Salary.com's Senior Consultants - Predictions for HR and Comp in 2025 - HR Data Labs podcast

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Announcer (00:00):
Announcer, the world of business is more complex than

(00:03):
ever. The world of humanresources and compensation is
also getting more complex.
Welcome to the HR data labspodcast, your direct source for
the latest trends from expertsinside and outside the world of
human resources. Listen as weexplore the impact that
compensation strategy, data andpeople analytics can have on
your organization. This podcastis sponsored by Salary.com, your

(00:26):
source for data, technology andconsulting for compensation and
beyond. Now here are your hosts,David Turetsky and Dwight Brown.

David Turetsky (00:38):
Hello and welcome to a very special. HR
data labs podcast. I'm yourhost. David Turetsky, alongside
my co host, friend. BFF, partnerin crime. Dwight Brown, from
Salary.com. Dwight how are you?

Dwight Brown (00:50):
I'm good! Probably more partner in crime than
anything.

Statute of limitations isn't up on that
yet.

That's true.

We have an extremely special podcast
episode for you today, becausewe're going to be talking to our
buddies on the senior consultingteam, the salary.com experts in
compensation and HR consulting,and I'm going to go around the
horn and say hi to each one ofthem. First, let's start with
Courtney LeCompte! Courtney, howare you?

Courtney LeCompte (01:18):
I'm doing well. How are you?

good! Welcome.
The next person, Eric McMillan,Eric, how are you?

Eric McMillan (01:25):
Fantastic today.

Greg Wolf, how are you sir?

Greg Wolf (01:29):
You know, couldn't be better. You know, the Chiefs won
yesterday, but I promised Iwouldn't bring it up, so sorry
about that.

That's okay.

Just let it slip, didn't you? You just let it
slip.

For those of you don't know Greg Wolf, he is a
rabid Chiefs fan. And of course,you could say this about most
weeks where they won on Sundayor Monday or whenever. Garry
Straker, how are you, Garry?

Garry Straker (01:51):
I am terrific.
Thank you. Nice to seeeverybody.

Good to see you too. And Angela Bailey, Angela,
how are you?

Angela Bailey (01:59):
Hello. I'm great.
Happy Monday.

Happy Monday.
Yes, we're recording on a Mondaymorning, and we're all excited
about this. So Dwight, this isgoing to be fun. Don't you
think?

I think it's going to be a blast, the last was a
blast. So I expect, I expect asmuch or better from this team.

Well, what we're gonna start with. Everybody
remembers this, if you'velistened to one or you've
listened to many, you know,we're gonna go around the horn
and ask, What's one fun thingthat no one knows about you? And
yes, Courtney, you're up first.

Oh gosh, one thing that nobody knows. I'll
tell you one that I'm not superproud of. A small circle know
this about me. I've triedmultiple times to have pets, and
it never works out!

Hopefully they're fish!

I. Yeah, my son had a bearded dragon, like a
couple years ago, and the petstore person told me to take it
outside to give it some sun, andI ended up killing it because I
just took the whole cage out, orwhatever, and it died. So I
don't know, we're not gonna

Was entering a snowstorm or what?

No, look up greenhouse

It was warm outside. I wanted it to have
some sun, but it was in theglass and it fried it.

Okay? I just got this feeling of being in a sun
lamp for hours. Okay,

oh, my God, you killed a lizard, a lizard.

We don't have any pets.

But then afterwards, you had barbecued
lizard.

So, yeah, exactly.

That's a good one, Eric, can you beat that
one?

I don't know. I know that I'll never try to
cross Courtney, though!

Why'd you put me in this greenhouse, Courtney?

In the heat? Who needs waterboarding when you've
got the sun technique fortorture!

That's right.
Magnifying glass withgrasshoppers? Yes.

So that's Eric's, he has used a magnifying
glass on grasshoppers. Wow.

I was probably six years old, yes.

So that was a good one.

I think you know what I think of something nobody
knows about me. This is kind ofmore nobody from work would know
this. Everybody knows that Ilike to ride a bicycle and
things like that, but I actuallyhave a club name, right nickname
in the cycling community, andit's Dutch for Dutch Diesel, if

(04:35):
you know who that is, fromcycling, but that's something
that very few people know aboutme outside of this other life
that I outside of work.

Eric, as long as it's not Lance Armstrong, I
think we're all okay,

yep, I think we're good

Is this because you look like Dutch, or are you
fast like Dutch?

That's a longer story, Angela.

Oh, yeah, we'll do that next time we all get
together, Angela. Greg, howabout you?

Greg Wolf (04:59):
You know, I think.
Think most people know I havenine grandkids.

Wow,

Greg Wolf (05:03):
One on the way, another one on the way. And, you
know, I started out where myoldest daughter says, Well, Dad,
what do you want her? What doyou want him to call you? I
said, How about Greg?

