Navigating Pay Equity and Transparency: Insights from Lenna Turner

Jackie - 00:00:10:

You're listening to the Diversity: Beyond the Checkbox Podcast brought to you by the Diversity Movement. I'm your host, Jackie Ferguson, author, speaker, and human rights advocate. On this show, I'm talking to trailblazers, game changers and glass ceiling breakers who share their inspiring stories and insights on business, inclusion and personal development. Thank you for downloading this episode. I am truly grateful for you. Enjoy the show. Thanks for downloading the Diversity Beyond the Checkbox Podcast. My guest today is Lenna Turner, thought leader, compensation expert, and director of diversity, equity, inclusion, and belonging at salary.com. Lenna, thank you for joining us today.

Lenna - 00:01:00:

Thank you for having me. I'm excited.

Jackie - 00:01:02:

Me too. Lenna, can you tell us more about your role at salary.com?

Lenna - 00:01:08:

Sure. So, my role in salary.com or, I'll say for those listeners who may not be as familiar with salary.com, we're a SaaS provider, software as a service provider of compensation data, analytics and technology software. We help companies get pay right by providing a robust database of jobs, data that they can use for internal matching and market pricing. So that's kind of the company, but my role is to serve as internal program manager of DEI programs and initiatives and external thought leader for our customers, clients, prospects and for HR and compensation communities sort of at large as a corporate citizen.

Jackie - 00:01:54:

Awesome, thank you for sharing that. Lenna, how do we begin the process of ensuring pay equity in our organizations?

Lenna - 00:02:04:

So really, that's a question I was talking about with a colleague of mine the other day. Companies really just need to figure out what do you want to achieve? What do you want to accomplish when you say pay equity? Because there is the exercise of going through just looking at those protected classes to close the wage gap. You can do that. And then you can say, well, I really want to understand. Why there are differences in pay with a deeper dive. What are the root causes of that? Because you can fix the wage gap, but if you don't fix some of the underlying causes, the root causes of why there's a difference in pay, then you'll be right back in the same place. So once you decide what you want, then it's about getting a mandate for pay equity, getting senior management or leadership to buy in to say, this is what we wanna do. And you as an HR practitioner or as a comp practitioner or as a team, we suggest a great team along with legal counsel be involved in all this. Just start the process. And we at Seller.com have a process that's been developed. It's a six step process. It's not necessarily new, but the way it's packaged, it helps practitioners really design a plan to get on the path of pay equity that lays out step by step. The six steps developed and signed by our CEO, Kent Plunkett, along with some other really talented people at Seller.com that we think will allow practitioners to really set a plan in place, sell it to the CEO, because sometimes management gets really sort of tense thinking it's going to be a cost with pay equity. And sometimes there is a cost, but if you have a plan and you understand how to execute that plan, we think that's the great place to start.

Jackie - 00:03:51:

Absolutely. And Lenna, you're talking about the Plunkett pay equity framework, which is available on the salary.com site. So you can find that resource on the site under resources and white papers, but we'll also share the link for that in the show notes. Lenna, tell us a little about, you know. A lot of times leaders are afraid, right, to, Go through that process. They think that it's going to be overly expensive or they think they don't have a problem. Tell us why they need to dig into that and really evaluate if they've got equity in their pay scales among their employees.

Lenna - 00:04:32:

Well, first of all with the movement of pay transparency, so pay equity is the movement. Pay transparency is the force within that movement. Got it. So if they don't be proactive and find out they have issues, then some legislation is gonna come their way if it's not already there to help them see that you've now got to disclose this, or you need to disclose that, or you have to allow employees to know this. And so employees will start to find out. And then you'll have sort of an internal problem with employees and you may have turnover, it'll impact brand and so many things that will be impacted because you're not proactive in thinking about it. You can't really bury your head in the sand on this one because there are different external forces that will just force you to sort of recognize where you are. And it's, Building that whole trust with employees, it's just sort of the right thing to do to understand how you might adopt a pay equity sort of philosophy and approach to your compensation management program.

