Pay Equity and Pay Transparency: What you need to know, with Jane Ward

Pay equity and pay transparency laws are coming your way. 

This week, I caught up with Jane Ward, CEO and founder of Tomorrow's People, an innovative HR technology consultancy firm. Jane, a seasoned pro, shares her hard-earned wisdom on the importance of pay transparency and pay equity, as well as the game-changing intersection of HR and technology.

Jane discusses the challenges of establishing a HR tech consultancy, selecting the right technology platform, and managing a remote workforce. Notably, Jane shares her journey of growing Tomorrow's People, highlighting the importance of agility and understanding employees' needs in the face of a fluctuating market.

In an era where pay transparency is paramount, Jane provides expert advice on creating fair and equitable pay structures. She also enlightens us on the role of AI in the workplace, delving into the ethical considerations involved.

Hear how some of Australasia's most interesting and successful people are utilising People, Technology and Processes to live a productive life.

For more information on Lee Stevens visit www.leestevens.co

Sponsored by workforcery.com

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:08):
Welcome to the Time and Motion podcast with me, your
host, lee Stevens.
For over 25 years, I've workedwith businesses all over the
world to improve the technologyand the people within them.
In this podcast, I share someof my experiences and I chat to
guests who generously sharetheir stories of how to or, in
some cases, how not to live aproductive life.
I hope you enjoy the show.

(00:28):
Hi and welcome to Time andMotion with me, lee Stevens.
In today's show, I catch up withJane Ward, who is the CEO and
founder of Tomorrow's People,who are a HR technology
consultancy.

(00:49):
Jane and her team helpbusinesses select the right
technology for the right job andthe right problem.
Jane and I have a lot ofsimilarities in our backgrounds
and just our approach to life.
One thing I wanted to mentionbefore we start the show is
every now and then, a law or achange in people's beliefs and
ethos change what we do from atechnology perspective.

(01:10):
One of those changes, one ofthose laws, is the laws around
pay transparency and payequality and absolutely doing
the right thing, like all yourstaff Like, rightly so.
Laws are coming in to make usdo that, but how are businesses
going to do that if thetechnology isn't now, so Jane
and I had a really good chatabout that.

(01:31):
Jane explains what all theselaws are, what pay equality is,
what pay transparency is and why, as a business or a business
owner, you need to know aboutthat.
So with no further due on theshow.
Jane Ward, welcome to the show.

Speaker 2 (01:47):
Thank you for having me, Lee.
It's great to be here how areyou doing?
Really good, really good, thankyou.

Speaker 1 (01:53):
How sunny Auckland today.

Speaker 2 (01:55):
You know, it actually is sunny, it's stop raining,
it's blue skies, it's lovely andcrisp.
I love weather like this.

Speaker 1 (02:03):
Yeah, it does feel a little bit like we're coming
into summer, right.

Speaker 2 (02:07):
I don't know if I'd go that far living in Auckland
Like we're still under six feetof mud everywhere we go, but
it's beautiful blue skies today,so it's looking up at least.

Speaker 1 (02:17):
Good.
So tomorrow's people, let'sjust explain who they are, who
you are.

Speaker 2 (02:22):
Sure.
So tomorrow's people is I liketo describe them as my third
baby.
Tomorrow's people is my company.
We are HR technologyspecialists so we like to help
organisations navigate their waythrough the really complex
world of HR tech or peopletechnology Everything from
helping companies roadmap wherethey need to go to improve their

(02:43):
employee experience to helpingcompanies select the right
vendor to fit their needs,implementation and all the way
through to kind of managesupport so companies that don't
want to manage their owntechnology solutions will do
that for them.
It's a fun old world.
It's very niche, but my staffand I love it.

(03:03):
We live and breathe all thingstech.
We're a bunch of geeks.

Speaker 1 (03:09):
Fantastic.
So before we get into the goodstuff around what you do and
some of the work that you areworking on, let's just go back a
little bit and I'll say alittle bit so where did you grow
up and where was you born andwhat was your life like for you?

Speaker 2 (03:21):
Yeah, so I'm a little bit of a hybrid.
I suppose I was born in London.

Speaker 1 (03:26):
Oh, I can't.
I did not know that, did younot?

Speaker 2 (03:28):
I was born within the sound of the bow bells.
I'm a cockney.

Speaker 1 (03:31):
Like me, pop a cockney, then Pop a cockney, but
I'm not really.

Speaker 2 (03:35):
I've got to be totally honest about it.
My dad lived in Malibu.
My dad and my mum lived inMalibu, but I was born in the
East End and my mum was a Kiwi.
My dad was English.
They met in a casino Veryclassy.
When I was about three we movedto New Zealand where my mum was
from, and I moved around allthrough my childhood.
So I lived five years in theStates, couple years in New

(03:58):
Zealand, bit more time inEngland.
So I was educated across allthree countries, which is why
sometimes I get English wordswrong.
For things I can only sayaluminum, not aluminium.

Speaker 1 (04:09):
Spell things for Z.

Speaker 2 (04:10):
I say room instead of room and went back to England
for uni, studied psychology andeconomics which is a weird combo
and then fell into the world ofrecruitment, which I spent my
first kind of five years in mycareer six years in recruitment,
moved into HR and my HR careerwas always working in consulting

(04:31):
firms, which was reallyinteresting, and I kind of
watched what the consultantswere doing and I think I always
secretly wanted to be one untilI got to my kind of mid 20s and
I was like right, I'm fed upwith the kind of line HR role.
I don't think it's my naturalfit.
I want to be a consultant, butI love HR and I love making

(04:52):
employees' lives better.
So how am I going to combinethe two?
And I kind of fell into HRtechnology, which gives me that
nice balance of the geeky techside, which I love, but also the
whole values based employeeexperience piece which I'm
really passionate about.
So I started Tomorrow's People.
I was contracting for manyyears and then I started

(05:15):
Tomorrow's People in 2017.

Speaker 1 (05:19):
What was your first job?
So you mentioned that you kindof did uni in London sorry in
the UK.
So you always asked thisquestion.
So what was your first properjob?

Speaker 2 (05:28):
It's a bit my proper job or my first job.
My first job is quiteembarrassing as a promo girl.
Briefly, I had a great jobshaving my legs in supermarkets
to promote Venus Raisers, yeah,and I also had a great job where
I got to dress up as a giantdishwasher tablet and walk

(05:49):
around supermarkets handing outdishwasher tablet samples Not
ideal.

Speaker 1 (05:54):
So it can be a very real veiling podcast.
So I can see you, Jane.

Speaker 2 (05:57):
I'm a very transparent person.
My first proper job was reallyworking in the uni holidays for
Hazard Countancy personnel andtheir kind of tele-sales
department really so ringingpeople up to get the names and
details of people we wanted tohit hunt, so really again, very
classy.

Speaker 1 (06:18):
And it is kind of too prognetic.
Recruitment game, right, and Ithink it's interesting we was
talking about this off airyesterday but how the markets
have these dips right and youknow, if you've been around and
you're in your 40s you'veprobably seen a couple of them
at least.
And how recruitment I'mguessing where it's probably
been a case of.
I wouldn't say the jobs justkeep coming in, but the jobs

(06:40):
have probably been pretty freeflowing, whereas now it's
probably grafting and having towork a little bit harder for a
lot of recruitment consultantsright.

