5-Star Total Rewards: Why Getting the Basics Right is Everything

Welcome 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 James to the Built By People podcast. James, thank you so much for joining us. And as a starting question, I always love to ask if you could share

a little bit more about your career journey. Yeah, so my journey in my career started back when I was a child, really. I had 3 amazing parents, but each of them had their own unique experience in their work life. So my mom, she was an elementary school teacher. She was always very excited when she came home from work. You know, everyone got hugs and kisses. I also had my dad and my stepdad. Now my dad and my stepdad, they were working these jobs that were production heavy. My dad was an editor for a magazine and for books. Mostly textbooks. So he would go to work every day and have to edit, I don't know, 10,000 words a day. My stepdad, he was a chef in these corporate cafeterias in Manhattan. So he would go to work and sort of scramble to make 1,000 sandwiches for people in these big skyscrapers in the city. They would come home from work exhausted. They would throw their bag down. They would go take a nap for 2 hours and they just never seemed happy. Luckily, later in life, both my dad and my stepdad, they found their true calling in their careers. My dad went back to school when he was 40 to enter the medical fields and my stepdad Steve, you know, he actually wound up working at a butcher shop and he's the happiest guy in the world now. That difference between those three parental figures in my life truly got me interested in this field of total rewards. I think intuitively when I was younger, I knew there must be a field out there where you sort of manage the psychology behind work and what motivates people to perform at their best at work. And so that's kind of how I got into it. As I entered college, that early experience always stayed with me and I truly wanted to solve that motivational puzzle of how do you make someone go to work every day, which no one really wants to do, but when they get to work, how do you keep them happy? How do you keep them engaged? And how do you keep them doing what they love?

James, you've mentioned in the past that getting back to the basics in total rewards is crucial. Can you elaborate on what these basics are and why companies often overlook them?

Yeah, so in my current role at Crunch Fitness, I'm the director of total rewards, but I also have the privilege of overseeing payroll. So I think what many people don't realize is that when you get benefits on day one, whenever you start a new job, or maybe when you start a new job, your benefits start the first of the month after you begin. To get those benefits delivered accurately, it's a huge puzzle. There's probably 10, 15, sometimes 20 steps behind the scenes for you to actually get your benefits when you're supposed to. You might log into your medical insurance website and your details might not be there. But I think there is such an interesting field of work behind the scenes where you have to program systems, you have to link the payroll system, you have to link the insurance system to the HR system. There's just so many moving pieces. And I think that's what I mean when I say getting back to basics is really important. I think total rewards can be very strategic, but at least from my perspective, seeing the payroll side of it as well, it's really important for practitioners to understand the importance and just kind of get it right when it comes to actually delivering benefits on time correctly. And when the employee is entitled to them.

James, how do you approach customer service in Total Rewards, and what specific strategies have you implemented to improve the employee experience with benefits?

So I think I'm a big believer in the word dichotomy. I love the word dichotomy. I love thinking about different fields that might not be totally related, but you can pull common threads from each of them. So for example, in my personal life, I'm a huge hospitality guy. I love hotels, restaurants. You know, I think if you step into a 5-star hotel versus a 2-star hotel, it's a dramatic difference. So I actually really take a lot of elements, I think, from the hospitality field and apply it to the total rewards field. I think every day when I go to work, I try to envision myself as almost like this concierge at a 5-star hotel. And I take that approach when delivering benefits and delivering compensation to people. The best hotels, the best restaurants in the world, they focus on not only what you need right now in the moment, but also what you need next. So I'm always trying to think, at least in my field, what do people need next that they might not have even realized yet themselves? So for example, the other day, there was an employee who wanted to change one of their benefits. The deadline to change it was the 10th of the month. He mentioned in passing that there was a need to change. He wanted to change plans, something like that. And so it got to be around the 8th of the month and I was like, you know, hey, the deadline's coming up on the 10th. How can I help you make this change in the system? So that to me, just thinking about what people need next and just almost anticipating their needs before they know it themselves is truly what I live for. And that's really why I love this field. I think it's really great and a lot of fun actually to kind of take these other fields like hospitality, restaurant, and just almost think of yourself in that way as well when you're doing total rewards.