Jackie - 00:05:43:

Awesome. And then Lenna, you know, many organizational leaders aren't sure about Pay transparency, right? That's not something that you were supposed to talk about in the workplace. Pay scales are one step, but what about salary info sharing among employees that can create some animosity between employees or between employee and manager? And what are the benefits and the challenges of pay transparency?

Lenna - 00:06:13:

So that's really a great question. And when you start to sort of divulge any kind of information around pay, you might have a team ready to sort of help mitigate in terms of communications. But it's really one of those things that you can really put a stake in the ground if you want to engage employees and sort of really explain how your compensation program works. You probably will have some discussion, maybe some feelings, I guess you could call it animosity, or some different feelings when people start to understand what pay is relative to other people in an organization. But if you have a really good compensation structure plan, strategy, and you have a communications plan around that and you explain to the employees and the managers, what that looks like, how salaries are determined, who your competitors are, how you benchmark jobs, who was on the project where jobs were matched to the market so that you have buy-in across the organization. Once you start to have things like that in place and you can explain it to employees in a way that they understand it, usually it's accepted or it's respected. A lot of people still don't like what they hear because people want more money, more money, or they want to make sure that they're getting what they want. But if you have a strategy in place and you have a way to articulate what your compensation plan and philosophy is, you can then go out and communicate that to employees, you can communicate that to managers, and all of that. Is a challenge, but it is a pro, meaning it will create trust with employees and the employee once they understand how things are developed, how ranges are developed, who we're benchmarking against. Am I being competitive? Are you looking at my job along with the companies that I could go to? If you can answer those questions, Employees generally will settle. If they wanna stay, they will stay because they accept that you're doing something that's authentic and then they have a level of trust that their pay is being developed and administered fairly. And then the other conversation is performance against that pay, so.

Jackie - 00:08:36:

Yeah. And, you know, Lenna, I think that's so important because what you're talking about is a structure for how people are paid versus what I think happens with a lot of organizations is it's kind of like a free for all, like, well, what did you get paid in your last job? Which is part of the pay equity issue, right? Because historically, you know, people that look like us are paid at a lower scales, which causes the wealth gap. But if you're just paying same plus a bump versus what that range is for that job, no matter what you look like, no matter what you've been paid in the past, I think that is such a great way to approach it is to have that. That structure versus that kind of just loose and, uh, you know. What you might think, right? That subjective way to approach pay. So that's so important.

Lenna - 00:09:41:

I agree. And that's one thing I was thinking, if those issues that you talk about, how people traditionally come into an organization where they've been paid lower, that's part of that root cause of systemic issues that impact people who look, who may be brown or black or veterans or whatever their status may be that causes them to have been in some marginalized position before. Looking at those things and taking into account pay equity, a pay equity strategy really helps you sort of even the playing field. And what you want to do is get to an equitable position for people that they have the best and equal possible outcome for equal pay.

Jackie - 00:10:21:

Absolutely. And you know, one of the things that I think trips a lot of employees up, right, that use salary.com to figure out like what their structure should be is not only the role, but the location of the role, the size of the company, right? Are there other things that we need to be thinking about when we're creating those pay structures?

Lenna - 00:10:46:

But sort of understanding the internal equity job hierarchy or the job worth internally, what that looks like to the company. Yes, the industry that you're in, the location, international versus domestic, the size of the corporation, either in terms of revenue or employee size. All of that is taken into account when you're looking at competitive comparisons. So our flagship product, which is salary.com, is salary.com is Comp Analyst. And that is a product that actually takes all of that into consideration. It allows employees to really price jobs like in seconds. You can look across any region, nationally, international. I think we have about 16,000 job titles. We're probably in getting data in 140 companies. It's just a really robust system that takes companies out at spreadsheet management, where you can really look at all those factors you just named to talk about how you wanna manage pay. You can look at developing national structures. You can develop regional structures. A lot of people pay based on location or they set salaries national because they recruit nationally for particular roles. They may even have a national salary structure within a company. And then you may have some regional salary structures where you pay based on location. But that's all in how you develop your comp philosophy. How you determine how you're going to pay based on how you recruit for talent and where your talent pool is.