Speaker 2 (06:48):
Yeah, I mean I've got quite a lot of friends who are
still in that recruitment spaceand I think it's one of those
interesting shifts where, unlikemaybe a year ago, candidates
are everywhere.
You can find a candidate left,right and centre.
But finding those jobs to putthose candidates in it's just
that little bit harder and likeour life right.
We've talked a bit off airagain about running consultancy

(07:10):
firms and how that shift of whenthe jobs are just naturally
coming in, when you just have towork that little bit harder to
find the right opportunities,it's.
We're definitely seeing thatmarket this year.
But, like you said, when you'rein your 40s and as much as I'd
like to deny them in my 40s I amwe just see those ebbs and
flows and we're just in anotherone of those cycles and I've no

(07:30):
doubt we'll come out the otherside.

Speaker 1 (07:33):
Yeah, ok, so you touched on HR, tech being one of
your passions, and I would saythat's probably me as well.
You know if you can combinebusiness, people and technology.
You know you, I'm generally ina happy space, right, so you're
completely understand that one.
So you kind of entered theworld for recruitment.
You got to know a bit about HRand obviously consultancy, as
you say, helping people isdefinitely an element of that.

(07:54):
Just explain how tomorrow'speople come up, because I love
your story about the song title,right, because we had something
common there with Brighter Days.
The Brighter Days was a topTerry House track, which is my
old business, and you used thesame method, I hear.

Speaker 2 (08:08):
I did so.
I was, I was going skiing forthe weekend with a couple of my
girlfriends and we're in the carand I was like one of my
friends is a fantasticallytalented brand and marketing
woman and I was like I need tocome up with a name for this
company and I just don't knowwhat it is and I'd named it.
You know, you have to fill in aname when you register a

(08:29):
business and I'd registered itmany years ago and it was my
middle name at the time, whichis a random Welsh name, alwyn
and no one ever knew how topronounce it or spell it.
I was like it's really time tochange this.
And she was, like what do youwant it to represent?
I was like I want it torepresent like the future of
work and that coming together ofHR and business and technology,

(08:49):
like you said.
And we were listening.
We were listening at the timeto a great song, we were
listening to all all tomorrow'sparties by Valver Underground,
and she went tomorrow's peopleand I went yeah, sorry, I'm
probably not meant to swear.

Speaker 1 (09:08):
That's all right, we'll have to take the box.
Stay this way.

Speaker 2 (09:11):
Yes, perfect, and we named that company right there.
And then tomorrow's people andit's.
It really represents what wewant to do.
Right, it's all about thefuture of work, it's about what
we can do, but the main thing isthat word people.
And it's all about people, bothexternally and internally.
And the minute I started acompany, in the minute I started

(09:33):
hiring staff I was, I had avery clear idea and that was and
this is personal, but as a as afemale business owner who at
that stage was in my 30s and itjust recently kind of had young
children at home, I was reallystarting to see how hard it was
to work and have a balanced lifewith kids.

(09:55):
And I'm very, I'm in a veryprivileged situation.
My husband's great, he's reallyinto being at very hands on
father, so we had a good balance.
But I just kept hearing thesestories about really remarkable
women who couldn't get jobsbecause they wanted part time
work or they wanted a bit moreflexibility.
And you know it's hard toremember sometimes, but pre

(10:18):
COVID there was no such thing ashybrid work.
No one did that right.
So I was like, right, I'm goingto start a consulting company
and I'm going to offer thisfully flexible work life balance
model and I'm going to make itwork and I'm basically going to
show the way it can be done.
Now, that was a very grandiosestatement and it is certainly

(10:39):
not been that easy.
But the first thing I did washire two phenomenal women, both
of whom are with me still today.
One's my kind of 2 I C chiefoperating officer and the other
one has actually moved into akind of finance role with the
business.
But they were both incrediblytalented women with a huge
background in HR technology andHR technology implementations,

(11:02):
who'd come back from overseasand couldn't get a job because
they wanted part time work,because they were still raising
their children.
And we hired them.
I heard them both and you knowit just grew from there and for
the first gosh, for the firstthree years, we're entirely
female, not intentionally, justgrew organically.

(11:23):
And then I was like cool, thisisn't great for my quality and
diversity.
I need to hire some guys and youknow we now have a slightly
more equal workforce, but we'restill very heavily female, I
must say, and fully flexible.
People can work how they want,where they work.
We've got part time as fulltimers and it's tough parenting
right.

Speaker 1 (11:43):
I mean I just said to someone the other day my wife
went away for five nights or sixnights and even though my kids
are like 13 and 11 now nearly 14and nearly 12, they're still
hard work and that's literallylike being on a say that don't
know on those conveyor beltswhere.
So you get up, you do the lunchboxes, you have to take them to
school.
You might do a little bitworking between, if you're lucky

(12:05):
, picking them up from the back,picking them up for free kids
sports, you know, getting backfor dinner, bath shower, you
know rinse and repeat, andthat's your life.
I don't know how any singleparents do it.

Speaker 2 (12:16):
I don't either right, and I've traveled a lot for my
job in the last few years and myhusband's done incredibly well.
We've got, lucky, greatparental support from his family
.
But and my kids are 15, just 15and 12 now and, like you said,
it doesn't stop because they maybe slightly more independent,

(12:37):
they can get themselves out thedoor, but you're also then
having to nag more than ever,wake them up in the morning.
It's like hi, it's 7, 30 andyou're still in bed.
So it's never ending.
I don't know.
Work-life balance isn't aninteresting concept when you own
a business?
I've got it in my own way.

Speaker 1 (12:57):
It's a myth.
It's a myth.

Speaker 2 (12:58):
It's a myth, but in my own way I've got something
that works for me.
And it may not work for otherpeople what I do, but it works
for me and it works around thekids and I get to spend some
quality time with them though,to be honest, they don't really
want to spend quality time withme anymore because they're
teenagers.

Speaker 1 (13:16):
No, you can't be a star.
I have to get dictionarysometimes because I get text off
and they say these like theacronyms and words, and that's
when you start to feel reallyold You're like what does that
even mean?
And you have to look it up andit sort of makes sense now.

Speaker 2 (13:28):
So yeah, yeah.

Speaker 1 (13:30):
So it's very noble of you, as you say it, before
COVID and giving your parentsthat opportunity.
I think after COVID it'sprobably taught us a few things
that you can do it, but I stilldon't think it's any easier for
even if you're working from home, right, and it's probably even
harder sometimes.
So I want to just want to touchon a point there where you said
about when you decided it'sgoing to set on, when it's such

(13:53):
an appointment where you decidedto set up a consultancy.
So did you already have clients?
Or did you have someone thatsaid, look, we've got this
problem if you use the setup onyour own, because how it often
happens in consultancy right,you know, we'll back you up,
yeah, it'll be your firstcustomer Was it one of those
things?

Speaker 2 (14:11):
Yes and no.
So I had obviously many years ofcontracting in the HR tech
space under my belt and I hadsome great clients I'd worked
with over the time.
I pretty much made the jump intohiring staff I mean, I've
written about this before,actually and I said I don't know

(14:33):
whether I was naive or stupid,and I'm still not sure which one
of those it was, maybe it wasboth I didn't really have any
clients, I just had a beliefthat I could do this and gosh,
it really wasn't easy at all.
But very quickly we got ourfirst couple of clients and then

(14:55):
, I think, once people I knew alot of people, I was really
connected in the HR worldClients kind of came in quite
quickly from then and I'd liketo kind of shout out to some of
my early clients, if I'm allowedto Like Jennifer from
Restaurant Brands and Lara fromLes Mills, who kind of believed
in me early and still work withus today, many, many years later

(15:19):
, what was the tech you wasputting in, jane, because
obviously, as you mentioned,you'd obviously built up a bit
of a reputation and had lots ofgood experience contracting.

Speaker 1 (15:27):
But was you working on one particular technology
stack or was it?
A bit more of a generalist, andit was like happens now a bit
about tech, happens now a bitabout HR.
She's our lady, Was it thatkind of thing?

