David Avdul

▶0:01HostWelcome to the Built by People podcast, where we share the stories and insights of the world's top HR leaders. Join us as we dive deep into the minds of HR executives, uncovering their strategies, challenges, and triumphs in shaping today's workforce. I'm excited to welcome David Abdul to the Built By People podcast. David, thank you so much for joining us. And as a starting question, I always love to ask if you could tell us a little bit more about your career journey.

▶0:56GuestSure, absolutely. Well, I started out working in, uh, I worked in a variety of industries. So after I got my master's degree, uh, in business and human resources, I worked in a variety of areas, worked in financial services, and then had a stint in manufacturing, back in financial services, manufacturing, and then into higher education. Um, so always in the HR space. Mostly in the technical natures of HR, but worked in a variety of environments and been blessed to do that. Like I said, mostly in corporate, but for the past 8 or 9 years, I've been working in higher ed, which has been really rewarding.

▶1:34HostDavid, I want to talk about the topic of pay equity. What steps do you take to ensure pay equity across different roles, locations, and demographics? And how do you maintain transparency? In this area?

▶1:48GuestSure. You know, I think you have to have a thoughtful approach to both of these topics. So when we talk about pay equity and pay transparency, both of these are relatively new in the compensation field, but maintaining pay equity, I think, really is incumbent on having a good compensation structure in place. You know, and what does that mean? It means a philosophy, having guidelines around how you manage comp, having things like salary ranges, investments in other tools like salary surveys and technology to make all of this compensation analysis easier. So once you have some of that in place, you can manage compensation better and pay attention to pay equity. You need to be consistent. I think when we're talking about different roles in different locations, You need to be consistent, but realize that in different cities across the US, maybe multinational companies, different countries, there's going to be different approaches there. And you need to have tools, whatever that's geographic differentials, things like that, to be able to handle compensation challenges in those different locations. As far as pay transparency, I would say, you know, the first thing to do is figure out what the right level of transparency is at the organization. There's a big push. I work at DePaul University. Right now there's a state law coming out that mandates some certain levels of pay transparency, posting salary ranges and benefits information. But there's other levels of pay transparency too, like just posting general things about compensation at the organization. And it's really important to Have a strategy around that and be thoughtful around that. Continue to evaluate your approach, but be thoughtful about pay transparency and have a strategy around it. These things, both transparency and pay equity, are, like I say, relatively newer, but they're certainly more exciting. And I don't expect these things to go away anytime soon.

▶3:56HostDavid, how do you measure the effectiveness of your pay equity initiatives and What adjustments do you make based on the insights that you're uncovering in this area?

▶4:07GuestSure. I think it's an ongoing effort. You know, this is not a static process. So I think to measure these things effectively, you need to have some sort of statistical analysis, use regression or some sort of a modeling. That way you can really put some statistics to your outputs and then figure out how you want to remediate or correct some of these things. Yeah, and the adjustments, again, I think that's based on, you know, what the organization wants to do. There's consultants that can help with that, or they may have an internal approach. But again, I think from a— you need to have a thoughtful approach around it. But measuring the effectiveness, I think, is done by stats, and then ultimately making corrections or mediating in accordance to what the organization wants to do.

▶4:53HostHow do you see reward structures evolving over over the next 5 years, especially with trends toward personalization and flexibility?

▶5:03GuestSure. So I don't, I definitely see transparency, pay transparency and pay equity, things like that staying with us. I think there's a global focus. There's momentum not only in the United States, but across the globe for these initiatives. So I expect that to expand quite a bit. The trends towards personalization of flexibility, you know, I think when you talk about benefits, so we talked a lot about compensation so far, I do think it's about personalization. Benefits are very expensive for organizations, but organizations are, have different age groups. There's older folks, younger folks who are gonna have different needs. For benefits and different rewards based on their age group and the stage they're in in their lives. So, you know, I will say based on surveys and based on the research and all the work I've done, as it comes to benefits, as it relates to benefits, medical plans, retirement plans are always going to be really top of mind. But you probably can get more personalized or flexible in some of the other extra benefits or ancillary benefit programs. And get a little creative on some of the benefits you might want to offer at the organization as long as it fits within the, you know, the budget and the culture. But, you know, I do think personalization is here to stay, but organizations really need to be thoughtful about what they want to do for cost management and other ancillary programs that can maybe be differentiators for people to get people in the door and to retain people. That's where folks in this field experts, consultants, et cetera, in compensation and benefits can be helpful.