Really?

Greg Wolf (05:15):
Yeah, yeah. But in that grandpa type stage, so I
agreed to Papa.

Aww

Greg Wolf (05:22):
So Papa Wolf, Papa Wolf, Papa Wolf. I have a
granddaughter that just saysWolf. So now it's a standing
joke. She's older now, hey Wolf.
And I'm like, Okay, fine. I'llgo with that.

That's awesome.
That's that's a really cute one.
Thank you. Greg, all right,Garry, how about you?

Yeah. So I as you as you know, I lived and worked
in London for many years, andafter living and driving in
London for about eight years, Ihad to take a UK driver's
license because my US driver'slicense expired. During that
driving test, I almost hit apedestrian, but I still managed
to pass the driving test, andthe only reason I passed the

(06:04):
driving test is because I hitthe brake sooner than the
inspector, as they call them,hit the brake on his side of the
car, because there was dualpedals on the car. So and I
spent almost the entire drivingtest looking in the rear view
mirror and my side mirrors,because someone told me that the
way you pass a driving test inthe UK is to always be aware of

(06:26):
what's behind you. So So I didthat pretty effectively, but
nearly hit a pedestrian in theprocess. So there you go,

and as long as you don't kill the pedestrian,
you're fine. It's only whenthere's great bodily injury or
death involved that they failyou for it.

Yeah, that would have been a failure. I'm pretty
sure.

It would have been. Yeah,

I got lucky.

Wow. Okay, well, I actually have my UK license
too. Someday we should comparethem. No pictures! Angela,
you're next.

Ah, I'm such an open book. Something no one on
this team probably knows is Idid live theater when I was in
college.

Oh, awesome! Singing or or just acting?

No singing, only karaoke. Lots of acting.

Now I know one of our activities next time we
get the team together.

Yes, I do love really bad karaoke. You guys may
not have known that either.

Well, then we're definitely going to do that next
time we all get together.

Sounds good

Greg Wolf (07:22):
What was your best role in that, you know? So did
you have a leading role, or atree or something?

yeah, a tree.

No, I know. I always played a person, Greg.

Greg Wolf (07:33):
okay

I was in a two act play, or two person play
written by one of the otherstudents who played a soldier
and I actually played aprostitute.

Oh, oh, wow.
Juicy role!

It was very juicy.

We're gonna move on, given the fact that this is
an HR podcast. Dwight, what'sone fun thing that no one knows
about you?

well. So I revealed on the season eight my
the fact that I used to singsoprano in the Rochester boys
choir and but I was, I waspretty musical when I was
younger. So I played piano. Iactually won a state competition
in piano when I was, I think Iwas 11 when I did that, so

that's cool.

Greg Wolf (08:26):
Wow, awesome.

Yeah, and I couldn't even begin to read or
play a note anymore because Igave it up at the age of 13 and
haven't touched it again.

I would love to hear you try to hit a soprano
note!

I think we all would!

No, you wouldn't!

We'll try that during karaoke.

Right.

Okay, and so I'll skip mine, given the fact
that everybody knows everythingabout me, and it's so hard to
scrape another thing off thefloor to be able to tell you. So
we're gonna go right into ourtopic today, which is
predictions for 2025. We'regoing to start though with this
team reviewing their predictionsfor 2024 because we did this

(09:07):
episode, wow, probably late 2023where we talked about what was
upcoming for 2024 and so we'regoing to review those for right
now and see where they've takenus, see how accurate we were.

(09:30):
So Courtney, we're starting withyou. Your 2024 prediction was
traditional benefits beingrestructured with more mental
health and wellness offerings. Ithink this is a hard one, but,
but what do you think? What'syour opinion about that one?

Yeah, I think it's hard for us to gage, but my
guess is that many organizationsprobably did restructure their
traditional benefits to enhancehealth and wellness offerings,
you know, and have more focus onholistic well being for. Their
employees, but I didn't hear asmuch about it as I thought we
would, so I don't think it wasas much of a trend as I

(10:07):
originally anticipated. Notsaying that organizations didn't
do it, it just wasn't as much ofa trend.

Right. I'm still going to give you a passing
grade, because I think mostcompanies have actually focused
on it given some of the claimshistory they've been dealing
with, especially around mentalhealth.

For sure.

So I'm gonna give you a B plus on that one,
even though it may have beenunder the radar.

I'll take it!

Okay, well, David, I was gonna add, I think
in the past year, is when Inoticed that, you know, there's
apps for mental health andwellness. I'm sure they were
there before. I just kind of,they actually have commercials
on TV for them now, sosomebody's buying that service
enough for them to advertise. Soyeah,

Well, for those of us who tried to get mental
health counseling during thepandemic and knew it was a
nightmare, especially givenlicensing issues in our states
and because everybody was askingfor those kind of services,
those things have been Godsends, Eric, especially when
you've been able to get muchmore tele health than we used to

(11:08):
in the past, especially withmental health challenges. So.