Jackie - 00:12:30:

That's helpful to know. Lenna, what are some factors other than compensation that affect retention for employees, especially underrepresented professionals?

Lenna - 00:12:41:

I love this question because I talk about it all the time. For a lot of employees, it really doesn't matter how much money you pay them. If they don't feel like they belong, they don't feel included, if there's no connection, they don't feel seen, heard or supported, they will still leave. I've been in compensation a long time prior to my role in diversity, equity and inclusion. And I have been on the site where you develop a compensation package for a really highly recruited employee, but they really, nine months, we took every caution, precaution, to make them whole from where they were, because we really wanted them. But they really want that inclusive feeling, they wanna be a part of the team and feel like they're a part of the team. And you really have to be intentional about that. In my observations and with our clients that we talked to, those are the things that cause a lot of turnover for those highly recruited diverse candidates that you really want it. And you thought that you made a good decision and at the time you probably did. That's why that whole diversity, equity and inclusion initiative is really important. But I think that's one of the big things, inclusive professional development programs for those employees and helping them figure out how they can navigate through the organization. Those are some of the things other than pay that will help with retention.

Jackie - 00:14:05:

Absolutely. Lenna, there's a language that indicates bias in interviewing. What are some of the words that we should look out for in interviews? From an HR or hiring manager perspective that indicates potential inequity in recruiting.

Lenna - 00:14:27:

Some things that you probably, shouldn’t hear and probably should be avoided are some phrases that speak to ageism like digitally savvy or this person we're looking for needs to be really recent college graduate. You can't be digitally challenged or things like that that speak to ageism. You probably wanna avoid phrases like that. And then things that speak to maybe gender bias. Like. Looking for someone with bubbly personality. Normally not associated with male gender, right? So you don't want to say things like that and be careful about. Referring to people's wife or husband. When they may not have one, they may just refer to it as spouse. And that whole inclusive language is a big part in how I think companies, and we talked to companies about training their interview teams and their hiring managers on inclusive language so that those kinds of phrases can be avoided because it will indicate or trigger someone's thinking that there may be bias in this whole assessment and the whole process.

Jackie - 00:15:49:

Absolutely, and you can learn you can lose some of your top candidates right there in the interview by some of the words and Language that you use I agree with that

Lenna - 00:15:59:

A big one is, Well, you're very articulate. That is a big red flag to a lot of people, particularly the people of color and women, because it's been used in a derogatory way or a way that's been harmful to progression in the past. That's a big one.

Jackie - 00:16:21:

Lenna, how do we, especially professionals that look like us, ask for the salary we want going into an organization?

Lenna - 00:16:31:

I had the really great pleasure of speaking at a conference earlier this year. And it was the most unique and one of the most fun conferences I've ever been to. It was called Black Woman Leading. And it was the opportunity to talk to a bunch of women who are there all about professional development and leading in their organizations, to talk to them about salary negotiation and knowing your worth. So my big thing was when you go into a salary conversation. And I'm going to jump back for a minute. One of the cons of pay transparency is having people not be comfortable with healthy conversations around salary. And that's what you want to do. So back to this. But knowing your worth and understanding how to sort of start a conversation around salary. I always like to think and tell people, and we tell people to be prepared. Go into the conversation prepared. Understanding A, what you bring to the table. What you've worked on. Know and understand the market relevance for your job, meaning do some research. Cheers. There's Glassdoor. You have friends who are recruited. Understand what the market will bear for your job. Go into the conversation prepared to articulate clearly what you've done and how you bring value to the organization. Don't go in and talk about your colleagues. Don't go in and talk about anyone in a way that's derogatory. Let the conversation be about you, your value to the organization, and be sure to tie what you do to the bottom line and how it brings value to the organization. But have some idea of what you can ask for, because you don't wanna go in and ask for a $30,000 rates when you know that's not possible. I mean, you can ask for it, but being practical and really being thoughtful about what you're doing. Just do some research. Be prepared, but be very clear on how you can articulate your value to the organization and what you bring.

