing and administering that? Yeah. Just to be fair. It won't be outside of HR. So now it's just who the short straw is inside of HR. How does that deal with payroll? How do you deal with time off?

[00:20:41] [SPEAKER_02] How many days off? How many hours off? Yeah. All that shit that comes down is going to fall on HR to make it happen. Yeah. And if it goes well, you know who's going to care? Nobody. Nobody. Right? So, like, I think that's where it's an interesting thing.

[00:20:55] [SPEAKER_01] But if you get these outcomes, right? I mean, also, 65% drop in sick days. That's interesting. Right? I mean, I think that's a huge number. Look, I agree with you. I think flexibility and enablers is where it's at. Right? All of the pieces and parts, whether that's four-day work week, benefits, earned wage access, whatever. Whatever the case might be, those are levers someone can pull to create a personalized experience, meet their goals. Employer gets these sort of outcomes.

[00:21:17] [SPEAKER_02] Leave it three every day because you've got kids. Right? You know, like that flex hour, same as, you know, five-day work day.

[00:21:23] [SPEAKER_01] Yeah.

[00:21:24] [SPEAKER_02] Hours over different. But now that employee, to your point, it's going to be hard to go. And I think that 60% is predicated on will others do that, right? Yeah. If you're the only person that's allowing them to go home and take care of their kids at three o'clock and be a part of their life, like, you got to meet a certain threshold of pay. But after that, like, they're staying. That's super cool.

[00:21:43] [SPEAKER_03] Like, the happiest work time of my life, probably when I was employed rather than running my business, was when I was on, I had a paternity leave where I was taking it over time. Yeah. So I took one day a week off for a long time. I had Wednesdays off. My wife loved it. I loved it. I was never sick because we compressed all of the, like, I have to go take the kid to the appointment to the day off. Yeah. So, like, the company got great productivity from me and I was thrilled. Win-win. I loved it. And it was a Wednesday. Every week I had a two-day week. Just lots of them.

[00:22:11] [SPEAKER_00] I always feel like naturally there's just so many flavors of this that are out there. But a lot of times it happens in professions or in the salaried workforce where you don't have to track it and it doesn't have these stiff parameters around it.

[00:22:23] [SPEAKER_02] Yeah.

[00:22:23] [SPEAKER_00] And it generally works well or people wouldn't do it.

[00:22:27] [SPEAKER_02] But if you move to, like, box stores and other places, some of them have done it, right? Because they allow it as long as you have, you know, overtime rules and whatever. But you think about manufacturing and other places, you can't, right? Yeah. You can't not have somebody there Friday. You can't keep the, you know. Right.

[00:22:40] [SPEAKER_04] Yeah.

[00:22:40] [SPEAKER_02] You can't keep it all rolling, the manufacturing going for two extra hours for two people who want to work four-day work weeks.

[00:22:46] [SPEAKER_00] Right. Right. The frontline staff has a lot of issues.

[00:22:47] [SPEAKER_02] So there's a lot of practicality, you know, that'll go with this. Yeah. Yeah. Good point.

[00:22:52] [SPEAKER_01] Yeah. Lots to consider there. But I think. A lot more pay models. Yeah. Absolutely.

[00:22:55] [SPEAKER_02] Yeah, right.

[00:22:56] [SPEAKER_00] Well, and managers aren't always trained in figuring out how to deal with this or how to respond to it. For sure.

[00:23:01] [SPEAKER_02] They're never trained for that. Like, no one, when they get hired in to be a manager, do they ever ask, how do you deal with the merit cycle? How do you deal with discussions around pay? How do you do. Performance. That question never comes up. Yeah. It's like, how good are you at manufacturing? What were your last, like, all the real questions that should be.

[00:23:19] [SPEAKER_01] Exactly. Exactly.

[00:23:20] [SPEAKER_02] Which is why it's so hard.

[00:23:21] [SPEAKER_01] Totally. Yeah. Interesting. Interesting. All right. All right. Now let's switch to AI. We're going to switch. This one, I'll talk less. We got to switch to AI. This is a good one, though. I think you're going to have some opinions on this. I think you have opinions on everything, but this one. That's true. All right. New study came out. Nearly a third of workers are admitting to sabotaging company AI strategies. 29% on the whole, 44% amongst Gen Z. But I think there's a bigger data point I want to get to after this that came out of this I'll talk about. But I want to pause there, right?