Right.

So Eric, we're rolling into you now. Your 2024
prediction was remote workstruggles with for organizations
and employees. And gotta behonest, my friend, that was
really top of mind for mostcompanies.

Yeah, I think, I mean, I've, you know, paid
attention to that. A lot ofclients were still asking
questions about that in termsof, how do we deal with all our
remote workers? Someorganizations were completely
remote. Other organizations,probably in the last six months,
started the return to office,and probably got with mixed

(11:46):
reactions there from theemployees who now have to report
to an office several days a weekor something. So I feel pretty
good about that one.

Yeah, yeah. That was spot on. I think that one
was an A plus. What do you thinkDwight?

Yeah, I definitely agree. And I think the you know,
my feeling on it was that thatgenie isn't going back in the
bottle, but I think the realityis that some of these
corporations are forcing it backin the bottle. And so it'll be
interesting to see how thisplays out over the next year or
two, as some of that volley takeplace with it

absolutely.
Greg, you had a reallyinteresting one, which was lower
salary increase than 4% what doyou think?

Greg Wolf (12:32):
You know? I You could kind of feel it happening in the
market, where it was just beingpulled back a little bit, and
even though, for a while it wasmuch higher, and there was such
an emphasis, you know, you justkind of felt the kind of fatigue
setting in that, okay, we've gotto kind of take a breath. We We
can't keep moving forward. So Idon't know. I mean, you can kind

(12:55):
of look and see what they were,I guess they were under 4% and
in kind of most kind ofpredictions and and it'll be
interesting to see how it playsout this year. But, you know, I
don't know it's still up in theair.

The surveys are definitely pointing to lower and
we don't have the inflationarypressures anymore. So that's
not, we're not getting thepressures from the employees or
the the unions as much. I mean,we did. Maybe the unions is
still to a larger extent.

Greg Wolf (13:24):
yeah

But we're definitely not seeing
inflationary pressures pushingon the merit increase or the
total increased budgets. Soyeah, as we get the surveys
back, and as we start toreconcile what's actually going
to happen in 2025 versus whatactually happened in 2024 I
think you were dead on with lessthan 4% so what do we want to

(13:46):
give him? How about A on thatone?

Yeah I'd go with an A.

yeah, good one.
Garry, career progression lineof sight as best practice. So we
definitely saw a focus on thisduring the discussions around
pay transparency.

Yeah, we did David and there were two states,
Colorado and Illinois, thatintroduced as part of their pay
transparency laws a requirementfor career progression
disclosures. And I thought maybethis was going to be a trend. I
thought maybe we would see morestates requiring that. Certainly
we expect more states tocontinue to, you know, consider

(14:23):
increased pay transparencylegislation mostly focused on,
you know, wages, right, andproviding some visibility into
salary ranges for various jobs,the career progression, you
know, line of sight, you know, Idon't know that we're going to
see a lot more legislativeactivity around that, certainly,
even that exists in Illinois andColorado has very limited

(14:45):
enforcement action, right? Soit's, it doesn't have a whole
lot of legs. But, you know,anecdotally, we are seeing a lot
of organizations who we workwith begin to focus on internal
equity. You know, we'vehistorically as consultants,
we've, we've always sort ofrelied upon market pricing, as
have our clients, to sort ofdevelop job hierarchies. But we

(15:06):
are seeing a lot of interest inin understanding the
relationship of jobs and thehierarchy of positions, and
that's, I think, going to, youknow, probably continue to be an
area of focus and challenge fora lot of organizations.

Absolutely. And for those organizations that
actually have to operate inIllinois or Colorado, we would
hope that they would utilizethis opportunity to use career
progression or career frameworksacross the board, right, as what
we were calling the, yeah, thehighest common denominator. Or,
you know, however you want tolook at it, lowest common

(15:40):
denominator. All right. So whatdo we want to give them on this,
Dwight? I think it's a B

Yeah, I'll go with B plus.

B plus! Oh, okay, good. You're, you're a
great grader. Um, all right,Angela, you didn't give us a
prediction last year because youweren't with us. So what would
your prediction have been?

I got a good one,

and then we'll grade you based on that

I see a Republican takeover of the
House, Senate and presidency in2024 No, I'm kidding.

You know, I did have a prediction that pay would
start to level out. So kind ofalong the lines of what Greg
said, but not just payincreases, but, you know,
chasing the labor and chasing,you know, recruitment efforts
with higher pay and higherincentives. I thought that would

(16:35):
start to level out, and I thinkit has. I think it will continue
to level out.

