How Global Leaders Operationalize Pay Equity

ON THIS EPISODE OF HIGH GROWTH MATTERS

LISTEN TO THE EPISODE

TRANSCRIPT

EMILY SWEET: So welcome, Caitlin, and thank you so much for being here.

CAITLIN ALLEN: Thank you so much, Emily. And everybody, it's so good to be with you. And we are so grateful for your time today and all the speakers expertise. So quick context. High Growth matters is a podcast that explores topics on the minds of the very most forward thinking HR and people leaders that we cover off on things like leadership and strategy to emerging technologies. And we launched it less than a year ago in August and of 2022. And we've already built a listenership of 5000, which has been really neat. High Growth matters is sponsored by open comp makers of the only end to end compensation software that offers clarity every time you make a decision about pay. And I have to say, just personally, it's been at first very nerve wracking and eventually very fun to co host a podcast for the first time, I feel like I'm getting a master classroom just the best and brightest out there. And that is especially true because I get to co host with Nancy Connery. She really requires no introduction either much like Kathy and Alyssa and many of our speakers, but I'll give one anyways, just like Emily did. Nancy was the founding VP of HR and employee number five, no big deal at Salesforce. And she now leads one of the most in demand HR advisory companies in Silicon Valley. And she's also a co-founder of OpenComp. So it's kind of fun to be doing it live today.

NANCY CONNERY: Yes, this is this is new territory for us. And Caitlyn has been an incredible co host is we have really launched this podcast and had some incredible guests, some of whom are on our panel and part of today's discussions. You know, and as a one of the first females in tech, you know, I fundamentally am a very mission driven person. And so you know, to be to have the opportunity number one to be here and to be here as a co founder of open comp today means the world to me, and I'm very excited for our conversation and to get this going.

CAITLIN ALLEN: So let's do it. I will introduce our topic and our incredible guests. And then we're off to the races, folks. So if pay transparency means something different to everybody, like we've talked about today, and then pay equity and equal pay aren't the same thing. How then can people and business leaders like all of us in the audience architect systems that promote things like fairness and scalability? And really what can small and medium businesses learn from their more global peers and that is a topic that in today's live podcast, we are going to talk to Antoine Andrews about he is the chief social impact and Diversity Officer at Momentive, which was formerly Survey Monkey. And he is also an advisor on open imperatives board, as well as the Forbes Human Resources Council and previously has led Diversity and Inclusion at global enterprises like GAP at Nike and Symantec. And Tron. Welcome.

ANTOINE ANDREWS: Wow. Hello, Caitlin. Hello, Nancy. How are you all doing today?

NANCY CONNERY: Good. We are doing well. And so excited to have this this wonderful conversation with you today. And on that note, you know, what is we could have always started our podcast this way, because it really opens up to a great conversation. What's something most of your co workers don't know about you that you can share with this audience?

ANTOINE ANDREWS: Yeah, well, the first thing is, I want to make sure I don't do anything to mess up this live broadcast. So I'm excited that we get to do this live. You know, I thought about this a little bit. And there was so many ways I can I wanted to go with this. You know, I used to dance in high school. I don't think many people know that. I had this thing where I thought I wanted to be a stand up comedian, you'll feel that kind of come through some of our conversations. But I landed on, I'm an introvert at the core with a lot of extrovert tendencies. So you know, I appreciate and value my alone time. It's important to me, I'm an only child who grew up in a housing project in Newark, New Jersey, so which means I had my time in my apartment with my parents, but I also had a lot of cousins and friends around me at all time. So I don't think many of my colleagues know that at the heart. I'm an introvert things like this. I'm excited to do it. I love doing it. But after we're done, I'm probably gonna sit down and have a sandwich and relax a little bit just to get myself go.

CAITLIN ALLEN: Well as another introverts who, honestly, my favorite thing to do is read or write, which generally involves no other people. I totally feel you. Let's and what I'd love to understand or have you tell the audience a story that I really enjoyed hearing, which is how you first got into diversity and inclusion work when you were at Prudential?

ANTOINE ANDREWS: Yeah, so it's a it's a funny story. I remember how was probably 2006-2007. And I got called into our president of the President of the Operations Office at Prudential. And he wanted to talk to me about productivity. He was like, no, let you know, Anton, you want to come in and wants to talk about productivity. I always said, he's a great guy, and mowed down, call me in and he wanted to talk about productivity sat down. And it was like being called to the principal's office. And I remember him saying, you know, really want to spend some time talking about productivity. I don't know what that said, for the next five or seven minutes, because all I could think about was getting fired. And how am I going to tell my parents getting fired. But what Ed said, once I came back and realize the thing, he said, I need your help. And I realize you can't get fired if somebody needs to help. And when he talked about was that we were in the self manage teams as a group at Prudential at the time. And they needed someone that really helped bring those teams together. And I think for me, it was really, you know, he said, the leadership team really got to see you in engage with people in the cafeteria and realize that, you know, a lot of people are waiting around the seat where you said, At lunchtime, and we need somebody to bring folks together and we think you can help us. And so I don't know what I thought I was gonna do. But what we ended up doing was International Food Day, folks brought in the dishes that their families really love. And this is that meant something to them created an index card of telling people about the dish and how people gathered around the dish as a family. And I realized in that moment, diversity people, the inclusion of that was something that was very interesting to me. And I thought it was a way for me to really help the business didn't have an opportunity to do it for another four or five years. But that was my touch into the multicultural space, what we called it at the time to talk about it. We did some book studies and things of that nature. But that was my my time I give Ed Muldoon that credit. After that first five to seven minutes, I don't know what happened.

