Explore every episode of the podcast Beyond the Paycheck

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	Title	Pub. Date	Duration
	Designing Total Rewards That Actually Move the Needle	30 Jul 2026	00:20:10
Summary What happens when a company treats employee financial health as mission critical instead of a perk? Christopher Forbeck, Director of Total Rewards at NorthWestern Energy, joins host Kelsey Willock Jones to share how a sales career, two master's degrees, and a moral compass check led him to HR, and why financial security now sits on his C-suite's agenda. He breaks down where most wellbeing programs fall short by checking some pillars but not all of them, how NorthWestern built a holistic system spanning Personify Health, a double-funded 401(k), and one-on-one financial consulting for employees and their families, and why AI is pushing total rewards out of the on-demand knowledge base role and into true strategic partnership. For HR, benefits, and total rewards leaders ready to claim a seat at the strategy table. Chapters 00:00 Introduction 01:15 From sales to HR: an unexpected pivot 03:10 A paperboy's first paycheck 05:10 Why financial health is mission critical 07:45 Supporting the whole person at NorthWestern Energy 09:25 Where most wellbeing programs fall short 11:00 Making the case when the spreadsheet says no 13:05 Reaching the field workforce through their families 15:55 AI and the rise of the strategic total rewards leader 18:25 Chris's final message: be the strategic partner Takeaways -Financial health is mission critical: financially insecure employees drive attrition, show up distracted, and carry stress that ultimately reaches the product the organization delivers. -Most employers check off some wellbeing pillars but not all of them; real impact requires a holistic system across financial, mental, social, and physical wellbeing for employees and their families. -Make the investment case by ingraining wellbeing into company philosophy first, then backing it with metrics over time; it is not an immediate return, and leadership needs to hear that upfront. -Engagement is individual: what is meaningful to one employee may not be meaningful to another, and reaching the significant others of a field-based workforce can unlock participation that direct communication never will. -AI is absorbing the on-demand answer desk role total rewards has historically played, demanding the function step up as a strategic partner; the timing is ripe, and those who embrace it have sky's-the-limit potential. Connect with the Guest LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/cforbeckmba/ Website: https://www.northwesternenergy.com/ Sponsor Aura Finance helps you simplify compensation and benefits planning by bringing everything into one streamlined platform. No more juggling spreadsheets, disconnected tools, or manual calculations—Aura gives you a single place to design, compare, and communicate total rewards packages with confidence. With AI-powered insights, it takes the guesswork and busywork out of comp decisions, helps you spot pay equity gaps early, and makes it easy to model scenarios that keep your teams engaged and your budgets on track. See a demo at https://www.aurafinance.com/
	Rethinking the Benefits Package Employees Actually Use	28 Jul 2026	00:17:16
Summary On this episode of Beyond the Paycheck, Kelsey Willock Jones sits down with Stephanie Elliott, Director of Benefits and Compensation at SGA Dental Partners, to unpack why so many benefits programs go unused. Stephanie traces her path from an insurance company mail room to leading benefits, and explains how the death of the 40-year career made benefits the real retention lever, why piecemeal benefits strategies fail where holistic ones succeed, and how financial stress quietly undermines the workforce when a 3% raise doesn't cover rising costs. She also shares the story of removing a 48-hour system lockout for employees returning from leave, her go-to resource for staying ahead of changing regulations, and the shifts in the workweek, elder care, and niche benefits that most HR leaders aren't ready for. It's a practical listen for benefits leaders, HR practitioners, and anyone rethinking what keeps people. Chapters 00:00 Meet Stephanie Elliott, Director of Benefits and Compensation at SGA Dental Partners 02:30 A first paycheck and a $300 stereo 03:15 Why nobody stays 40 years anymore 04:30 Where companies get benefits right and where they fall short 06:00 Financial wellness beyond the 401(k) 07:45 How financial stress hits the workforce 08:15 Removing the 