Okay, well, in retrospect, what do we think?
Dwight, that seems like an Aplus, but,

yeah, I'll go with you on that. All right. All
right. We definitely saw thattrend happen.

Greg Wolf (16:51):
Okay, hey, why did I only get an A then?

It's, you know, what? I'm actually going to make
Greg, make Greg's an A minusnow, given the fact that he has
challenged our grading!

Yeah exactly. You have been graded down now.

Greg Wolf (17:08):
So long is it's an A, you know, if I got an A, it's
not very common, so I'll takeit.

The overachiever.

Well, there were some fascinating follow up
predictions. And Dwight, youactually had a good one, and it
was on recessionary pressures.
Did you want to talk a littlebit about that?

Yeah, I think we were starting to see little
blips on the radar of potentialrecession. And you know, even
though we haven't, we haven'tgone into a deep recession, I
think we're seeing just in thejob market, and the leveling out
of pay, the spending, the creditcard debt.

Oh, yeah.

You know, a lot of a lot of economic signs that we
may not be in full recession,but we definitely have kind of
pulled back into a little bit ofa recession, and hopefully we're
going to bounce back out of it,but it's going to take a bit.

Yeah, that would that's definitely an A plus.
Sorry, Greg, but we definitelyhad recessionary pressures. I
think all of us felt it, notjust on the business side, but
also on the consumer side aswell. And yeah, we're, we're
definitely had seen something,but it was much more of a
slowdown than it was a full onrecession. So yeah, sorry, Greg.

(18:29):
I hated to be right on that one,but Dwight, Dwight was right on
that one. So I'm gonna give youan A on that one. So that closes
off on 2024 and I think we'reall kind of sad we're coming up
on Thanksgiving here when werecord this. And I think all of
these predictions portend to aninteresting 2025 discussion.

(18:51):
Let's get into that now.

Announcer (18:54):
Like what you hear so far? Make sure you never miss a
show by clicking subscribe. Thispodcast is made possible by
Salary.com. Now back to theshow.

So 2025 prediction topics. Instead of
going from Courtney, because Isee the angst on her face, why
don't we start with going fromthe bottom up? So Dwight, I'm
going to hit you up first onthese predictions. Let's start
with you on your 2025 predictiontopic.

Okay, I want to talk about health care for a
minute. You know, in the wake ofthe pandemic, there was a mass
exodus of workers from healthcare, and the industry really
hasn't bounced back from that.
There's, you know, there's someindications that things are
getting a little less tight interms of staffing. But for the
most part, organizations arestill struggling. So

Oh yeah.

State of California, in response to this,
actually enacted a health careminimum wage law that went into
effect October 15 of this year,October 16, I'm sorry, and. Um,
that is really designed to tokind of combat some of these
staffing pressures thathealthcare organizations have.

(20:07):
So my, my prediction is thatCalifornia was first out of the
gate on this. But I, Ianticipate us at least seeing
legislation introduced in otherstates. You know how long it
takes to get passed we don'tknow for sure, but I think we're
going to start to see some ofthe same.

So over the weekend, Dwight, I heard a radio
commercial multiple times for ahealth care company in Palm
Springs, recruiting nurses andall levels of nursing, and
offering relocation bonuses andreally promoting, you know, the

(20:47):
work life experience, theemployee experience. Here I am
in Kentucky, hearing thesecommercials trying to recruit
nurses and soon to graduatenursing students to Palm
Springs, California.

yeah

Yeah. It's, it is incredible. I mean, the
pressures that they're feelingand the the pay and the
incentives that they're havingto offer just to get people in
the door, just like what youwere hearing in those
commercials, it's justphenomenal. And I, you know,
they're they're hit with thisother pressure of more of the

(21:27):
more the aging population comingthrough. So the demand for
services is increasing at thesame time as their staffing is
decreasing, for the most part.

You'd think that the healthcare industry was
dealing with this through themarket, meaning, change of
wages, as Angela pointed out,find new sources of recruitment
and be able to recruit the rightpeople. But going the
legislative route is using thehammer instead of using the
market. So maybe it'll change!It's a really good focus area,

(21:59):
and it's a really goodprediction, so let's follow up
and see what happens with that.
Okay, excellent, Angela, you arenext. What is your prediction
for 2025?

I hate to lean on politics but, but I'm gonna have
to, I think I'm gonna have, I'mgonna have two topics here. Is
that okay? They're really

As long as they are quick ones, yeah!

Yes, yeah. So I think we're going to see a lot
more focus on civility in theworkplace. I think we're going
to have a lot of conflict in thecoming months and years, and
then, you know, this massdeportation that we're, we're
hearing about, is going toimpact the workforce, it's going

(22:45):
to impact the labor market, it'sgoing to impact workplaces, it's
going to impact supply chain.
It's, I mean, if this happens,it's going to, you know, it's
not going to be good news. Let'sjust say that. I don't want to
say disastrous, but it's it'sgoing to be tough. It's going to

(23:05):
be tough for our country and andtough for our employers.