Jackie - 00:18:42:

Absolutely. And then, you know, when I have similar conversations with folks from a mentorship perspective, they're afraid of not getting the job, right, when they're asking for more than what was offered. Tell me, is that something that people should be afraid of? Why or why not?

Lenna - 00:19:06:

I don't know that you should be afraid of it. I think you should go in if you really understand your value and you've done some work around what makes sense to ask for. I don't think so because I always, maybe because I've been in compensation, but I always sort of understand what the worth is, what the ask can be. And then I sort of help my superior boss or whatever. I'm not asking for anything I don't think I deserve. And here's why. And I understand budgets, I understand everything, but this is what I'm asking for. And sometimes I land in the middle, sometimes I land on top, sometimes I get more than I was expecting, but I don't think you should. Just not ask. If you understand how, if you frame the ask right and you're being reasonable and understand. The room, if you will.

Jackie - 00:19:55:

Absolutely. And I think the key is being prepared for that conversation. So expect to be offered under what you think your value is so that you can have that conversation to move forward and get the salary that you're looking for in that new role. And then Lenna, if we believe we're being undercompensated in a role we've been in for a long time, how do we address that with our managers, especially right now in a down economy?

Lenna - 00:20:29:

It's almost some of the same things I just said, because I want to, if I think I've been undercompensated for a while, and it happens all the time when people get a whole lot of new responsibilities, their jobs have not been reevaluated to sort of accommodate the salary and the, grade of that job with all those new responsibilities. So now you wanna have a conversation and say, since this particular date, I've taken on these things. And again, just lay out your story. If you have it there, and it's always good to write it out to say, this is what I've done, this is how I've done it, this is what I've accomplished, this is how it's impacted the team, this is what, all the things that make sense for a conversation around why you would deserve more money. It's a down economy, maybe, but most companies will make some decisions around high performance. And again, you can make the case and you can understand the salary structure, the compensation philosophy, but most companies will come back to performance. And your job is to help them see, my performance has been stellar, my performance has been here. And if you make the case, hopefully you get a good outcome, you may not, cause companies are holding budgets tight to the breast sometimes. And then this is something also to know that companies, wherever they might be saying, the merit budget this year is around two, 3%. Maybe it's not that much, cause we just don't have it. But there's always some thought of high performance because we want to retain those people. Companies quite often traditionally hold a pool of money for high performance. So being informed and knowing the kinds of things to ask for in compensation, there's merit, there's bonus, there's spot bonus. There are all kinds of things. Just be aware that when. Like Noah's a point in time. One of my sponsors once told me that it's just a point in time. Know something and then be prepared to ask for it again at some point. But yeah, there's going to be times where the economy is down and they're saying salary budgets are not, will not be able to do this. Just make your case and make your ask anyway.

Jackie - 00:22:55:

And Lenna, you mentioned something about bonuses, right? So it's not just about necessarily a salary jump. But it could be about spot bonuses or performance bonuses or things like that to increase your compensation. So even if the answer to a salary bump is no currently, you can go in and have the conversation around spot bonuses, around, Performance bonuses. And so, I think that's a good part of the conversation to try and move that range up without when they're not able to, Or willing to. Make a jump in the salary. So that's such great advice.