48-hour lockout barrier 11:00 Making the case when the spreadsheet says no 14:15 The shifts HR leaders aren't ready for 16:00 Listen to your associates Takeaways -The 40-year employee is gone; people change jobs every three to four years, and benefits, not salary, have become the real retention lever. -Most benefits strategies fail because they're built piecemeal; without one holistic view across mental, physical, and financial health, even good programs go unused. -Financial stress impacts the workforce severely; a 3% annual raise doesn't cover rising costs, and most employees don't understand what their 401(k) can actually do for them. -Low-enrollment benefits like pet insurance can still be immensely valuable; a benefit doesn't need mass adoption to matter to the people who use it. -Listen to your associates; if you don't ask what they really want, you'll implement benefits nobody uses. Connect with the Guest LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/stephanie-elliott-5533831a/ Website: https://sgadental.com/ Sponsor Aura Finance helps you simplify compensation and benefits planning by bringing everything into one streamlined platform. No more juggling spreadsheets, disconnected tools, or manual calculations—Aura gives you a single place to design, compare, and communicate total rewards packages with confidence. With AI-powered insights, it takes the guesswork and busywork out of comp decisions, helps you spot pay equity gaps early, and makes it easy to model scenarios that keep your teams engaged and your budgets on track. See a demo at https://www.aurafinance.com/
	The Benefit Almost Nobody Uses, and Why It Pays Off	04 Jun 2026	00:25:07
Summary On this episode of Beyond the Paycheck, Kelsey Willock sits down with Ken Wechsler, VP of Total Rewards at Akamai Technologies, to dig into why the most measurable parts of a pay package are often the least differentiating. Ken makes the case that comp is the "sexier side" of rewards but benefits are what build loyalty, that financial stress quietly destroys engagement, and that the best benefits are sometimes the ones almost nobody uses. Along the way he covers pay transparency, AI in compensation, and two financial-wellness experiments anyone can try. It's a practical listen for total rewards leaders, benefits practitioners, and anyone rethinking what actually keeps people. Chapters 00:00 Meet Ken Wechsler, VP Total Rewards at Akamai 01:30 The coin-collecting kid and his earliest money memory 03:45 First job, first car, and saving with intention 05:10 A $1,212 paycheck and what younger workers need now 07:15 Comp is the sexier side, but benefits build loyalty 10:30 Maslow, remote work, and financial wellness 12:45 When the story beats the dollar 15:00 Pay transparency: the why over the where 18:30 AI in total rewards and the human touch 21:00 The reverse pyramid and the 48-hour rule Takeaways The most visible part of a pay package, cash, is the part competitors can most easily match. Financial stress destroys engagement, so financial security is a precondition for it, not a perk beside it. A benefit can be worth keeping for the story it tells even when almost no one uses it. On pay transparency, employees care more about understanding the why than seeing the where. Use AI to do the math in comp work, but keep humans to interpret the data and make the call. Connect with the Guest LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/ken-wechsler-sphr-ccp-a452734/ Website: https://www.akamai.com/ Sponsor Aura Finance helps you simplify compensation and benefits planning by bringing everything into one streamlined platform. No more juggling spreadsheets, disconnected tools, or manual calculations—Aura gives you a single place to design, compare, and communicate total rewards packages with confidence. With AI-powered insights, it takes the guesswork and busywork out of comp decisions, helps you spot pay equity gaps early, and makes it easy to model scenarios that keep your teams engaged and your budgets on track. See a demo at https://www.aurafinance.com/
	The Missing Conversation in Every Open Enrollment	02 Jun 2026	00:27:55