But you can imagine that there's also going
to be some civil pushback, likepotentially strikes, potentially
shutdowns. You'll see people whoare going to get out ahead of
this and say this is inhumane,and kind of stop up the works a
little bit. So it is going to beproblematic. I think the first
one about civility is going tobe tremendously important, given

(23:33):
the fact that there have been somany divides in neighborhoods,
people living next to each otherwith the signs on their front
lawns. And so it's, it's goingto extend into the workplace,
and it's going to cause troublein the workplace. So I totally
agree with both of both ofthose, and I hope you're right
that there's more civility, andhope you're wrong that we don't

(23:55):
have those deportations. Butthat's just me.

I do too.

I think you're spot on with those. I mean, even
with what we were talking aboutwith the healthcare staffing
shortage, one of the biggestcontributors is burnout due to
harassment by healthcareworkers. And I think that that
isn't only specific tohealthcare. I think it's across
the board. People are feelingit.

Well, especially when you're dealing with people
like travel industry, right?
They're facing a lot of burnouttoo. Yeah, all right, Garry,
you're up next, my friend.

Yeah. So I'm going to kind of stick with my
theme around internal equity.
And, you know, I think, youknow, as a result of the
election and the politicalclimate we're in right now, I
think we're going to see somepotential upheaval in the
workplace and maybe number ofdifferent dimensions. Of course,
the big thing that's catchingthe headlines is the sort of a
rollback of DEI initiativespushed by activist shareholders

(24:52):
and political agendas. And Ithink for some organizations,
they're going to double down ontheir DEI efforts. But I think,
you know, how we think aboutinternal equity, and how we
address in internal equity isgoing to be a challenge. And I
don't know if there's any, youknow, one way or right way. I
think every organization has todecide what's right for them

(25:13):
based on their culture and theirorganizational values. But I do
think that we're going to needto spend a lot more time, you
know, doing the work around whatwe used to call job evaluation,
which is really sort of buildinga job hierarchy, being real
clear about how we define rolesin an organization, and also
developing, you know, moreefficient and consistent
processes around performanceevaluation. And you know, we've

(25:37):
seen and heard a lotanecdotally, again, about, you
know, skills based hiring andand certainly that's an area
that we've focused on insupporting our clients and sort
of implementing, you know,skills competency based models,
but, but I see this is going tobe a real challenge for a lot of
organizations of all sizes. Ithink, you know, we're going to

(26:00):
see the headlines from, youknow, for some of the large
national, multi national,national corporations who are
being pressured, you know, to toroll back their DEI efforts. But
I think in a lot of otherinstances, you know,
organizations are going todouble down because it's
inherently important to them interms of their culture and
values and and I think it'll beinteresting to see how it all

(26:23):
shakes out.

That's a good one. We'll be watching that one
very carefully and closely.
Greg, how about you, my friend?
Is it a Chief's win in Februaryor?

Greg Wolf (26:35):
Yeah, no, don't jinx it, please. But you know, it was
kind of a little bit mine's thatI thought a lot about,
especially since we had ourfamily Thanksgiving dinner
yesterday, and the kids andspouses and grandkids were all
over and father in law, Mother,you know, on and on. But it

(26:57):
really focuses on remote workversus a return to work business
strategy and and, you know, it'spretty much we can't it's become
a permanent feature. I mean,it's almost like, hey, I'll quit
this job to be able to get aremote job. And it's kind of
interesting, because half of thekids and spouses work every day

(27:17):
outside, the other half havedifferent options. But, you
know, kind of for obviousreasons. And Dwight kind of
mentioned earlier, and he kindof let the genie out of the
bottle. It's not going back in.

Right

Greg Wolf (27:29):
But with that said, My prediction is that in 2025
you know, there's kind of astrong sentiment that, you know,
2024 kind of found its way andremote work is going to become
more prevalent. And there's alot of good reasons for that,
especially when you look atAmazon, Apple, Disney, kind of

(27:51):
saying, Hey, you're coming backto work. But I really think in
2025 we're going to see more ofgetting people back to work.
It's going to become morecommonplace. You know, I know
we're not into 2026 but I thinkit's going to be back in 2026
not to pre pandemic levels, butreally kind of more an exception

(28:14):
if you're working remote, thanthan vice versa. And I'll leave
it at the main reason for that,employers aren't going to try to
get the genie back in the bottletotally, even though they, you
know, there's enough surveysthat say, you know, getting them
back in the office improvesproductivity, on and on. I think
it's going to be pushed by theemployees.