James, you worked in the fitness industry with both Orangetheory and now Crunch Fitness. How does this industry's unique cultural influence your approach to total rewards?

So I read this book about 6 months ago by Jack Altman. He's the founder of Lattice, and he talks about culture and his approach to culture is you have to have 3 pillars. You have to have purpose, community, and growth. So if you think about the fitness industry, you know, that's just such a massive and important purpose. You're helping people get healthy, you know, reach their weight loss goals, you know, build strength, build muscle. That to me is the ultimate purpose in the fitness industry. Just help people change positively. And then when you think about community, I think if you walk into any gym in America, there's this palpable sense of excitement, of achievement, people just reaching their goals every day. And so to me, there's no community better than a gym. And then when it comes to growth, I think in general, the fitness industry is— there's such room for growth. You can kind of start out at the lowest level in the fitness industry, and if you have the right growth mindset, the right sales mindset, very quickly you can move on up to lead a region, lead a gym, lead a bunch of gyms. It's a really incredible field in that regard because there's all these sort of sales competencies and all these sales concepts that you can truly excel at if you have the passion and if you're able to link those three pillars together, purpose, community, and growth. I think it's truly magical, and that's something that I try to apply to my total rewards philosophy every day.

James, can you share a specific example of how taking that extra mile approach in benefits administration has made a significant impact on the employee experience?

Yeah, so I think this happens quite often, unfortunately. I think the insurance world, it's so complex, so complicated. It's never simple. You know, something as simple as getting a prescription from your local pharmacy can take days and days by the time you talk to the insurance company, by the time you talk to your doctor, by the time you get authorized. So about a year ago, there was an employee who truly needed a life-saving medication for his son. Unfortunately, the insurance company was giving him a pretty hard time with just getting that prescription filled. But I did take it upon myself to call the insurance company. We got on a call with the insurance company, the doctor, the pharmacy conference call. And I think it's just so important to go the extra mile and make sure that the employees actually get what they need from you, as opposed to passing them off to another 800 number that might not help them or passing them off to the pharmacy who might not have all the other details about the employee's unique circumstances that you do. So I always try to, again, going back to that concierge mindset, always try to be that missing link between all these various struggles that the employee might face when dealing with their benefits.

James, in your view, what's the biggest misconception about innovation in total rewards?

That's a great question. I think the biggest misconception is, again, getting back to basics, I think you truly have to understand that Yes, it's great to kind of pursue these innovative things and these innovative benefits in total rewards, but if you don't deliver on the basics, if you don't deliver on getting that insurance right for day 1 or day 30 or day 90, even, it's just drastic. I think benefits are so personal and so is compensation to people. It truly is, in my perspective, one of the most important touchpoints in the employee experience. If you think about Maslow's hierarchy of needs, benefits compensation, they all kind of tie into that base level of need. And if you're not delivering that, the person is going to feel this breach of trust between them and the organization. So that's why it's super important. And that's a very common misconception. I think people just overlook that in our field. I think you truly have to think about the needs you're helping serve and think about how you can deliver truly excellent service to help the employees reach their goals personally. And once you do that, once you satisfy those base needs and those base truly necessities, you're able to build this amazing employment relationship that will again, kind of transpire to the rest of the company.

James, what parting advice would you like to share with our community?

So getting back to dichotomy and just converging all these different ideas together, I think Disney World is a great example of just providing truly excellent service. So you go to Disney World in Florida, people, they're not really there for the rides. Everyone comes back and they just kind of, they're wowed by the customer service experience at Disney. Disney must spend $200 million to build a roller coaster., but when you come back, people just love the service, right? So I read in a, in a book a few years back, Disney has what they call the LAST, L-A-S-T model when it comes to service, and that's listen, apologize, solve, and thank. So whenever you're facing an issue in Total Rewards or even in life, really, if there's a roadblock or an obstacle that you're helping someone solve, I truly think it's important to follow those four pillars, listen to their problem. You know, if there's an issue, apologize for it, solve it, and then thank them for their patience, right? And if you follow that very simple framework, it's truly very powerful and it has a great impact.

James, thank you so much for joining us on the Built by People podcast.

It was a pleasure to have you involved. Likewise. Thank you so much.