Speaker 2 (15:36):
It was definitely more the generalist slant.
I mean I had under my belt.
I had years as a PeopleSoftConsultant.
I'd also been a PayGlobalConsultant on the Parallel HR
space for a while.
I'd implemented a number ofother platforms Over my time.
I'd worked with success factorsand I'd worked with Cornerstone
and I'd worked with some of thesmaller platforms that

(15:57):
implemented SnapHire.
I'd worked with all kind ofcommon New Zealand technologies
at that point and what we reallypush is that, whilst we might
work with a number of differentvendors, we are first and
foremost vendor agnostic.
So particularly, a lot of thework we do is around road
mapping and selection andhelping clients navigate that

(16:19):
technology space because it's socrowded at the moment.
Right, and you and I have talkedabout this, yeah, there's so
many HR vendors out there.
Trying to work out which one isright for you is really hard
and I see a lot of companiespushing a certain technology
because at the end of the day,they're getting cat-backs or
they're getting a payment andthat's fine.

(16:40):
Do that Works for you?
Great.
But we don't do that in theadvisory space.
Now that doesn't mean we don'twork with a number of vendors.
We do because we have to to doour job well.
But it's important that yourecognise I personally don't
think there's many bad vendorsout there, it's just bad fit.
There's companies that choosethe wrong platform constantly

(17:05):
because they haven't done theirdue diligence and they haven't
really looked at what they'retrying to achieve and what they
want that employee experience tobe.

Speaker 1 (17:12):
Yeah, good point actually, because we've got
family seven of fields.
We've done a bit of consultingwith an organisation a little
while ago and it was quite clearfrom day one that it wasn't a
good fit.
That was number one.
Number two was I asked thequestion who was involved in
picking this platform?

(17:32):
And you could see there was acouple of people just shrunk,
you know wilting daffodils inthe sun, and they said oh no, no
, we absolutely picked the bestplatform.
And I said I don't think youdid.
I think you picked the bestpeople that were good at doing
RFIs and RFPs and that was my Ifyou'd have.
Actually, it was quite clearthat the needs and the

(17:56):
requirements there was a glarein the obvious can.
Well, there's actually twoglare in office candidates that
they didn't pick.
And so I hear you on that fitand it was interesting and RFIs
and RFPs we could talk about tothe cows come home.

Speaker 2 (18:08):
But you know, even though we often do them for a
living, I hate the things.
I'd love a world where we don'thave to do RFPs and we can find
a better way of choosing theright fit.

Speaker 1 (18:18):
And that's the challenge.
Right is that there's got to bea better way of doing it.
But what is that right?
And I think it's.
Yeah, it's like penalties insoccer and football, like you
know.
Everyone knows it's got to be abetter thing than penalties,
but until someone comes up witha better idea, then we're stuck
with them.

Speaker 2 (18:32):
I had that exact conversation with my 12-year-old
watching the World Cup last theother week.
He was like what is the pointof this penalty?
And I was like I don't know,I'm a rugby girl, I don't know.
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (18:43):
Yeah, okay, so you know you were consulting, you
was agnostic and, as you say,probably very few people in the
country who got that.
You know, exposure andexpertise and being agnostic,
I'm guessing would have beenpretty appealing for a lot of
organisations.
So talk to me about the earlyyears and the yeah, the early
years where you was finding yourfeet and you say you're in the

(19:06):
big world of consulting.
So what were some of thechallenges yet to overcome there
?

Speaker 2 (19:10):
Yeah, it was really interesting.
I think the first kind of twoyears were quite dreamy,
partially because I was cluelessand you know I hadn't.
I'd been contracting for 10years or so before I started the
company.
Before that I'd been inconsultancy my whole life.
Everything I knew wasconsultancy.
My husband worked inconsultancy.

(19:31):
Like you know, we're a familyof consultants, so I thought I
knew everything first, to admitit, and the reality of it is
owning a business, running abusiness.
It's a completely differentworld.
We were lucky in those first twoyears.
We really organically gotclients through word of mouth,
just through.
People knew I never had to goout and look for work.
Our team was amazing, it wasreally easy.

(19:53):
And then we kind of hit ourfirst blip.
And I guess you know you alwaysdo it.
You always make the one there's, the one hire that isn't quite
what you think, or the oneclient that's really challenging
.
And then you have to kind ofregroup and go right what do I
do differently?
And there was a lot of that.
And then we grew quite rapidlyin a small business kind of way.
So we went from sort of fivepeople to 12 people really

(20:17):
rapidly and those are smallnumbers, but when you look at
the percentage growth it's quiterapid and you suddenly realize
your processes, your policies,the way you do things none of
those are fit for purposeanymore and you have to regroup.
And I'm a great one for goingright.
We need a new system.
We'll throw in a new projectmanagement tool, throw in a new
time sheet tool and throw in anew invoicing tool.

(20:39):
Probably drove all my teamcrazy, but I think the thing
that worked for us and stillworks for us is that we have
always been a people firstorganization and while that
doesn't always result in thehighest profit margins, it does
result in great outcomes foryour clients and, generally

(20:59):
speaking, really happy stuff.
And that's what I've kept solidthe whole way through.
I think my biggest lesson is youneed to be really agile in the
old sense of the word.
Pivot quickly.
You know, at the moment, withthe way the market is, we're
changing what we're doing left,right and center.
We're looking at new ways ofmarketing, we're looking at new

(21:21):
offerings we can present to themarket.
Just while things are a bitflatter, You've got to be super
agile and willing to change andwilling to adapt at the drop of
a hat and the joy of a smallbusiness and being the owner is
I can do that.
I can go right.
We're going to change Everyone.
Go this way.
We're going left, not right,today.

Speaker 1 (21:42):
I used to compare it to the difference between
turning a moped round, betweenturning a coach round and when
you're a small and me or growingbusiness, your turning circle
is a whole lot smaller.

Speaker 2 (21:55):
And so you need to change.

Speaker 1 (21:57):
It's bigger consultancies.
They've got to do a 50 pointterm where the scooter will
swing round, and I think asentrepreneurs and as business
owners I don't really like thatword entrepreneur, but you know
what I'm going to say.
It's one of those words thatexplains who people are, but
you're generally very good atspotting trends.
I find you know you're twosteps ahead of, something I
always used to say.
And so when those trends startto happen and we talked about

(22:19):
one in particular opportunityyesterday right, you start going
, okay, that could beinteresting and so.
But as you say, if you're a bigmonolithic consultant, you
can't do that.
It takes a whole heap of time,effort, business case you know
exact to buy in.
So yeah, I hear you, I hear youand I love that.

Speaker 2 (22:37):
That's what I would.
I think that's the best thingabout owning a small business
and I hope working in a smallbusiness is that just ability to
pivot and change and grow.
And I love the fact that theteam can come to me and go, hey,
I've got an idea, what do youthink about this?
And I'll be like shit, yeah,let's do that.
That sounds great.
Let's do it tomorrow.

Speaker 1 (22:57):
Yeah, yeah, yeah, now I like it, I like it.
So, in those early years, whatwere some of the common problems
that you were solving for yourcustomers and your clients?

Speaker 2 (23:07):
I think very quickly it became apparent that there
was a real gap in the market interms of that selection space.
So a big focus was what we callthe user centric design
approach to selection.
So taking that decision on whatpiece of software to buy out of
the hands of HR financeprocurement and actually turning

(23:28):
that and going what is it youremployees need?
No one was really doing that atthe time and it's such a simple
thing.
So we say to clients right, youwant a new applicant tracking
system, you want a newperformance management system,
you want a new HR system.
What do your employees want outof that?
They'll be like, oh no, I don'tcare, I just want an HR system
that's going to make myprocesses more efficient.