Right

Greg Wolf (28:36):
Meaning that they're going to kind of get into, you
know, I kind of like the socialaspect. I kind of like learning.
And also the main thing, andit's kind of interesting,
because it came up yesterdayduring dinner, is that, you
know, in some ways, we only haveto go in as a hybrid, but you
almost feel that if you don't goin, you might be missing out on

(28:57):
opportunities. You might bemissing out on networking. So I
think it's going to be more of apush the other way, more from
employees, with the help andnudging of employers.

By the way, Greg, return to Office. Remember
all the problems we used to havebeing in the office? They're
still there!

Greg Wolf (29:16):
What are you talking about, David?

Uh, nothing. I'm not saying anything. I'm just
saying that, I think we have ashort memory on the things that
were problematic when we were inthe office, when we all worked
together. And I think there's aromanticism about when you come
into the office, everything'sgoing to be fixed and
everything's going to be better,and then when people do it and
they go, this place is a dump,and no one wants to talk to me.

(29:39):
And by the way, I'm not sayingour office, I'm just saying. Not
our office, just to be clear.
That you know, my coffee isbetter in my cup from my coffee
brewer. Let's just put it thatway.

Greg Wolf (29:53):
Hey, David, I think your point's a good one in that.
But I think employers are kindof realizing they're going to
make adjustments. It's like,hey, we want to get back to
work. And when you come intowork, we want to make you want
to be back, right? We want youto kind of get into the
positives and maybe eliminatesome of the negatives and and I
think kind of, we talked aboutbenefits a little bit. I really

(30:15):
do think organizations are goingto focus more on, you know,
maybe child care benefits, maybecommuter kind of support, those
types of things, just to makeit, you know that that umph.

Exactly, Greg, and that's what would make this
more successful, which is notjust telling them you got to,
but saying, Hey, we're going tohelp you do it! Which is very
different than a, Get your buttback in here or you're gone,
which is the way some of thecommunications had been going.
So

Greg Wolf (30:45):
Especially with some of the larger, high profile they
can get by with them. For amajority of companies, it's
like, no, they don't have thatkind of leverage. So it'll be
interesting. That's kind of whatI just in talking to folks and
hearing it.

Have we solved the child care problem?

No, definitely not!

No, that's going to be, that's going to be a big
rock to move.

I agree. I think some of these employers are
putting in their own child carecenters for that very reason.
I've seen that in the last 18months.

Yeah, so Angela's advice is buy stock in
Bright Horizons right now.

Yeah?

Yes, okay, Eric, it's your it's yours. What's
what is your 2025 prediction?

My prediction, it kind of goes along the same
lines as what Garry mentioned,right? But I think there's going
to be continued obligations fromorganizations around pay equity
and transparency, right? We knowit's it's a compliance exercise
in some areas and otherorganizations are doing it just
from a they think it's the rightthing to do, or they know it's

(31:54):
the right thing to do, orthere's that demand from people
they're trying to recruit, andthe general kind of workforce
just kind of will, I think,start to put more pressure on
employers of all sizes to be alittle more transparent around,
hey, what's the actualopportunity here? What's my next

(32:15):
step? How do I get there thosetypes of things.

Right

And, you know, just an increased focus on
internal pay equity, becauseit's just going to be something
that you talk about every weekand and I think outside of the
US right that's kind of goingthrough the EU right now,
different countries havedifferent timelines, but it's
definitely a focus there. And Ithink we're going to see more of

(32:38):
it.

Totally agree, Eric, and actually applaud that
one. And I'm already pre givingthat one an A plus.

It was an easy one.

Yeah. Alright, Courtney, you're up!

Okay, so a year ago, I remember Eric
predicting his trend that we'regoing to see more return to
office and I remember myreaction to that being no way!
Remote work is here to stay.
There's no way! So however,we've actually seen this year in
person work increasingly make acomeback. We've seen it all over

(33:16):
the news, big companies, youknow, like Amazon, Salesforce
pushing for employees to returnto work. And they're doing that
in various ways, right, like thehybrid models, some of them are
pushing full time return toOffice mandates. And then we saw
it in September, KPMG publishedtheir CEO Outlook Survey, and it

(33:38):
showed nearly 80% of CEOs planto have their employees back in
office within the next threeyears. And so my trend looking
into 2025, my prediction is thatwe will continue to see
companies, companies drivereturn to office with the aim

(34:01):
being to boost productivity andalso strengthen company culture.
Another thing I've noticed rightnow, I think there's this window
of opportunity as we shift from,you know, COVID remote culture
to this in office culture.
Candidates that are in themarket for a new job and are

(34:25):
willing to work on site have ahuge edge right now in the job
market. If they're willing to goin office, they'll be a cut
above.

Interesting. Yeah.

I agree with that. I do.

Yeah.

Personally, I give that one an F, but,

But, you actually know it's an A!

Yeah, exactly.

Professionally, I think it's an A but, but
personally, I hate it. So

Scoring bias!