NANCY CONNERY: I wish I could have benefited from the international food for that. That sounds. That sounds amazing was the pay equity conversation has shifted a lot over time. And with that, you know, what is pay transparency mean to you today versus what it meant way back when?

ANTOINE ANDREWS: Yeah, Nancy, you know, you're right, the pay equity compensation has changed a lot. I think someone earlier was talking about pay equity, pay equality, so many different ways to think about it. But for me, I remember when I was entering into the workforce, my parents told me three things to not talk about it were religion, politics. I think things have changed dramatically now in the workplace. And I think that part about when you think about companies, it's important for us, we talk about pay transparency, we're not just talking about what someone actually gets paid. We're actually talking about our philosophy. How do we go about in our administration? And so I think it's important for me, what it means is that a company understands it standard, but also has the ability to share what their compensation processes like, what's the philosophy around how they think about the market? How do they think about that? And then I think what's important is what's our philosophy as we think about looking at the impact that we know systems have on historically marginalized communities and being able to understand that so for me, what's changed about as we talked about it, what's also changes that companies have to share what it looks like for them so that employees can can understand it better. And that education for employees and managers, really allows us to when we're monitoring it, to see where opportunities change. So I think that shift of the willingness to share information is critical.

CAITLIN ALLEN: Yeah, and it's a great segue into the next question, actually. So their pay policies are not designed to drive pay inequity. Right. And yet, there are wage gaps that occur throughout the employee lifecycle. In curious in your experience, Antoine, where do those occur most often?

ANTOINE ANDREWS: Yeah, and I'll say this one point is that I don't policies now aren't designed that way. We know from a historical perspective, that wasn't always the case. And so when you bring history in and things are changing now, I think for me, what happens is over time, I think we talked about in my I think I've shared this with you before Caitlin there's a there's the pay policy and then the pay administration component of it and I think what I'm what I find policies aren't important. The administration of it which is typically manager sitting at their seats, having a conversation with someone like you, Caitlin, a new Nancy, talking about, what do you want, what's your salary going to be or what's your rate is going to be? That's when we we tend In the sea, how those gaps are created. And educating managers, really holding managers accountable for that is critical, while also constantly looking at the system to make sure system and is one of the things that I think, over my time where, you know, I don't know if it's always true, but it's something that I love to have a think about is that when you're looking at pay equity, and you're looking at the results of your pay equity story, it's really you judging your system. There's another component of how are you monitoring, looking at your, your managers and how they're thinking about. So I think it's the combination of policy, making sure you have the right policies, and then that practice piece, which comes into the way comes into the point around, how do you make sure that you don't create those gaps that you really don't want to see?

CAITLIN ALLEN: Right. And I do think that managers in many ways are kind of the connective tissue of the corporate body, right, like the employees generally do go to them with questions about pay rather than HR, at least right now. And I'm curious what you see, especially in the near term, antoin? What's been the most impactful and maybe, least impactful. Pay Equity practices that you have tried or that you've seen your peers try?

ANTOINE ANDREWS: Yeah, I'll start with the lease. I think what I what I've seen is for me, I worked at an organization where we thought, talking about the inner workings of the pay equity, study how difficult it is they are this, and really sharing that with our employees was going to work out and really show show us how difficult some of the system work was, didn't work out. We ended up looking like we were hiding something in that process. So I think that process of sharing how different a pay equity study is to equal pay study didn't work. What I found and what I've seen that it's working, we're doing it now, momentum is that and our people, neither Becky cantiere has done a great job. This is educating our teams on our philosophy, what's our philosophy? What's the market? How do we look at market? How do we want people to go into roles really gives employees an understanding of how we're thinking about it, they get to ask better questions, right, prepares our leaders and it prepares our people try to be able to answer those questions better, and that process of educating, providing information, ensure that people are being held accountable, right. If if I'm if I'm an employee, my manager, Caitlin you say something. I'm like, wait a minute, you know, that six part series that we just shared on Part Four talks about XY and Z? I don't think that aligns with what you just said, managers now help attack. So the education component is critical. And it really works well. And we've, it's working well, we're just starting to see it, because some of the laws that we saw, we've seen passed recently, but I think it's a great way for me education. All right, everything we do is critical. Just a quick quote. Bryan Stevenson, who's an amazing attorney, if you haven't seen the movie, just mercy or read the book, you should, he talks about learning and he says learning is an action item. Learning gets you to do things you would not otherwise do.