Summary Beyond the Paycheck sits down with Tia Larsen, Director of Benefits at FJ Management, to trace the compensation comprehension gap back to its source: a financial literacy system that never taught employees how to read a pay package. Tia draws on 16 years managing benefits, a portfolio of 16,500 employees across six industries, and her own experience of living paycheck to paycheck to make the case that total rewards statements and open enrollment education are solving for the wrong moment. The episode covers workplace clinics, the pay-yourself-first habit, and why the missing ingredient in every benefits strategy isn't better data — it's the right conversation at the right time. Chapters 00:00 Tia Larsen and the FJ Management portfolio 04:30 Earliest memories of money and earning 08:30 The pay-yourself-first habit 12:00 Where employees get total compensation wrong 15:00 Why total rewards statements fail 17:30 The open enrollment timing problem 19:00 On-site clinics that changed employees' lives 22:30 The ROI case for workplace clinics 24:30 Pay transparency and flexibility as coming expectations Takeaways Employees who chase base salary without factoring in benefits cost, 401(k) match, and flexibility frequently end up with less take-home pay after switching jobs. Total rewards statements fail not because of their design, but because they land months before employees need the information they contain. On-site workplace clinics create predictable costs for employers while eliminating the impossible choice some employees face between medication and groceries. Benefits comprehension is built through repeated, plain-language conversations across the year, not through a single annual enrollment presentation. Pay transparency is already happening whether employers lead it or not — employees are comparing salaries, and legislation is coming regardless. Connect with the Guest LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/tia-larsen-mshr-ccp-cpsp-shrm-scp-5125602a/ Website: https://fjmgt.com/ Sponsor Aura Finance helps you simplify compensation and benefits planning by bringing everything into one streamlined platform. No more juggling spreadsheets, disconnected tools, or manual calculations—Aura gives you a single place to design, compare, and communicate total rewards packages with confidence. With AI-powered insights, it takes the guesswork and busywork out of comp decisions, helps you spot pay equity gaps early, and makes it easy to model scenarios that keep your teams engaged and your budgets on track. See a demo at https://www.aurafinance.com/ (00:00) - Tia Larsen and the FJ Management portfolio (04:30) - Earliest memories of money and earning (08:30) - The pay-yourself-first habit (12:00) - Where employees get total compensation wrong (15:00) - Why total rewards statements fail (17:30) - The open enrollment timing problem (19:00) - On-site clinics that changed employees' lives (22:30) - The ROI case for workplace clinics (24:30) - Pay transparency and flexibility as coming expectations
	What Do Your Employees Know About Their Retirement?	28 May 2026	00:20:43
Summary In this episode of Beyond the Paycheck, Kelsey sits down with Tim Goodchild, Director of International Benefits at Take-Two Interactive (parent company of Rockstar Games, 2K, and Zynga), to dig into what's actually broken in employee benefits. Tim's argument: the packages are often strong, but most employees don't understand what they have. With nearly 20 years in HR across AOL, the BBC, The Telegraph, and Anaplan, Tim lays out why financial wellbeing is the load-bearing pillar of any wellness program, why AI is about to flip benefits from reactive to proactive, and what it means for employers who aren't building toward that now. Chapters 00:00 Welcome and Tim's background at Take-Two Interactive 02:15 Earliest money memory: saving pocket money for a motor racing helmet TV 04:00 First job: games tester at EA, a rival of Take-Two 05:30 Benefits strategy by life stage: young workforce vs. older workforce 07:30 Where benefits break down: the comprehension crisis 09:30 Gamification in benefits: interesting in theory, dangerous in practice 10:30 Financial wellbeing as the most important pillar 12:00 Elder care and the sandwich generation 14:00 Cost of living, global inflation, and financial wellbeing at work 15:30 AI and the shift from reactive to proactive benefits 17:30 Flexible and voluntary benefits: the dream of year-round personalization 19:30 How to connect with Tim Takeaways Most employees don't understand their benefits package — and measuring comprehension, not just coverage, is the metric most organizations are missing. Financial wellbeing is the load-bearing pillar: when finances are stable, mental health generally follows. AI in benefits is shifting from reactive (employees ask) to proactive (AI tells) faster than most HR teams are preparing for. Benefits strategy must map to life stage — a 25-year-old and a 55-year-old need fundamentally different things from the same employer. Elder care — power