(23:50):
I'll be like, yes, but you needto talk to your employees
because they're going to beusing it first.
So a huge amount of those firstyears was spent teaching people
that the beauty of putting thatdecision making in the hands of
the employees, or at leastgetting their opinion, and
changing the way we look atselection.
And look, we still do that somuch and it's great.

(24:13):
And when you hear the feedbackfrom a bus driver or someone who
works on a wind farm going.
Yeah, actually I really likethe system.
It works for me because you'veasked them upfront.
That was great.
The other really big challenge,I think, was just helping
people see that technologies andenabler for HR.

(24:35):
It's not going to change yourlife.
It's not going to make you ahappier, better person.
It's just gonna hopefully makeyour life a bit easier and I
think a lot of people have beensold the dream by vendors and
expected this life transformingthing out of a piece of software

(24:56):
which was never gonna be theway it was.
So bringing people back down tothe.
Let's be realistic about whatthis piece of technology is
gonna achieve.

Speaker 1 (25:04):
So no rollerblading down Vinny's speech with the sun
in your background, kind of.

Speaker 2 (25:07):
Nah, you're not gonna be Barbie and Ken in the neon.

Speaker 1 (25:11):
I haven't seen it yet , so I'll ask the please go see
it Can't come back to it.
Yeah, we're gonna see it onSaturday.

Speaker 2 (25:16):
So we'll let you know Take the kids.

Speaker 1 (25:19):
Okay, so no, as you say, no dream that comes out of
that.
But I hear you on that aboutthe asking the users, and that's
often even in as little asprobably two months ago, I think
, I was in a meeting and Imentioned something along the
lines of okay, if you ask theusers what they want, and you
can see rolling with the eyesand mum was on the breath from

(25:39):
some of the tech team and thoseusers don't know what they want.
You know, you know our averageuser.
They're not technically and Iwas like, but come on, they know
what they don't want and theyknow what they kind of.
They know the problems they'vegot.
So yeah, interesting, you saythat.

Speaker 2 (25:53):
And particularly when you said just then they're not
technical.
Those are the ones you want totalk to the most, right, because
they're the guys or the womenwho actually aren't technical
and they don't even know whyyou're telling them they have to
do this thing on a system.
Make their life easy, maketheir technology experience good
and you've won.
You've won the game, right,it's easy.

Speaker 1 (26:14):
So you've been going six years now seven years yeah,
six and a half, six and a halfyears.
So you obviously started offdoing the selection and there
was a big, big trend.
Now I would have imagined inthat time that you see a flurry
of activity in terms of peopleputting in these systems so
applicant tracking systems andHR systems and things that

(26:36):
connect to payroll, et cetera,and LMSs, all that kind of good
stuff.
Do you think we're over thehill now in terms of you know
that early adopters and laggardsand where the point we're in
and most of the bigger companieshave got what they need or not,
yet no, I don't actually, andit's interesting.

Speaker 2 (26:53):
and every time I think, oh yeah, we're there, I
come across another company thatmaybe not you know a huge
company, but a company wouldlike a thousand stuff it's
pretty big by New Zealandstandards who go, oh yeah, we've
got a payroll system, buteverything else is kind of in
spreadsheets.
Or we're doing our my favoriteone, we're doing our comp

(27:14):
reviews in a spreadsheet and I'mlike, oh, data security, or you
know, oh no, we just use seekfor our ATS, not bagging seek,
but it's not an ATS.
You know, we're still andpeople are like we're saying
this, we're still really reallyfar.

Speaker 1 (27:33):
Yeah, so ATS, if anyone listening is applicant
tracking system right.

Speaker 2 (27:37):
Thank you, apologies, that's all right.

Speaker 1 (27:38):
Yeah, so that's your talent.
So when people apply for rolesand a lot of people probably
used them if they've been a userbut it asks you a few questions
and then it's a way of thoseorganizations sorting and
classifying and screening andyeah, and now we've got the
whole world of AI coming in,where it'll take your CV and
make the magic happen.
Yeah, yeah, okay, so you'vesolved a few problems there.

(28:02):
As you say, there's still a fewbusinesses.
Do you see it as cyclical aswell?
So would it be a case of someof the things you put in maybe
six, seven years ago aren'tquite fit for purpose now?
Or the business have evolved ornew technologies has come in.
So is it a case of now COVIDmight be on round two, round
three in some cases?
Yeah, definitely.

Speaker 2 (28:19):
We've got some clients who we've been working
with for, you know, six, sevenyears and we've replaced systems
a couple of times over.
And that's not because we did abad job the first time round,
it's because the market'sevolving so much and so quickly.
And look, my expertise isabsolutely in the HR tech space.
I don't know if the financetech space is similar.

(28:40):
I don't think it is.
Hr is changing by the minuteand things like AI to a lesser
extent, but just the way we lookat work.
Covid has had a huge impact onHR and so needs are different
and the software and thetechnologies are developing to

(29:01):
fit that, and so what wasamazing six years ago is looking
a bit old and tired now.
So it is hard to keep up on itand it can be expensive.

Speaker 1 (29:14):
Yeah, and it's interesting how many businesses
and you would probably heardthis as well you speak to me,
how many staff have you got?
And they'll just look at eachother and go oh well, it depends
who's asking right and itdepends if we need budget or not
, and you go how is it evenpossible in 2023 that a business
of a certain size doesn't knowhow many people we've got and
they say it depends on if it'sJVs.
If there's lots of differentfactors, I guess yeah, 100%.

Speaker 2 (29:36):
We have a client who's got around about 10,000
staff and before we implementedtheir HR system, they didn't
know how many staff they hademployed and they had a very
part-time, casual, varied shiftworkforce, but they did not know
what their FTE was.

Speaker 1 (29:55):
No way.
So we touched on compensationfor used in, and so that's a
subject we could probably talkabout to the cows go home some
very strong opinions on that,but there's some law changes
happening which you and I havespoke about briefly, but I
thought it'd be worth talkingabout on the show.
So things like the Equal PayAct in 2020 and the Fair Pay
Agreement in 2022, those arejust two I know of, and those

(30:16):
are the New Zealand ones.
There's some very similar actsthat have been implemented in
Australia as well.
So, in a nutshell, why dobusinesses even more these days
need good systems and why didthey need those systems and
things like these acts that arecoming in?

Speaker 2 (30:35):
Yeah, and I think the starting point for any of those
pay equity acts and even beyondwhat's legislated by government
and taking it back to simplywhat's right and good to do as
well, is we know we have amassive pay gap problem within
New Zealand and we know that ifyou start with a Pakeha man and

(30:58):
then you move down to Pakehawomen and you end up with
Pacifica women, that gap widensand widens.
And what's scary is the numberof organisations that can't even
look at their data anddetermine what that gap is or
how they align to the market.
So without a decent piece oftechnology or some decent
reporting, how do you knowwhether you have a pay equity

(31:22):
problem or not?
And I see organisations go, no,no, no, we're great, we don't
have any issues, we're reallyfair payer.
And I'm like well, show me thedata.
And they're like oh well, wecan't.
We can't see the data, we can'tactually tell you what gender

(31:44):
our staff are.
Or my personal favourite is ourpayroll system only lets us
report on male and female.
I'm like so what aboutnon-binary?
Oh, we can't, we don't know.
So you don't have any.
Oh, no, no, we just don't know.
So you can't tell me what yourpay equity is like.
No, what about ethnicity?

(32:04):
Oh well, we can't actuallyreport on ethnicity either,
because we don't catch theinformation in our payroll
system.
How are you reporting?
We can't, and I understand it.