▶6:50HostWhat are some of the key components you believe will define competitive and fair reward packages in the future?

▶6:59GuestYes. Well, as I mentioned, I don't think the importance of medical insurance and retirement plans, competitive plans, I don't think that's going to go away. So I think those are going to still be key components in the future. And then where the organization can potentially differentiate itself will be in some of those other benefit plans. I think that things like mental health, I know in some of our plans and, you know, just in general what's going on in the field and in the country, mental health is an important issue and something to pay attention to. So having a robust strategy around making sure employees are cared for, have the care that they need for mental health is going to be really important. And, you know, and then there's other things like GLP-1s on the drug prescription drug front. These are the weight loss drugs like Wegovy. And, you know, these are all things that compensation and benefit professionals are going to have to decide whether those fit into their— and how they fit into their total rewards packages and if they're going to be competitive and fair. I don't think, you know, we talk about competitive and fair. There's a lot of surveys out there, salary surveys, benefit surveys, and there's— I don't think there's— the focus on those is going to go away. So I think organizations will continue to benchmark these plans. They're just going to have to be really specific on what programs they select, what's their strategies for cost management, etc. I think the approach of benchmarking is still going to be around there, you know, with some of these trends we're seeing now in the compensation and benefits field affecting some of that. So hopefully that explains it. And I'll mention, I think the transparency— we talked a little bit about that before. I think that's here to stay, right? There's more and more transparency around Think about AI, you think about salary information on salary.com and Glassdoor, that information's out there. So, and even cost transparency with benefits. So we need to embrace some of that 'cause I think that's gonna be here to stay and people are gonna be more aware of what a competitive and fair reward package is. So gonna be really important.

▶9:20HostCurious to get your perspective on the topic of equity, both in terms of infusing fairness within the organization and also providing things like stock options and reward structures and what role you see it playing in employee engagement and retention?

▶9:36GuestWell, I think equity is, is gonna play a huge role. I think it, it all always has, uh, for, you know, mostly public companies, but in reward structures, I mean, you know, LTI and equity are, you major reasons for, you know, for building wealth, for retention. For example, if you want to, you know, you have a key person or a key executive, really a key person, I would say putting in vesting schedules on these plans and the appropriate vesting is really, really key for both building wealth for the individual and for retaining that person at the organization. I don't, I think that's always been the case. I don't see it slowing down that much, but for public companies and particularly for executives, I think that focus on fairness and equity in reward structure is going to be really important. You know, I think it's important to mention it can be difficult to benchmark these programs and benchmark competitiveness. I've been in the field for 25-plus years. It's always kind of difficult to say what, you know, what's an appropriate LTI amount. The survey data can be a little bit wonky sometimes, but Trying to find that, the best, that information out there so you can do the best you possibly can in benchmarking is going to be really important, but it's a little tougher, you know, than benchmarking base salary or even total cash compensation. But I still think equity is going to be around, you know, unless there's some sort of major legislative change. But I think it's still going to be a major part of these programs in the future and organizations who can find this information, find benchmarking information to attract and retain key talent using these vehicles, you know, is going to be critical to the best they can find the information.

▶11:21HostDavid, any parting advice you'd like to share with our audience?

▶11:26GuestWell, I would say, you know, be flexible. You know, there's no one-size-fits-all for reward structures. Try to listen. To your population. A lot of people talk a lot, but they don't listen. So try and figure out what your organization wants. You can do that through listening sessions, through surveys, you know, and then you can potentially tailor your approaches accordingly. A few other things I'd mention: engage with consultants. I've always found consultants to be extremely helpful. They're many times on top of what's going on in the industry, cutting-edge tools or programs or processes. You know, they can always help you out. You know, and an understanding about things change extremely quickly, right? We, I don't think we would talk about pay transparency or pay equity 5, 10 years ago. You know, these were all sort of nebulous concepts. So understand that things Change quickly, be ready to adapt. And I'd say maybe most importantly, try to be honest and upfront with your population. You know, sometimes HR total rewards people have a lot of skepticism. So to the point, you can be honest and upfront with not only employees, but, you know, anyone in the organization, I think is only going to help gain, get credibility and gain trust around the employee workforce.

▶12:55HostDavid, thank you so much for joining us on the Built by People podcast. It was a great pleasure having you involved.

▶13:00GuestThank you so much. Appreciate it.