[00:23:50] [SPEAKER_01] They looked at US, UK, France, Germany, and Australia. About 2,400 workers. Yeah. One third on the whole are sabotaging. Do you believe that that's accurate? Sabotage.

[00:24:00] [SPEAKER_03] I'm trying to think, like, are they unplugging the robot? Like, how do you sabotage the initiative?

[00:24:05] [SPEAKER_00] Getting wrong results on purpose? Or prompting? Or just showing?

[00:24:08] [SPEAKER_03] Not using bad data? Yeah. Not using it, I could see. Like, that's where, if that's it, like, just saying no thanks, that makes sense, or I'm going to use my own tool instead of the one they want me to use. I believe that, that there are people who aren't buying in to what my company is telling me.

[00:24:22] [SPEAKER_01] 24% are fearing layoffs. So that's about, maybe that's why, right? I mean, obviously, I think that's probably the underlying thing here.

[00:24:29] [SPEAKER_00] Well, and look what corporate America is doing. They're saying, they're blaming layoffs on AI results that they don't even have yet.

[00:24:35] [SPEAKER_01] Well, here's what I think is the bigger story in this that I actually think was completely overlooked. 75% of executives in this study said that their AI strategies are basically, quote, for show. Digest that for a minute. 75% of executives. 75% of executives in this study.

[00:24:51] [SPEAKER_00] I didn't know we did this survey.

[00:24:51] [SPEAKER_02] So I look and think, if you think about a couple years ago, when AI was coming out, a lot of companies were told, use AI. Yeah. You know, what are you doing? Oh, board mandates. What are you doing in AI, right? Yeah. Go do some AI. Still happening. Yeah. That's not a couple years ago. But I think it's slowly changing to how are we leveraging AI? What is it doing? And so and so. I think they're starting to go there.

[00:25:16] [SPEAKER_02] I do think if you look at Gen Z in particular, there is, not wrongly, the energy costs, the betterment of it. There's a lot of that stuff. Yeah. They're probably more aware of and linking their business to their personal career. And like, it's bad. And known to have a distrust for corporations anyway from the 2008 watching their parents. Well, I think 2008 and, you know, my soapbox would be it. Corporations should never complain there's distrust because corporations earned it. Yeah. Right. Right. Anytime there's money, AI, would they let go?

[00:25:45] [SPEAKER_02] Like, they're just the first generation to be like, I see it. I just, you know. Yeah. Fool me once. Fool me ten times. Not going to happen again.

[00:25:53] [SPEAKER_01] Yeah.

[00:25:53] [SPEAKER_02] So I think there's a lot baked into that. I don't know what sabotage. I'm very curious on sabotage. Yeah. Not using it. Like, okay. That's different than...

[00:26:02] [SPEAKER_03] It sabotages the initiative though, right? Because I think your point is if I'm not going to use it, well, then it's not producing gains. As a result, they're going to see there's no measurable results. Yeah. Right? And it's job preservation. Like, I would believe that thesis. Yeah.

[00:26:13] [SPEAKER_02] I think that's a lot out there. There is a lot of self-preservation. So if you think about we need to use more AI. And in the news, every company is over there saying, you know, we're doing layoffs due to AI. I mean, it's not a giant leap to be like, do you want me to train the robot that's going to replace me? Right.

[00:26:28] [SPEAKER_01] Selling Thanksgiving to turkeys.

[00:26:29] [SPEAKER_02] Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I will probably plagiarize that. Go ahead. That's great.

[00:26:35] [SPEAKER_01] That's what we used to say in outsourcing, right? We're selling Thanksgiving to turkeys. You know what I mean?

[00:26:39] [SPEAKER_02] I mean, I think that's a big piece of it, right? So why aren't companies saying, here's what we're going to do if? Now, you know, are you going to lie or not? But there is, you know, there is comp, again, comp, and payroll. They're not over-resourced in general. Right. And so the ability to say like, hey, we can't, you know, what's not going to happen is you're going to get more headcount next year. Yeah. We're going to prognosticate wild thinking.

[00:27:03] [SPEAKER_01] Do more with less is getting throttled up. And now there's a chance to actually meet that. But yeah, here's another thing that I thought was interesting. This is, to me, again, this is the bigger story here. 54% of the executives also said that AI adoption is tearing their company apart. I think that's a people problem. That's a change problem. Tearing their company apart. Tearing their company apart.