Speaker 1 (32:17):
I understand it's difficult to get that data, but
if you don't have access to thatdata, you can't tell me you're
an equitable pay organisation,because you're not, because you
don't know, and it's a verysensitive subject as well, I
guess, because if you didn'tcapture that data at the point

(32:37):
of onboarding that employee,it's going to be very tricky or
looks a bit silly that's whatthey might think is that it
looks a bit silly to go and sayoh, hi, guys can you tell me if
you are actually.
You're not even guys, you'regirls or you actually identified
something else or, as you say,your ethnicity.
But it's interesting because Isee that all the time on job ads
.
Now it's like we're equal.

(32:58):
But if you have equalemployment and just the way we
approach things.
But they probably don't evenask those questions when they
onboard someone.

Speaker 2 (33:07):
And it's interesting because, having implemented a
few onboarding systems in thelast year or a few years, in the
last little while, or actually,some people are getting much
better at asking thatinformation up front and also
not being scared to ask thatinformation further down the
track and being really honestand open about the fact that you
know we're our world's changingand two or three years ago it

(33:28):
may have felt really awkward toask someone you know, how do you
identify from a genderperspective?
These days, the majority ofpeople are going to be okay
being asked that If you want toanswer, don't make them.
I think that's quite important,but if they want to tell you,
give them the opportunity.
Same with ethnicity, gender,any of that information.

(33:51):
I think if we don't ask, peoplecan't tell us, and I was having
this conversation in the officetoday.
Actually, it's like you know wearen't always going to get it
right, but if we don't try andwe're not open and transparent
and we don't give it a go, sorry, let me rephrase that If we

(34:12):
don't ask people, how can wehelp?
What can we ask you?
What are you comfortable withus talking about?
We won't ever get it right.
We have to put ourselves outthere.

Speaker 1 (34:20):
Yeah.
So there's three common thingsthat I guess for me doing my
research and as we spoke aboutyesterday, this is something
that you know workforce freewill be provided at some stage
in the future but the threecommon things that have come out
on my research are paytransparency, pay communication
and pay equity.
So let's drill into those andlet's explain to maybe people

(34:42):
listening or maybe in the HRspace or kind of you know we've
got exposure to it why they needto know about this stuff for it
.
So in a nutshell, in layman'sterms, let's explain firstly
what pay transparency is.

Speaker 2 (34:53):
Yep.
So pay transparency is verystraightforward.
It's reporting on what you paypeople, so the most common
example is male or female, soreporting on the difference
between pay for males andfemales in your organisation.

(35:14):
Now, without the data youobviously can't do that, but it
should be very straightforward.
Pay transparency is reallyabout promoting fair and
equitable pay, but making surethat people have the information
in hand to be able to see that.

Speaker 1 (35:31):
Yep, and so the in terms of the transparency,
putting the bans on jobs is athing that's coming right.

Speaker 2 (35:38):
Yeah, Putting the bans on jobs, the days of
looking at an advert, that'sever.
You know job advert going.
Let's just say it's a seniorproduct manager and you're like
I don't know if this job's goingto pay me 90K or 200K or 50K.
So being able to see the bandgives you an understanding

(36:00):
immediately of whether that jobis appropriate for you to apply
for or not.
The other piece around paytransparency which isn't well
talked about is the ability tobenchmark and know that what an
organisation is offering you isfair and equitable across the
range of that job, across thecountry you live in or the area

(36:23):
you live in.
We do have a small geographicaldisparity in New Zealand, but
not comparative to, say, the UK.

Speaker 1 (36:29):
Yeah.
So there's going to be a trend,I believe, in the next couple
of years where, in order forthat pay transparency, you're
going to need better market dataas well, right?
So, because my belief is thatbusinesses are going to have to
sit down and they're going tosay okay, jane, we believe that
you are within the bands of ourcompany.

(36:50):
You know our company, oursalary eFORCE is this, because
we don't always pay top of themarket, because we're not for
profit or whatever, but we'reall about purpose.
But as far as the company isconcerned, you're in the bands,
but as far as the market isconcerned, you're actually down
the bottom because we don't paya lot.
Right, but as long as you'rewithin the company bands, that
might be aligned to the eFORCE.
But when I've kind of beenlooking into it, I'm like, oh my

(37:11):
God, I can just see people likegoing, absolutely losing their
shit.
You know you have to explain tothem why you're going to have
to do this, right, and becausethen you get people like, oh my
God.
And they're going to get peoplelike, oh, why should we say our
salaries?
I don't want people knowing howmuch I earn and so, and their
life's the problem, right?

Speaker 2 (37:30):
It does and it's a really interesting one, and I
remember I'm not going to namethe organisation, but there was
a well-known New Zealandorganisation that's still around
and they were renowned forpaying below market rate because
of the brand, everyone wantedto work for them.
They could always getcandidates, they could always
get, and they still probably canand it was just a known fact

(37:51):
that you went to work for thembecause of who they were and the
brand on your CV and youaccepted that you were going to
be paid under market rate.
Now, it was never.
You know, with transparency,you'll actually be able to see
that it won't just be thismagical gossip that's going
around, and I do feel like maybe, when it's actually that black

(38:12):
and white, that might change.

Speaker 1 (38:14):
Yeah, yeah, yeah, and I believe that you will.
We'll start to see the bandscoming in.
But for the record, peoplelistening to this in what, no,
we like?
They'll be saying like you wasalways saying, we shouldn't be
telling you people the salaries.
I was like no, no, I said aboutthe bands, I said about the
exact salary and a good example.
That is when we run aconsulting business.

(38:35):
We used to have, we used to haveour matrix, which is, you know,
as a consultant.
If you was a senior consultant,you'd have their ex.
If you was a junior andlearning the skills you'd have,
why.
But once again, the bands allowfor that, right.
So if you're getting paid as aconsultant, you've only got one
years of experience.
It's going to be quitedifferent.
Some of us maybe got 10 yearsof experience.
Both could be doing the samejob.
That band might just be alittle bit wider right.

(38:56):
Or you maybe need to get thebetter around your old
description, positiondescriptions and say, well,
one's senior, one's, you know,just a consultant, and get
better at that.
But for the bands, as I said somany other day, it's like lying
right.
If you're nice and transparentand you're clear, it's easy to
like, because you don't have tocover your backside, you don't

(39:17):
have to try and cover your ass.

Speaker 2 (39:18):
Hands up.
We've only we only introducedbanding this year ourselves, and
I think it was because we gotto the point that we grew to the
point where it was reallynecessary and also we changed
from a position based structureto a skill and role based
structure, which is a wholenother podcast.
But it was really important tome that people knew that you
know, if they were ticking a boxfor senior consultant and they

(39:41):
were looking to move to like aproduct lead or a lead
consultant role, what did thatmean in terms of financial?
Because, particularly in smallcompanies, promotion might not
necessarily mean moving up tothe next role.

Speaker 1 (39:54):
that might mean a salary increase rather than a
person responsibility and theydo split people, those mates by
green in a smaller consultancy.
You need to make it nice andclear.
It's not even about paytransparency.
I actually think it's mayberole transparency as well.
Right, it's actually saying,you know, if, if you believe
you're a senior, these are thethings and these are the tasks
and the duties that we expectyou to do.
And I've had a couple ofconversations, apart parts where

(40:17):
people go I'm a senior, I'vebeen here six years and you go
well, okay, let's look at therole matrix and I see, okay,
we're not there, but it's helpedyou get there and yeah, that's.
Those have been interesting.
Okay, so pay transparency isessentially being nice and clear
around what that role you know,with a range of experience,
would pay.
You know, anyone, regardless ofwho.

(40:38):
That is right.
So that's the pay transparency.
Then there's pay equity, whichthis is where a lot of people
might get confused because theysay, oh, it's all the same thing
, it's not right.
Pay equity, let's drill intothat.