Lenna - 00:23:38:

Because the salary is a constant increase and they're looking maybe not to, but that spot bonus is a one-time hit. But it still, it encourages an employee and it says there is a commitment to actually a healthy conversation around salary. And if we can't do this, but we can do that because we want to reward and we want you to stay. And these are some ways we can do things even in this down economy. So yes, definitely. And part of it is just knowing what to ask for. Like I said, do a little research. And I feel like some ways I've been at a great advantage because I understand all the pieces in compensation, but there are things that you understand the full, total rewards is the word and then total compensation is the word. Understand all the pieces that can be a part of total compensation. And that's bonus, spot bonus, performance bonus, project bonus, along with your salary.

Jackie - 00:24:34:

Absolutely. Thank you for that. Let's talk about mentorship and sponsorship. Lenna, can you define each of these and what's the value of each for professionals?

Lenna - 00:24:46:

So for a mentor, which is great, I'm a strong advocate for mentors, advocates, and networking. I think they all go together. A mentor is someone, usually someone senior and can be in the organization or out of the organization who serves as an advisor, someone who sort of guides you, helps you with professional development, navigate parts of your career that you may be having issues with or concerns with, but it's really someone who's an advisor who really sort of helps you grow, gain confidence. Their focus is to really help you grow professionally. It can be a regular cadence meeting kind of relationship, sometimes with sponsors you. Become friends and you're, I mean with mentors, you become friends and you sort of know each other for a long, long time. A sponsor is someone who is usually, highly authoritative, has a lot of influence across the organization. They are an advocate for your career advancement. They are the people I like to say that will talk well about you in a room when you're not there. They understand the projects that you might be a good fit for. They talk you up with people who are managing those projects. They introduce you to people in the organization that you may not know or you would never otherwise meet, but they really are an advocate for your advancement and their focus is on helping you to advance. They may not be a long-term relationship like a mentor and they may not meet often like that, but they are definitely people who can open doors for you and who create opportunities for you, help you with critical assignments in the organization. They have a lot of influence. That's the difference. I mean, a mentor could have a lot of influence, but the focus is just very different.

Jackie - 00:26:41:

Absolutely. And then, Lenna, how do we find mentors and sponsors?

Lenna - 00:26:48:

I think that's where the networking part can come into play if you're in a company that doesn't have a formal mentoring program. I was lucky enough to be in one that had a formal mentoring program, but it has unofficial mentors because I was interested in just learning different things about different parts of the organization. And if you are, because it's all about you controlling your career in some ways, just reach out to people. You would be surprised, and maybe not, that people in higher positions or influential They really are open to. A 20-minute chat. And you can just start it there and you can gain a mentor. It can be unofficial. Maybe it's not a company-wide program, but if you start to talk to people about your interest and how you want to learn more about finance, but I work in HR, then there's somebody that's gonna take an interest in you and probably will be able to set some time aside to just chat twice a month. And then it becomes a real thing and you start to learn and grow from that. And going to company events and meeting people, that's the networking part. A lot of people aren't comfortable networking, but it's so valuable. It is so valuable. I don't think I've gotten a job to date without networking. I just don't think so. And I know it's sometimes not as comfortable to just meet people, but if you start to talk to people about what they do and you get them on that comfortable footing and the people are interesting. Sometimes they like to talk about themselves and that can be a plus for you. So that's an end. But networking, you can find people and just start to talk to them and say, I want to chat a little bit and learn a little bit more about this area. Do you have some time? And start out with a 20 minute thing. It's not so long. It's not 30 minutes, not an hour. Chances are they won't mind if you go to 30 minutes and longer. But it's a way in. So, my advice is just start with people who, seem approachable in areas where you have an interest, and ask for a meeting. Call it an exploratory meeting. Say you just like to chat. That's a great way to get in to meet people. And you will find that people are more open than you think and willing to help, yeah.

Jackie - 00:29:08:

Amazing. Thank you for that good advice. Lenna, tell me what inspires your passion around what you do?