[00:27:23] [SPEAKER_02] That's some verbiage. That's interesting. Yeah, that sounds...

[00:27:27] [SPEAKER_03] But I do think, I haven't read the study, but I see evidence where there are, the divide happens between those that are embracing and those that are fearful. And that becomes tangible quickly, right? Like there's this, you know, the culture changes around those that have and those that have the fluency and those that are talking the talk. Yeah. So I could see where that would be.

[00:27:48] [SPEAKER_00] You know, the cynic in me is thinking, we've all gone through days where senior leaders couldn't get into their own email. Yeah.

[00:27:56] Yeah.

[00:27:57] [SPEAKER_00] And needed somebody with boots on the ground to do that for them. So, you know, while I think that has long changed, I also am not sure that some of the senior most leaders in organizations are the guys who are trying to figure out when and how do I safely use AI and what can I put into it, right? And so I just wonder how much of that goes into some of these types of...

[00:28:18] [SPEAKER_02] Yeah. I just think that terror... I mean, it's a culture. I think it's 100% people problem, right? And a communications problem. So... Change. You know, if you let go of some people in the customer support group because we're using AI, I think the assumption a lot of times is, well, those people will be happy they're here, but they're all looking around at who's getting voted off the island next. And then, of course, if you're talking about getting voted off the island next and the four of us are left in the department... Yeah. ...you're like, for sure, I have to make sure, look, I can't be better, you know, I can't be better than Julie. I can't be better than Pete.

[00:28:47] [SPEAKER_02] I got a shot at being better than Paul. And so, like, now there's this internal distrust. And you guys are doing the same thing. Like, I know I can be better than Sean. Yeah. And so that's going on. And so I do think now, how do you work as a team? Because you're actually... You don't want a team result when you're like, I have to do a team result, but I have to make sure it looked like I was the better player on the team. Because hunger gains real fast. That culture... That culture with this stuff, because AI is all about efficiency, not gain... Like, think about the language. Yeah. In my mind. Yeah.

[00:29:16] [SPEAKER_02] It's always about efficiency gains. It's not revenue gain and margin gain. It's efficiency gain. Yeah, productivity.

[00:29:22] [SPEAKER_00] Hey, I was at a dinner last night with a practitioner who is not to be named, who said that their husband is the fellow who pulls together and infuses the AI and all of their initiatives into what they're doing in their corporate world and got riffed with a bunch of other people.

[00:29:39] [SPEAKER_01] The baby got thrown out with the bathwater.

[00:29:40] [SPEAKER_00] The baby got thrown out with the bathwater or something big. And then they called the very next day and said, hey, something's not working. Yeah. It's like... No kidding.

[00:29:47] [SPEAKER_03] I do think you're right. The guy behind the curtain left. If it's all about do it more efficiently, that doesn't feel great to a worker. Like, I know in the workshops I'm doing today, it's more about here are the things that you never get to that now you can find a way to get them done. Or the things that you've been asking managers to do that they hate you for. Maybe you can give them a fast start with AI. Yeah, we're focusing on the wrong outcomes. Exactly.

[00:30:09] [SPEAKER_02] That is my... And the language for whatever the media is driving on, right? Yeah. And of course, they lean into it when somebody cuts 10,000. I mean, it's always interesting. It's a large number, right? Yeah. Of jobs. They lean into it, efficiency, and they're like, because of efficiency. And so, you know, even if you're in a little company with 50 people and that CEO drops the E word, right? Yeah. Like, to your point, like the employees don't care. Like, what does that mean for my paycheck? A lot of employees might be based on, like, if the company's growing and we're making more

[00:30:39] [SPEAKER_02] money, my job is probably safe. Yeah. Or my bonus is better or the bonus. Like, it's all good.

[00:30:44] [SPEAKER_00] Yeah.

[00:30:44] [SPEAKER_02] Efficiency generally doesn't lead to a lot of good.

[00:30:48] [SPEAKER_00] Rightly or wrongly, I think AI is going to be the fall guy for a lot of, you know, what's happening from an organizational standpoint, probably for the foreseeable three years.