Speaker 2 (40:50):
So to me, pay equity is much more around the fact
that, regardless of your gender,your race, your beliefs, age,
if you're doing the same pieceof work as somebody else, you
get paid the same amount.
And we really suck at that inNew Zealand.

(41:12):
Frankly, we're appalling.

Speaker 1 (41:15):
Now I have a belief on this, which may be right, may
be wrong.
I actually believed that a lotof the pay equity, a lot of.
I'm a believer in positivepeople.
I reckon 98% of the people inthis country want to do the
right thing and would do theright thing.
The issue they've got is theydon't have the systems, they
don't have the data to makedecisions.
So how often is it a case of wehave a let's just say we're

(41:38):
running a software business.
We've got two softwaredevelopers, let's call it Sally
and Paul, right.
So Paul goes in.
He's a good rooster, he talksabout the rugby, he talks about
the football.
I like Paul, I go there.
You go, paul.
You can have a good old Paul.
You can have a 20 grand paywise, because don't usually you
might not follow the same rugbyteam as me, but like you.

(41:59):
Then you've got Sally.
Is that a job?
Actually, he's got way moreexperience, but there's not the
data to back that up to say,okay, sally should be paid X or
Y, right, so.
But I don't really like Sallybecause she doesn't talk about
rugby or football.
So I don't give her, you know,I give her a little pay rise and
and once again I'm not sayingI've completely yet.

(42:21):
I've blown a whole lot ofstereotypes here, been very
generalist in my first year, butbut you get where I'm coming
from.
Right, I reckon there's a lotof people that just go oh, I
gave that guy or girl a pay risebecause I got one of them and
they were good and actually they, I like them right, nothing's
doing about.
Are they good at their job?
How long may?
they be doing it.

Speaker 2 (42:38):
I think you're right.
I think it's inherent bias andwe don't even know that we have
these biases in both likerecruitment, interviewing and
things like pay.
We don't know that we have donethat because it's so deep
rooted and so deep rooted insociety, without getting too

(43:02):
deep, it's just natural.
And, like you said, if theydon't have the data, how do you
see it?
I think every time you're doinga pay review or you're looking
at pay, you need to be goingright.
Here's all my people who are inthis role and here is what
they're paid and here is wherethey sit in our company range
and here is the market range.

(43:22):
And why is Sally so far below?
What did you say?
His name was Paul.

Speaker 1 (43:29):
Sorry Sally, sorry Paul.

Speaker 2 (43:31):
Sorry, sally Good old .

Speaker 1 (43:32):
Paul.

Speaker 2 (43:33):
Normally people use Jane, so it's fun.
I'll take Sally, jane and John.
I'm always like Jane and John.
I'm like, yeah, that's meLooking at Sally and going well,
actually, sally's performedreally well in her performance
review.
She's actually performed betterthan Paul.
And look, she's bought in allthis money for the company and
he hasn't.
And according to the market,she's way down in the 80th
percentile and he's in the 110th.

(43:54):
So why is that?
I'd like to believe like you do, I like the positive people
thing that we aren'tintentionally doing this.
There's a little ways to come,particularly from agenda and
race perspective.
I think giving people greatdata is the way to start that,

(44:16):
because then you can havedatabase conversations and you
can tell great stories whenyou've got data.

Speaker 1 (44:21):
Yep.

Speaker 2 (44:22):
Otherwise, you're just basically accusing someone
of being racist or sexist, andthat doesn't always go down very
well.

Speaker 1 (44:27):
Yep, but once again, I think a lot of that comes down
to providing the guard railsright for people to make those
decisions.
So, once again, if there's areal clear role matrix and
bandings, that these are theexpectations for a level 10
person versus the person levelone, it's nice and clear.
That's your transparency.
And interestingly, just on thatnote, I had a really good

(44:48):
podcast the other week and Isaid, essentially, the free go
hand in hand.
You can't have one without theother.
So in order for pay equity,you've got to be transparent.
You can't not have bands Right,you can't provide equity right.

Speaker 2 (44:59):
Because how can you possibly be equitable if people
don't know what the band is?
Yep.

Speaker 1 (45:05):
Yep, okay, and then there's pay communication.
So in your mind, how would youexplain pay communication?

Speaker 2 (45:11):
Yeah, that's an interesting one, because I think
pay communication is probablythe one that's less clear cut in
my mind.
But to me it's the basis of howyou communicate and share pay
related information within yourorganization, and I guess in
some respects banding is oneexample of that.

(45:31):
So if you're working in anorganization where banding isn't
clear, that's an example of paycommunication failing to me.
Another thing is how is payevaluated and how is pay
determined.
So if I'm in an organizationwhere your pay increases are
kind of, like you said,determined on which rugby team

(45:53):
you support or how loud you areabout wanting a pay increase,
right, there's lots and lots ofgreat statistics out there about
the fact that men generally getpaid more than women because
they're louder and moreassertive in asking for pay
increases than yourstereotypical woman.
To me that's about paycommunication, because if we
communicate a fair and equitableprocess, we naturally get more

(46:17):
transparency, more equity.

Speaker 1 (46:19):
Yeah, and I think it goes back to having the data to
be able to do that as well.
Right, Because myinterpretation on that is when
you need to sit down with Sallyand Paul Paul, Sally and Paul
again is that if, for example,Paul didn't get that pay rise
that he was so loud and vocalabout, you can sit down and say,
well, okay, we've spoke aboutthis before, Paul, but here's

(46:42):
the data, here's what the marketpays right.

Speaker 2 (46:43):
Here's what the market pays, yeah.

Speaker 1 (46:45):
By the way, yeah, 12 months ago, as a software
developer, maybe you could havecommanded a little bit more.
But let's tell you what thereal world's telling you now,
right?
So actually there's a decrease,right, and the volume of jobs
has gone down, which means a bitlike housing market, right?
But here's the data to backthat up.
On by the way, as I said, asmentioned before, we are not
profit-free, so we're nevergoing to pay top salary anyway,

(47:06):
right, but we'll be within theband and market rate.
But it's being able to havethose conversations with the
data to back it up, but withoutthat data it must be futile,
right?

Speaker 2 (47:16):
Yeah, right, like you said, I'm a big believer in
database storytelling and that'sanother example of this.
Like with the right data, youhave evidence and you're making
evidence-based decisions andyou're not.
It's harder to get swayed byyour biases or by what society's

(47:37):
telling you, because you've gotdata in front of you.
And if your data tells you thatactually, sally needs more
money than Paul because she'sbelow the band, that's what the
data's telling you and it's hardto argue with it.
And we don't have enough accessto that data.
Or are we sure that the datawe're using is the right source
as well?
Yeah, I've absolutely seen inmy time people using market data

(48:01):
which is years out of date.

Speaker 1 (48:03):
That was inverted commas right, by the way.

Speaker 2 (48:05):
It's like the bunny ears, that was inverted commas,
sorry.
It's an audio podcast yeah, Imean, how is it market data if
it was from 2018?
We've changed a bit since then.

Speaker 1 (48:19):
So, once again, the research I've done tells me that
most people, if you're lucky,do one in New Zealand, right In
Australia.
Globally the minimum is freeGood, solid businesses, large
employers, it can be up to 17.
But they reckon you need aminimum of 10.

(48:39):
And so I can tell you now Idon't think I've spoken to one
HR person, one business in NewZealand that has done more than
five or six Maybe.

Speaker 2 (48:47):
I'm speaking to wrong people.
Yeah, I'm just trying to thinkif I've ever come across anyone
doing.
I've seen three, quite a fewtimes three or four, but I've
certainly never seen anywherenear 10.