Hey, a year ago, I was like, There's no way,
but we've seen it this year, soI think it's going to continue.

I think there's a there's definitely a note for
a trend here. I think it's alittle bit between, and this is
my personal opinion, betweenwhat Greg was saying and what
you're saying. I don't see itbeing so straightforward. I
think there still has to be thathybrid approach, at least in the
interim. And I don't agree thatwe are going to see productivity

(35:19):
gains for being back in theoffice. I think we had lots of
productivity gains.

That's the aim. I'm not saying that it will

Oh no, no, I know.

Yeah, I agree.

I just wanted noted for the transcript,
though.

Aim not the result.

Yeah, exactly.
Alright.

I think what's going to become clear is there's
a right way of doing it andthere's a wrong way of doing it.
And I think we're going to seesome companies fall completely
flat on their face, and somecompanies are going to have
raging success with it. Andit'll be interesting to figure
out what those right and wrongways are over the next year.

And I do think it depends on what your job, your
job family is, and where you arein your career. If you're in the
an early stage of your careerwhere you're still learning and
developing, I think that happensmore effectively when you're in
office, around colleagues tolearn and develop from.

Yeah

If you're in a job where you're just doing data
entry or programming and you'renot learning to do that more
effectively in an office, you'regoing to be better and more
productive remote. So I thinkthere's a lot of caveats there,
and I do to what Greg wassaying. I think because I've

(36:47):
talked to a lot of younger folkstoo, mostly in the HR arena here
in Kentucky, and they want to bein office, because that's where
they're learning, that's wherethey're growing, that's where
they're making an impact and abrand for themselves. So I do
think there's a lot of caveats.

Absolutely.

Yeah

I don't know if you all remember, but before the
pandemic, there were lots ofoutsourcing, and actually there
were lots of organizations whoare taking groups that didn't
need to be in an office, andthey were putting them in other
places. I know that, especiallyIdaho and Iowa and lots of those

(37:27):
out west, Midwest and West,those states were actually being
there, getting the recipients ofcall centers, for example, where
the call centers didn't need tobe back east, where they were
relatively expensive. And so mixthat with the need to not
necessarily be in an office, andto me, that seems like there
will be a right sizing of whoneeds to be in which office, and

(37:51):
so there may be satelliteoffices created in order to have
returned office makes sense andnot force people into coming to
an office. So it's not aprediction. That's a comment on
Courtney's strong return toOffice prediction. But now my
prediction. So I originally wasgoing to say to be honest,

(38:15):
because everybody knows on thispodcast who listens to me that
I'm an honest guy. I initiallywas going to say there was going
to be no rollback of FLSAchanges in 2025 actually, I get
an A on this. You know why?
Because the rollback happened in2024! And at least I can make
myself laugh on that!

On a technicality.

I won on a technicality, yes, because it
happened already.

I'm going to go with an F on that.

Yeah

My podcast, my rules. Sorry, Eric.

Come on, Dwight.
Back me up!

Dude. I'm with you.

Wow. Mutiny on the Bounty. You heard it here,
folks, but that's not going tobe my prediction. I'm being
honest. That was my prediction,and I was right, but my
prediction for 2025, will bethere will not be a major shift
in how HR does its work with theadvent of AI. Not yet. We're

(39:09):
going to start to see moreawareness of AI. We're going to
start to see potentially moreadoption of certain pieces of AI
in the HR world. But not awholesale change to HR, because
after just having seen all thisat HR Tech in 2024 there's going
to be a longer cycle foradoption here. So my prediction

(39:30):
for 2025 is no major change,major change in how HR gets done
within 2025.

Almost status quo, huh?

Potentially.

I think that's a good one, David.

Still though, and Dwight's putting up an HBR
about embracing AI at work.
Totally agree, Dwight. I'msaying there's not going to be a
sea change yet. I think we stillin HR, need an adoption curve
for AI in HR. And HR is sosensitive and personal that
we're gonna need to digest it abit to figure out what's the

(40:09):
right thing. Now, if we'retalking about bots taking on
process change, okay, I getthat. That's not major. That's
outsourcing, which we've alwaysbeen doing, outsourcing little
processes, what I'm where I'mcoming at it, and it's not going
to be this major thing thathappens in 2025 where we look
back in 2026 and go, Holy crap.

(40:31):
Do you believe that happened?
Not yet.

I'm with you on that. I think you're exactly
right. I mean, it's, it's soyoung on the adoption curve, and
there's so much unknown with it,and it's going to help in some
ways, but, yeah, it'll beinteresting to look back at the
prediction, but I agree with youmostly on it.

Well, I'm going to get all of you together next
year at around this time, rightbefore Thanksgiving, and we're
going to go through all of theseand see how we did.

I have a question.

yeah, go ahead.