Lenna - 00:29:18:

Well, like I said, I've been in compensation a long time, started out as comp administrative assistant way back in the day, and then a comp analyst, senior comp analyst and sort of progressed up. So it's always been interesting to understand how jobs are paid, looking at job worth hierarchies, and then understanding performance against those jobs and how people fit into all of that. Then looking at how it's equitable across those people that sit in those jobs and finding ways to constantly make sure jobs are correctly paid. Benchmark and then how people get paid. So it's just been interesting. Then when DEI just burst on the scene, well, that made all the sense in the world for a comp professional like me. And then landing at a place like salary.com where our mission is to get pay right. And then diversity, equity, inclusion, pay equity. That's all about getting pay right for the right reasons, not just for business purposes, but because it's the right thing to do. Talking about that whole impact to diverse populations and how we make things equitable, not just equality, giving everybody a start, but making sure or ensuring that people have equal opportunity to the best outcome, the same outcome, so that you take into consideration all those systemic issues that have been barriers in the past. That's a lot that fueled my interest. And then when I came, I just got really excited. So it's like-

Jackie - 00:30:56:

I love that. Lenna, what is the message that you want to leave our listeners with today?

Lenna - 00:31:03:

But what I would say is, For all HR practitioners, CEOs, compensation people. Pay equity is a movement. The train has left the station. For those organizations that are early adopters who understand what's going on. Those organizations will become employers of choice. They will be the ones to win the war on talent. Are we still saying that phrase? But in terms of impact to your brand, to your recruitment, attraction, retention issues, that is going to be a differentiator for those companies. Pay equity, and pay transparency. As part of the movement. That's the thing that's going to be the differentiator in making you competitive going forward. And I think you can't afford to put your head in the sand about that and just start where you are. We help people all the time start the conversation around what do you want to do with regard to pay equity. If you need to take a step back and actually start with your compensation philosophy basics and do some heavy lifting around just your housekeeping work, we actually help you do that, then get you to a place where it's time and the right you have all the right data to actually complete a pay equity study and then how you continue that. If you because now you've adopted a pay equity philosophy that's a part of your overall comp philosophy. And I think that's what I like to leave with listeners that it's here, it's happening, it's a movement, pay transparency is going to blow everything up. And if you can just proactively be thinking and get prepared for it, it will put you in a really great place in terms of being competitive in the market for talent.

Jackie - 00:33:00:

You know, that's so helpful and you know, because it seems like such a big job, right? A salary philosophy and a structure and we don't know because it's not how we've done it. So having a partner that can walk us through is super helpful. So thank you for that. Lenna, how can listeners learn more about your work and get in touch with you?

Lenna - 00:33:23:

Just Ping me, send me an email at lenna.turner@salary.com. That's Lenna with two N's, lenna.turner@ salary.com. And we actually can offer a demo of any of the products like our flagship product, Comp Analyst, How You Price Jobs. If you're in spreadsheets and you wanna get out of that, we have something that can help you quickly. And it's so intuitive, it's such a great product. If you're interested in a pay equity study, we have consultants that can talk to you about what you'd like to achieve, where you start, and utilize some of the tools and information that we have. And that's a free consultation, 30 minute consultation. So send me a note if you're interested or you want a demo on any of the products. And hopefully you get to read our white paper on the six steps around the Plunkett Pay Equity Framework.

Jackie - 00:34:15:

Amazing. Lina, thank you so much for being here. This has been. Such an insightful conversation. I've learned a lot and appreciate your time.

Lenna - 00:34:23:

Thank you so much for having me.

Jackie - 00:34:31:

Thanks for listening to this episode of Diversity: Beyond the Checkbox. If you enjoy the podcast, please take a moment to share it with a friend, leave a rating and review, and subscribe so you'll be reminded when new episodes are released. Become a part of our community on Instagram, LinkedIn, Twitter, YouTube, and TikTok. This show is proudly part of the Living Corporate Network and was edited and produced by Earfluence. I'm Jackie Ferguson. Take care of yourself and each other.