Speaker 1 (48:58):
Yeah, but then there comes a trust thing with both
the transparency and the equityand the communication.
Because if it is just deskbased research where an intern's
gone on to seek or trade me andsaid, and that's not offensive
interns, but anyone's gone andsaid, okay, I've seen that
there's three adverts out, sothat's like the least trusted
market data source, right Versussome of the big Aon and the

(49:21):
McKinsey ones in the US.
Obviously they're the biggestscale out.
But yeah, you can completelysee how having better data is
going to be needed for thatRight.

Speaker 2 (49:31):
So I have to assume well, I'm certainly hopeful that
the legislation changes thatare coming or have come, that
will help us gain more marketdata, which will help us make
how accessible that market datais going to be is interesting,
because I still think we arenaturally quite suspicious about
sharing salary information, soI think maybe we need to be more

(49:56):
open about that and understandit's not a competitive advantage
actually.

Speaker 1 (50:00):
But it's quid pro quo .
I think I can never say it right.
Well, because where I think inthe States they do particularly
well is that a lot of them gettheir data by people asking how
much you think they're worth,right, so you go into these
websites and, once again, forthe people listening that want
to know what market data is,essentially it's a whole heap of

(50:22):
data sources where they'll goto a HR person and they'll say,
right, we've got some data onthese 10,000 jobs, or 10,000
jobs, 70,000, typically surveys,right, that they get
information from and based onthat, we know that a software
developer in Alaska gets paid Xand we know that a software
developer in Christchurch, newZealand, gets paid Y.
And what we can do is we can usethe Malgo rhythms if we don't

(50:43):
have the data to say well, weknow, typically, that New York
pays 25% more than Alaska orwhatever, and they mash all the
data up and that's what theygive you right.
But when we talk about the datasources, there's only really
probably a Probably you cancount, on the one hand, the
amount of people that you couldget that data from in New
Zealand, a lot of.
It's very sort of global,global approach.

Speaker 2 (51:03):
Well, that's it, or Australia like.
Particularly what I findinteresting is the number that
are Australian-based and, let'sface it, topical subject.
But a lot of people are movingto Australia because actually
the salaries are higher.
So we can't use those in NewZealand because they're
misleading, and I've seen a lotof that.

Speaker 1 (51:22):
Yeah, 100%.
But the other thing as well isthe terms of getting that
information.
So when I mention it's a trade,so how a lot of these market
data companies get their data,is they say, well, we're going
to tell you how much you thinkyou're worth.
And you go great, fantastic,and you go in there and you tell
them you're inside legmeasurement.
You tell them you know what youhad for breakfast that day and

(51:45):
essentially and you've clickedthis little box, obviously no
one reads that says thank youvery much for going to hoover
that data up.
But what you've done is you'vetold them how much you're
getting paid, where you live,years, experience, et cetera,
and then they then go and putthat into their big, big, shiny
system and that's where they gettheir data from.
But yes, you do get told thatyou should be paid more, right?

Speaker 2 (52:04):
You should be paid more because you should always
be paid more.

Speaker 1 (52:08):
Yeah, yeah, so definitely, there's definitely a
sea of change coming, I believe.
Yeah, and it's legislative andit's the stick kind of approach,
rather than maybe, as probablyfour or five years ago, it's
probably more the nice to have,right.

Speaker 2 (52:22):
And I think you know we are again.
We're really we're a bit behindthe times in New Zealand.
I mean, it's an election year,so we'll see what happens in
reality.
But you know the fact that wemight soon have mandatory pay
gap reporting and just that thechanges that are coming.
I do really hope that it leadsto better pay equity and better

(52:44):
pay transparency, because Ithink it's desperately needed.
But I feel like it's going tobe very difficult out there for
quite a few organisations,particularly the smaller ones or
not small like not my size, butmid-market.
You know who don't have thatdata and how do they start.

Speaker 1 (53:02):
I can completely agree, because what's going to
happen is, if you have over 100people, if you've got 110 people
, most of those people aregetting by on a sort of smell of
an oily rag, as they say in anumber of wire approach, so I
can just see, I've just gotvisions of and I talked about
Pam, who's their councilassistant in a lot of these
organisations.
poor Pam, but poor Pam is goingto be the one that has to be

(53:22):
adding columns onto the payrollextracts and the CSV files and
trying to do formulas to workout the averages and pay on, oh
my God.

Speaker 2 (53:32):
And no disrespect to our small business payroll
systems, because a lot of themare really great, but you know
they're not catering, they'renot designed to do this, they're
designed to pay peopleaccurately and even the small
business kind of HR systemsaren't designed to do full,
transparent pay processes.
So, it's going to be a veryinteresting time, but I'm very

(53:54):
excited about it because it'swell overdue and, as far as I'm
concerned, we need it.
Like we're way behind it makesme sad, actually how unequitable
pay is in this country.

Speaker 1 (54:07):
Yeah, and it's still pretty big.
I was reading today the gap.
Maybe on average it's at least10%, up to 20 in some cases.
Yeah, it's huge.
Okay, so we talked about someof the systems that might be
needed in the near future withthese law changes.
Any other big trends thatyou've seen that have surprised
you or things that you thought,oh, hang on, that's a big, big

(54:31):
shift in the sentiment orthinking from a few years ago.

Speaker 2 (54:33):
I don't know if that's a surprise so much.
What surprised me this year ishow everyone's taken by the AI
and is acting like it's a brandnew shiny thing, when actual
fact, it's been creeping intoall our systems in various forms
for years and years and yearsand it's just more accessible
now.
But in actual fact, most HRsystems, most payroll systems,

(54:57):
most recruitment systems haveall been using AI for multiple
years and I think that's reallyinteresting.
Now what's interesting is, nowthat it's become really public
and so accessible and so easy touse and inverted commas again
is how are we going to controlit and how are we going to

(55:19):
legislate it?
And the fact that everyone'sscrambling.
So that's what surprise me ishow much everyone's scrambling
and how there's no consistentapproach or idea or alignment on
that, and I'm going to befascinated to watch that space
in the coming year.

Speaker 1 (55:38):
Yeah, it may be laugh .
I was following a friend onFacebook a couple of weeks ago
and someone posted on thereabout how I was going to be able
to predict when you was goingto leave.
Right, and it was a and itsounded like it was just lazy
journalism and it was like, oh,we're just chucking in there for
the, for the fun of it.
And I kind of thought back tomy days at Barclays.

(56:00):
I interviewed Mark, who is aguy used to work with at
Barclays in the UK.

Speaker 2 (56:03):
Canary will probably yeah 13 years ago, my brother my
brother worked at Barclays andcanary was called Matt.

Speaker 1 (56:09):
There's only 10,000 people dead.

Speaker 2 (56:11):
Oh yeah, probably nine like nine hundred marks.

Speaker 1 (56:15):
But Mark was not even then, you know, because
obviously a big SAP shop butthey could run and they could
run a report and give you a.
You know, they could tell youwithin 5% accuracy of someone
that was going to leave.
And so you know, I think I wasjust going to make those
interpretations a lot quicker,right?

Speaker 2 (56:32):
quicker, faster, less manual, less resource to do it
and definitely I is going tochange the way we do some things
.
It's changed the way I do somethings already, but it's just
the fact that everyone's actinglike it's come out of the blue
and just like you and exciting.

Speaker 1 (56:49):
Yeah, I think using AI to ask more natural language
queries to be pretty awesome.
So certain things are in theequity, you know, just be able
to go into a system where youcan say, okay, can you tell me,
you know, is Sally do a pay rise?
Or when was the last salaryreview from sad, you know,
without having to go through HRand Try and look for the hundred
different files.