of attorney, will writing, family financial planning — is becoming one of the most meaningful benefits an employer can offer. Connect with Guest LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/tgoodchild/ Website: https://www.take2games.com/ Sponsor Aura Finance helps you simplify compensation and benefits planning by bringing everything into one streamlined platform. No more juggling spreadsheets, disconnected tools, or manual calculations—Aura gives you a single place to design, compare, and communicate total rewards packages with confidence. With AI-powered insights, it takes the guesswork and busywork out of comp decisions, helps you spot pay equity gaps early, and makes it easy to model scenarios that keep your teams engaged and your budgets on track. See a demo at https://www.aurafinance.com/ (00:00) - Welcome and Tim's background at Take-Two Interactive (02:15) - Earliest money memory: saving pocket money for a motor racing helmet TV (04:00) - First job: games tester at EA, a rival of Take-Two (05:30) - Benefits strategy by life stage: young workforce vs. older workforce (07:30) - Where benefits break down: the comprehension crisis (09:30) - Gamification in benefits: interesting in theory, dangerous in practice (10:30) - Financial wellbeing as the most important pillar (12:00) - Elder care and the sandwich generation (14:00) - Cost of living, global inflation, and financial wellbeing at work (15:30) - AI and the shift from reactive to proactive benefits (17:30) - Flexible and voluntary benefits: the dream of year-round personalization (19:30) - How to connect with Tim
	Financial Wellness Is the Frontier of Wellbeing	26 May 2026	00:23:07
Summary On Beyond the Paycheck, Kelsey Willock talks with Preet Michelson, Chief People Officer at Morgan Street Holdings and its operating company TMS, about why benefits programs break down at the communication line, not the budget line. Preet makes the case that financial wellbeing is the next frontier of workplace wellness, as overdue for normalization as physical and mental health once were. She shares concrete plays, from student loan repayment paired with mandatory coaching to a midyear, personalized total compensation statement that ends with a single number. The throughline: when people can see that a company is invested in their lives and not just their output, retention and engagement follow. Built for HR, total rewards, and financial wellness leaders. Chapters 00:00 Welcome to Beyond the Paycheck 00:50 From KPMG accountant to Chief People Officer 02:30 Inside Morgan Street Holdings, TMS, and Stanley 04:30 Her earliest memory of money: independence 07:15 Where compensation and benefits break down 09:30 Why the once-a-year rewards statement fails 11:00 Marketing benefits like a consumer brand 12:45 Student loans plus mandatory coaching 14:00 Financial wellness as the next frontier 16:50 The midyear statement nobody sends Takeaways The benefits problem is usually communication, not budget; employees can't value what they never see. Financial wellbeing is the missing piece of workplace wellness, and financial stress shows up as distraction and disengagement. A midyear, personalized total compensation statement ending in one number can change how employees see the company. Treat benefits communication like consumer marketing: personalized, year-round, and specific to the individual. When people feel the company is invested in their lives and not just their output, retention and engagement follow. Meet the Guest LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/preet-hansra-michelson/ Website: https://www.tmsw.com/ Sponsor Aura Finance helps you simplify compensation and benefits planning by bringing everything into one streamlined platform. No more juggling spreadsheets, disconnected tools, or manual calculations—Aura gives you a single place to design, compare, and communicate total rewards packages with confidence. With AI-powered insights, it takes the guesswork and busywork out of comp decisions, helps you spot pay equity gaps early, and makes it easy to model scenarios that keep your teams engaged and your budgets on track. See a demo at https://www.aurafinance.com/
	How BambooHR Moved Comp Understanding From 50% to 90% With One Training	21 May 2026	00:22:46