[00:30:57] [SPEAKER_01] Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. All right. Well, let's table that one. We're going to move into your world, salaries, right? We're compensation, right? Salary.com. And we're going to stay on Gen Z, right? We've got to beat up on Gen Z. I love Gen Z. I've got Gen Zers at home. I love studying them. Okay. So, again, another study. Gen Z wants ambition, but they, without the old trade-off. So, in a new report by KPMG, Gen Z said they would give up $5,000 in salary on average for better work-life balance, right?

[00:31:26] [SPEAKER_01] But 92% of them still want or expect to reach senior executive levels in the C-suite. Can you do that with work-life, without work-life balance, or with work-life balance? Is that possible? Is maybe AI going to be the answer to make that possible?

[00:31:39] [SPEAKER_03] I think that's probably, it's a similar finding as what I know the folks over at Levels FYI found when they were looking at, like, people were willing to accept lower offers for remote over, you know, going into the office five last week, right? So, it's not exactly the same thing, but you can quantify now the value of flexibility. I don't see why it has to be a trade-off, would be my answer, right? Why is it that how I work affects what I'm able to ascend to within an organization, right? Like, outcomes should win, not showing up.

[00:32:08] [SPEAKER_02] Yeah. What your outcomes are, I think, is the biggest piece. I think you can definitely have work-life balance. Like, I've found that. It's kind of get your shit done. I think it's finding the right place. Because legitimately, I ask a lot of people when they're like, I'm going to switch jobs. I'm going to do whatever. I'm looking for this. My literal question is, what's it worth to you? And they're like, oh, no, it's worth a lot. I definitely want to work on it. I'm like, no, literally, go for a walk. How much less money would you take to take that job? And they're like, what do you mean?

[00:32:37] [SPEAKER_02] I'm like, it's a literal number. Like, that's how pay works, by the way. It's just pay ranges. Yeah. You're taking, and, you know, a lot of times they'll come back and they'll be like, well, you know, I take $2,000. Well, that's not less. Nobody gives a shit about two guys. Right. Right? And you take $20,000. Like, what's a legit number for you? Five for, you know, their average salary is probably the $50,000. That's 10%, right? That's probably legit. I think that's true.

[00:33:00] [SPEAKER_00] Yeah.

[00:33:01] [SPEAKER_02] And I think a lot of the, can you get it done? Gen Zers want different stuff when I work for them. They don't not work hard. Like, the mis... Right. That's true. Yeah. The misconstrue when they want to work and kind of what they want to wear when they're working and whatever with how hard they'll work, they'll bust their ass. Yeah. I think they understand the general contract that you talked about. Yeah. You get paid. You bust your ass. Yeah.

[00:33:22] [SPEAKER_01] That's actually a key finding here. That Gen Z will, is rejecting traditional work norms, but they are aligned with the idea of hard work itself. So, I think what that says to me is they're valuing quality over quantity, so to speak, if I can simplify that.

[00:33:38] [SPEAKER_00] I think at least I have Gen Zers too.

[00:33:40] [SPEAKER_01] As they should. As they should.

[00:33:41] [SPEAKER_00] When a Gen Z finds something, you know, none of us started out knowing what the hell we wanted to do, right? We just didn't.

[00:33:46] [SPEAKER_02] When do we find out? Yeah. I don't know. John's still searching.

[00:33:49] [SPEAKER_00] Maybe before we end. But when they find something and they like it and they're kind of good at it, they are willing to lean into those traditional things. You know, one of my sons is a finance guy in a large corporation and close periods are a legit thing. And when it's closing week or closing month or whenever it is, you're going to be there no matter what your work balance desire is. Or maybe you shouldn't like that career so much. Yeah.

[00:34:14] [SPEAKER_02] Their boundaries are different too, right? And I think there's expectations. So, you know, my generation, a lot of time, you might answer email at night. You might do stuff. And to me, that's work-life blend. Yeah. And that's, you know, if that management is expecting them, they have more boundaries. Like they work, you know, nine to five. Yeah. When I work nine to five, like I might have 30 minutes with Paul. I might have, you know, I might call some other people. Like you're probably getting your 34 hour, you know, your leverage on that. So for me, that commitment to that is I work other times.

[00:34:43] [SPEAKER_02] They just jam for that period of time. And it's business. And like the output is the same. And to me, it's output. That's what matters. You're measuring production.

[00:34:52] [SPEAKER_03] It's the same argument as the four day work week argument. Like if we start equating flexibility with like how hard you work, like that's the mistake, right? Yeah. Being flexible doesn't mean you work less. I have the most flexible life I've had in my career. I work more. It's just I can fit it around the things that I'm choosing to value right now. Right? Like it's, that's flexibility.