NANCY CONNERY: Great movie, just mercy I highly recommend it for everybody and completely agree with you on the importance of education. And with that, can you share with our listeners, you know, the the definition of intersectionality? And, you know, why does that matter so much in today's day and age?

ANTOINE ANDREWS: Yeah, I think it's critical. And I'll give Kimberle Crenshaw a nod here. She is the one who coined the phrase really made people thinking about it. And when you think about intersectionality, you think about when you look at gender, when you look at women, there are different components and different demographics, we all hope as you think about it, and being able to look at intersectionality through the lens of how women, women of color, women in certain organizations, how they're showing up gives you an opportunity to look at the nuances and it gives you an opportunity to really be able to say if we are looking to drive change, I think the key is let's look at the most marginalized people in that group. It's the using the curb cut out effect. If we raise the bar, if you think about the curb cut out it means the curb cut outs in the streets and sidewalks were created for people in wheelchairs. But we know everyone uses right moms with strollers I know at times when I'm out running I don't want to step up on the curb and maybe I'll need three inches but I take the curb cut off. And so looking at intersectionality through that lens allows us to ensure that all the all the individuals and within a community within a demographic RB and impacted. And you understand that back to that learning, you get to learn more about what groups are happening. So looking at intersectionality is critical when you look at it through the equity lens.

CAITLIN ALLEN: Yeah. Looking ahead a bit, Antoine, what trends and in policies do you see on their way, whether it's via legislation or whether it's more just kind of the national Zeitgeist via the employee or the employer?

ANTOINE ANDREWS: Yep. From a policy perspective we've seen in California, New York and Colorado, I think are the states that are requiring that you share more of your you share your salary requirements for job postings. So that's going to be driving, I think you'll see more states pick that up. You'll also see companies thinking about that, because it's hard to post the job in New York, and then post a job in Connecticut and wait a minute, like, I don't get to know the salary there. And so companies will you'll see that. So I think that's going to be an evolving trend. From that perspective, I think the other pieces I don't it's not just one thing, I think when you look at policy changes, we are adding, it's typically we're adding on to all policies that allow us to push and when I say that, it's like, you think about adding the compensation to the job posting, that was a push when people are talking about Pope who should be on board, right. It's, it's a build on. So I think one of the things that I think will be a trend is let's not forget the old policies that may have not been great, but let's pull those things forward as well, that includes that allows us to think about how do we drive that, and that component of bias still exist? That's that administration, a component of bias. So there will be more trends and really holding managers and leaders accountable as an organization's accountable? How are you monitoring your own team, I look at the year and look at you know, and you look at your team, and you take a look and see how are people tracking across and so shouldn't be for my people partner to do that, I should be able to ask the right questions to kind of get us to that point. So I think building on old building on all policies adding to and then thinking about how do we have people think about bias different?

NANCY CONNERY: Very well said, and, you know, as as we usually open with the same question for our podcast, we tend to really like to close with the same question every time as well. And, you know, if we all remember one thing from today's podcast, what would it be?

ANTOINE ANDREWS: Um, that's an interesting, you know, I think for me, it's, we are creating something, we're all trying to create something that that we've never seen before. And that's equity in this world. We've never seen it before. And I think the one thing you I want you all to know is that we all have to do our part to create that equity, which means we may not all experience and see that equity that we're looking for. And this is book that I'm reading that I've read called for pivots by Dr. Sean game, right. And Dr. Game right talks about the building of materials. When people build cathedrals back in some time, they knew they would never see those cathedrals built because it took so long to get there. So the one thing I've asked you all to remember, we're all creating the platform and the foundation and each step of the wrong that we want to want to see which is equity, be okay with not getting to the end state while your journey.

CAITLIN ALLEN: The journey that we're on together and really had been focusing on today. And when I think one of my learnings from today is also that we need more time. But we are. So thank you for being here and no worries. It's been it's been lovely. Well,

ANTOINE ANDREWS: thank you so much. Thank you, Caitlin. Thank you, Nancy. Good to see you, Emily. Thank you all take care, everyone. Yeah.

EMILY SWEET: Oh, my goodness. Okay. Caitlin, Nancy, Antoine, thank you so much. That was really such a treat. I agree. We definitely needed more time for that. But it was filled with such good information. And we really appreciate you all doing that with us. Okay, everyone. Amazingly, we have come to the end of the program. So thank you for joining us. And I really do hope away you're walking away from this summit with new ideas, some new connections and a renewed commitment to help lead us all into this new era of pay transparency. We have certainly learned a ton today. And while we are at the tipping point, as we've heard time and again, over the course of the session, we know the work is far from over. So we hope you commit to taking whatever that next step is in your organization to advance equity and transparency. And to help you with that. I'm going to highlight a few incredible resources which you can access in links that are