How often are all of you using AI?

every day

every day

Well, I mean, we're using it every day for
changing our text as we'retyping or texting. So it's tough
to say, Angela, what do you meanby using AI? Are we using chat
GPT or some other generative AI?

You know, it's just a generic question, so I
don't disagree with you, David.
I don't think it's gonna have ahuge impact on changing HR as a
function, but I do thinkindividually, it's impacting the
way we're doing work.

Oh, sure!

Absolutely. Yeah,

yeah. I agree.

Listen, I mean, if you go to LinkedIn and you
put in a post in LinkedIn,there's a little thing there
that says, Do you want AI tocheck to see if it can fix what
you've written? So but thosethings have been happening for
years. We've just not realizedthat that's actually an
algorithm, you know, goingthrough our grammar, or going
through the words we're usingand making sure that they're
accurate. So, yeah, we've beenliving in it for a long time.

(42:06):
We've been swimming in it.
Problem is, is that it's, it's,those are very, very small
changes to how we've been doingthings. Impactful, but small.

Yeah

Great.

Hey, are you listening to this and thinking
to yourself, Man, I wish I couldtalk to David about this. Well,
you're in luck. We have aspecial offer for listeners of
the HR Data Labs podcast, a freehalf hour call with me about any
of the topics we cover on thepodcast or whatever is on your
mind. Go tosalary.com/hrdlconsulting to

(42:40):
schedule your free 30 minutecall today.
Alright, anybody want to give upa backup or a follow up on what
they've said that there'ssomething that's burning from a
prediction perspective that youwanted to put on the record? All
right, look at these faces. I'mlooking at a bunch of faces, and
they're like, No, I've actuallysaid my piece, and we're good

(43:02):
with what we've said.

I'm solid, yeah.

Alright.
Courtney, you? No?

I don't, hey, I'm just going to support yours.
David, that was going to bemine. Seriously! Because I
think, I think this year was theyear that, in like at the
incumbent level, people increasetheir familiarity and comfort
around AI. And so I thinkslowly, it'll progress to
systems, and it'll be more onthe macro level. Yeah, it just

(43:27):
the pace right for adoption.

There you go.
Garry, how about you?

Yeah, I just think 2025 is going to be a year
of some uncertainty, and I thinkit's going to be a bumpy ride.
And not that we haven't beenthrough a bumpy ride in the last
few years, let's face it, but,but I think, you know, I think
the workplace environment isprobably going to change and
evolve for a lot oforganizations, and remains to be
seen how it all shakes out andmaybe differently for different
types of organizations. But youknow, we're going to have to pay

(43:56):
attention, right? And hopefullynot shoot from the hip. And you
know, before we make any sort ofsubstantive changes, hopefully
they're well thought out andreasoned and you know, to try to
find the best solution for thoseorganizations we work with.

Well said. Greg, anything from you?

Greg Wolf (44:13):
Maybe the only thing, I really think, probably the
main indicator on return to workis really the unemployment
level, if it gets above four,four and a half, 4.6 I think
that changes the dynamic and thebalance a little bit where
employers have a little moreumph of saying, Hey, we really
want you in the office if youcome here and with the limited

(44:36):
opportunities potentially thatthat's going to kind of help
drive it, other than employeeskind of seeing maybe the
benefits.

Yeah, good point. Angela, anything else?

I don't think so.
I'm just really concerned aboutthe impact of our political
environment.

I'm with you.
Eric, how about you?

I don't think I have anything to add to my
prediction. I think it's solid.

Speaks for itself.

I'm gonna end with my buddy, Dwight Brown.
Dwight, how about you?

No, I've said my piece. It'll be interesting to
see how it, uh, how it plays outin 2025, and I'm gonna in
advance give myself an A plus.
Well, so we'll see how thatplays out in 2025!

Yes, you heard it here, folks, he's gonna get
an A minus on his prediction,but he's gonna go A plus on his
on his doubling down on thatprediction.
Thank you all for joining.
You're all awesome. I am soblessed to work with such an

(45:49):
incredibly talented group offolks like yourselves. Thank you
very much for joining ourpodcast as guests today,
including you, Dwight. And Ilook forward to getting back
together with you next year andgoing over the all of these it's
going to be fun.

Look forward to it, David.

Looking forward to it.

Thanks everyone!

And thank you all. Take care and stay safe.

Announcer (46:12):
That was the HR data labs podcast. If you liked the
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like to hear it, please send ittheir way. Thank you for joining
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Salary.com's Senior Consultants - Predictions for HR and Comp in 2025

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.css-14f5ked{margin:0;word-break:break-word;display:-webkit-box;-webkit-box-orient:vertical;box-orient:vertical;-webkit-line-clamp:2;overflow:hidden;}Salary.com's Senior Consultants - Predictions for HR and Comp in 2025