(57:09):
Or, you know, can you tell mewhat?
How much do you think I shouldpay Sally?
You know, and yeah, yeah.

Speaker 2 (57:15):
And that takes me really interesting, really
interesting ethical in andcomplex questions around that
too.
Because imagine if you couldsay is Sally paid equitably, is
Sally paid fairly?
Now teaching that naturallanguage model to interpret the
data and predict that outcome,that that I want to see, because

(57:35):
that would be cool.

Speaker 1 (57:36):
I think there's already been a litigation case
in the states apparently, wheresomething similar that happened
and the business said, well, no,no, we went on the guidance of
our I don't know try hidingbehind that.
And I think the court was theother judge at the time was
saying well, no, it's a tool,right, you still got to make
that decision.
I wasn't the one that said youknow, you only paid him X amount

(57:58):
.

Speaker 2 (57:59):
I kind of think sometimes is and it's probably a
bit disrespectful to I or mydog, I'm not sure, but I kind of
think of a natural languagemodels, anyway as my dog.
You got to train them to giveyou the right response and like,
just like your dog won't situnless you teach it to your eyes
gonna, you're gonna train.
If you train that model acertain way, it's gonna be a
certain outcome.
So that's the bit that's scary,as we've got to make sure that

(58:21):
we're Teaching because ifthey're basically a date, you
know historic data as well.

Speaker 1 (58:27):
Right, that's a lot of these tools.
They based on historic date.
Historic date is not gonna begreat for us, especially if it's
not doing the right thing,female or a female of color.

Speaker 2 (58:38):
It's gonna be diabolically bad for you.
Yeah, you know, it's like thewhole.
I think you know chat GPTthinking doctors have to be men
example that everyone throwsaround.
Yeah, we've got a way to gowith teaching teaching it to be
truly equitable.
But I hope we can get there,cuz, yeah, that way of removing
bias certainly word okay, anyother kind of big train.

(59:01):
just saying at the moment Ithink what the other big trend
we're seeing is that whole moveaway from like the job to the
skill, and this is and it wasall about skills based

(59:22):
organizations or skills firstworkplaces is lots of different
terms and it's that concept ofmoving away from I am a product
manager, I am a softwaredeveloper, I have these skills,
and those skills can develop inthis way or that way, or I might
re skill, or I might up skill,and it just creates a really

(59:42):
fluid model of work.
And I think that fluidity inthe workplace is something
that's gonna grow more and moreand more in the coming years
because, post covered, we'vealready seen that that started
to happen organically and Ithink now we're actually looking
at it very intentionally.
It's a much, I believe, is it'sa much better way of working

(01:00:04):
for so many people and it reallyopens that world of career
development beyond what we'vekind of been locked into
recently.
So it's kind of my, my passionarea at the moment, a little
area of research that I'mobsessing over.

Speaker 1 (01:00:22):
To be honest, I'm a geek, I guess it's amazing now
the terms of the skills that wastalking about yesterday that
you imagine if you had to tryand write down all the jobs that
you do as a business owner, soand.
But the problem is you have toput one label on you, right, and
so You've had to go and say,okay, well, I'm essentially I'm

(01:00:43):
doing sales and marketing.
I'm really good at that.
I do a bit of financialplanning, I do.
I'm a business analyst becauseI can capture requirements and
I'm a project manager to makesure I deliver, and I'm a
program manager because I haveto manage multiple projects and
I'm a consultant and then I'm atest and then strategy manager

(01:01:04):
yet, and so I think the yeah, Imean the reality is that you
know business and you have towear lots of different hats,
right, and you are very much ageneralist.
So Be interesting to see howthe follows through.
I like it.
I do like that idea because Ithink there's there's people
that we often put into to boxes,and that defines that maximum.
They're so, they're capable.

(01:01:24):
So much more I'm seeing.

Speaker 2 (01:01:26):
Exactly, exactly.
I'm worried organizations aregoing to do it badly as a tick
the box exercise because it'skind of going to become the
trend in nature.
But I hope we don't see toomuch of that.
I hope people actually is thisis true opportunity and you know
, really really make that movein a really considered manner.

Speaker 1 (01:01:45):
Okay.
One last question.
If you as a CEO or CFO in asort of large organization and
they had to start putting somebudget aside or some money aside
for some initiatives that arecoming away aside from the, the
obvious ones we spoke aboutalready anything you can think
like that where they need tostart doing it, yeah, I mean,

(01:02:09):
obviously I'm going to look atit from an HR text perspective.

Speaker 2 (01:02:13):
I think you need to start.
Reporting is huge.
So what we've already talkedabout that one quite a bit, but
start to consider how you'regoing to capture that pay equity
transparency data.
And then the other one I wouldstart to talk about is what
we're describing as the talentmarketplace.
So really starting to thinkabout how you're going to move
towards this more fluid model ofwork and how you're going to

(01:02:35):
give people, your, your stuff,that opportunity to really
develop and move within yourorganization.
Because if you don't believe andI'll go somewhere else because
we're going to see you know asmuch as we're in a weird and
wonderful market there's still alot of job opportunity out

(01:02:56):
there and the good people aregoing to move and go wherever
they want and they'll find a job.
So if you want to keep yourpeople, you need to be giving
them those opportunities.
So my personal bet is talentmarketplace.
Look into that and, yeah, ifyou haven't prepared yourself
for the incoming kind of pay gapreporting, start to think about

(01:03:18):
how you're going to deliverthat and the chances are it's
not going to be in your payrollsystem.
So thinking about that, becauseit's going to be difficult.

Speaker 1 (01:03:28):
Interesting point.

Speaker 2 (01:03:29):
Okay, can I ask you one last?

Speaker 1 (01:03:30):
question that I ask.
Okay, so can you hear me, okay?
Yep, oh, yes, I'm going to askyou one last question that I ask
everyone that comes onto theshow, and that is if you could
go back and give 21 year oldJane some words of advice.
What would that be?

Speaker 2 (01:03:48):
I'm not sure this is entirely appropriate, but I'm
going to say it anyway.
The minute that your managertells you you need to wear a
shorter skirt and more makeup,resign.
You don't need to stick around.
Yeah, 20 something year oldJane got had a lovely boss who
thought that she'd be better ather job if she wore shorter
skirts and more makeup.

(01:04:09):
And 21 year old Jane put upwith that for a little bit
longer than she should have.
Now the story ended very well,trust me.
Yeah, don't take shit fromanyone, would be my advice.

Speaker 1 (01:04:24):
Good advice, okay.
So if anyone's liking the cutof your jeb and likes what
you're all about and thinkingthis is a lady I need to go and
speak to, how did I get hold ofyou?

Speaker 2 (01:04:32):
You can look me up on LinkedIn.
I'm easy to find Jane Ward,tomorrow's people, or drop me an
email.
My email address is really easybecause we're a little tiny
company.
Jane J-A-N-E Attomorrowspeopleconz.

Speaker 1 (01:04:48):
Excellent.
Jane, thanks so much for comingon to the show, thanks for
sharing your world of wisdom andyour pearls of wisdom and, yeah
, look forward to seeing thecontinued success of tomorrow's
people in the next months, yearsand decades.

Speaker 2 (01:05:01):
Thank you and thanks for having me.
It's always such a pleasure tochat all things and everything.

Speaker 1 (01:05:06):
Cheers, jane Cheers.
So that's another great episode, done and dusted, as always.
I'd love to hear from you ifyou know anyone that's got a
really good story to tell abouthow they are or not living a
productive life.
If you want to get in touchwith me, please do so by my
website, wwwleastevansco.

(01:05:27):
That's wwwleastevansco.
You can email me, lee atleastevansco, or get in touch on
LinkedIn, which way I'll alsohang out In the meantime.
Have a good week.