[00:35:12] [SPEAKER_02] It's output over input. Right? When is the, you know, is it output or input that you're measuring? Yeah. Yeah. Like it's just me sitting at my desk, you know, is that the input or is the input the amount of effort they're putting in? Agreed. Agreed.

[00:35:23] [SPEAKER_00] I do think the risk to care for there is a similar to a risk that we've had forever in executives or making it to certain levels. And that is, you know, people have falsified their credentials and their, you know, college background or degrees or whatever. And so I do think, you know, that's not going to end anytime soon. There will be people who falsify outputs to the best of their ability. Now, even more educated falsification with AI and maybe done it through college a little bit to get through too.

[00:35:50] [SPEAKER_00] And so everything just becomes more sophisticated when it comes to figuring out what's really authentic and what is BS.

[00:35:57] [SPEAKER_02] But once they're there, I think you can figure it out.

[00:35:59] [SPEAKER_00] Yeah.

[00:35:59] [SPEAKER_02] I'd highlight, I guess I could falsify and get some, I can finally get that college education I've been looking for that I don't have. I can falsify that. I think it's more like in the hiring process because, you know, there are guidelines around where you can go back in and I improved our department by this and improve that. AI can write it better. And, you know, how do you really check that? Once they're there, though, like you can check output, right?

[00:36:21] [SPEAKER_01] You can't bluff it once you're there, but, you know. Agreed. Agreed. Well, look, off the hot seat, gentlemen, those weren't so bad, were they? Those are great topics, great conversations there. Starters, I guess I would say. But yeah, man, this has been awesome. I've gone from 10 to nine friends in Gen Z, though.

[00:36:35] [SPEAKER_02] Yeah, we've lost some. No, we're pro Gen Z.

[00:36:38] [SPEAKER_00] We can actually loan you a couple of ours. Oh, I have one. You want an exchange program? Of course.

[00:36:43] [SPEAKER_02] Better yet, she's a solar engineer. And so- I love it. Definitely not an AI fan. Every time I'm using AI, she's like, how much energy did you just use and how much water? No guilt. I don't need to know because you'll tell me. Yeah. What comes after Gen Z? Alpha. Okay, yeah. You can tell I'm not cool.

[00:37:02] [SPEAKER_03] They just come back around. What is their world going to be like? What are we going to be talking about? I got a couple of those.

[00:37:07] [SPEAKER_02] I can only imagine what's going to happen there.

[00:37:09] [SPEAKER_00] They're not talking about them yet, but it's coming. Oh, man.

[00:37:11] [SPEAKER_02] I'm just so glad mine are old and off the payroll. Incredible. It changes so fast now.

[00:37:15] [SPEAKER_01] I got to get mine off. But yeah, mine are all old. But anyway, no, this has been fantastic. I really appreciate you guys. And great to have you on the show. I would love for us to do this maybe more regularly as peers. But anything to add or close out on? Where can we get you? LinkedIn, I'm sure. Totally rewarding chats. I know I'm work to find. What else? Anywhere else we should come out?

[00:37:34] [SPEAKER_02] That's the easiest way. If you can't find Luchins on LinkedIn and not figure out I'm one of my two daughters, then that's a you problem. Paul's also, you know, salary and then Paul's at Novo Insights. Yes. But LinkedIn's always a great place to start. I love it. And actually, if you're from the payroll spot, your payroll Novo Insights, because he won't say it, there's a great compensation landscape view of the space to think about the comp stuff.

[00:37:58] [SPEAKER_02] If you're a payroll person thinking about, you know, what it's like and the different tool buckets out there, they put an inordinate amount of time that they probably don't get any money back from on that landscape. And it's a really cool, cool overview.

[00:38:10] [SPEAKER_01] I love it. I love it. Well, we'll include all those links. And yeah, enjoy the show. And thanks so much for teaming up with us, man. We really appreciate you guys doing this. Thank you to salary.com for hosting us as well. And yeah, appreciate you, man.

[00:38:21] [SPEAKER_00] I feel like we need to like stack hands or something.

[00:38:23] [SPEAKER_01] Stack hands. Then all of a sudden I'm crazy. Yeah, we'll break something. Yeah. Awesome. Awesome. Until next time, guys.