Summary One in two employees at BambooHR said they didn't understand how their compensation was determined. After a single mandatory compensation 101 training, that number flipped—nearly 90% said they now understood. Engagement scores went up year over year. No new spend. No new vendor. Just education. In this episode, Kelsey Willock sits down with Alex Bertin, Head of Total Rewards at BambooHR, for a practical conversation about what it looks like to close the understanding gap between what a company offers and what employees actually know they have. Alex brings a finance background from FP&A at Delta Air lines and Qualtrics before finding his way into compensation—what he calls the Cinderella glass slipper moment—and he carries a grounded empathy for frontline employees into every benefits decision he makes. He and Kelsey get into why the biggest breakdown in comp and benefits isn't the package itself but the disconnect between what exists and what employees know about it, how BambooHR's paid vacation bonus (yes, they pay you to take your vacation) has become their most beloved benefit, a student loan repayment benefit that an employee forgot about twice despite it being $100/month in free money, and why the next wave of AI in benefits will be agentic tools that connect all your benefits in one place so employees stop losing track of what they have. If you run total rewards and are looking for low-cost, high-impact ways to drive engagement, Alex's perspective on education over addition will resonate. Timestamps 01:42 Alex's earliest money memory: $2 bills and selling Costco candy at swim lessons 04:33 How empathy for frontline workers keeps comp decisions grounded 07:50 Where compensation and benefits break down most: the understanding gap 10:30 The comp 101 training that moved understanding from 50% to 90% 13:44 The paid paid vacation bonus and milestone increases at 5, 10, 15, and 20 years 17:50 AI-driven benefits navigation: one place, one overlay, better utilization 20:01 Financial wellness as a founding principle, not an afterthought 21:08 The 30-day experiment: run a "use it" campaign on your most underutilized benefit Takeaways The biggest breakdown in total rewards isn't the package—it's the understanding gap; one comp training can shift employee trust dramatically Don't just offer benefits—actively market them to your employees the way you'd market a product to customers; it takes seven touches for a message to land A paid paid vacation bonus that actually gives employees money to take their trip is more powerful than unlimited PTO because it changes behavior Check which benefits employees are forgetting about; free money that goes unused is worse than not offering it at all Run a 30-day "use it" campaign on one underutilized benefit with weekly emails, real stories, and clear how-tos—the results are binary and the cost is nearly zero Connect with the Guest Guest LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/alexbertin/ Company website: https://www.bamboohr.com Sponsor Aura Finance helps you simplify compensation and benefits planning by bringing everything into one streamlined platform. No more juggling spreadsheets, disconnected tools, or manual calculations—Aura gives you a single place to design, compare, and communicate total rewards packages with confidence. With AI-powered insights, it takes the guesswork and busywork out of comp decisions, helps you spot pay equity gaps early, and makes it easy to model scenarios that keep your teams engaged and your budgets on track. See a demo at https://www.aurafinance.com/ (01:42) - Alex's earliest money memory: $2 bills and selling Costco candy at swim lessons (04:33) - How empathy for frontline workers keeps comp decisions grounded (07:50) - Where compensation and benefits break down most: the understanding gap (10:30) - The comp 101 training that moved understanding from 50% to 90% (13:44) - The paid paid vacation bonus and milestone increases at 5, 10, 15, and 20 years (17:50) - AI-driven benefits navigation: one place, one overlay, better utilization (20:01) - Financial wellness as a founding principle, not an afterthought (21:08) - The 30-day experiment: run a "use it" campaign on your most underutilized benefit
	Compensation Starts with Owning Your Value	19 May 2026	00:32:50
Summary Hollie Delaney, Chief People Officer at Power Home Remodeling, shares the financial independence lesson she absorbed at age 9, her 25-year career arc from Zappos to Power, and her framework for what total compensation really means. She breaks down where employees lose financial ground, why quality-of-life math matters more than salary alone, and how Power builds benefits that actually move people. Chapters 00:00 Introduction and Welcome 02:15 Hollie's Background: From Zappos to Power Home Remodeling 05:30 The Financial Independence Lesson Learned at Age 9 10:20 How a Personal Money Story Shapes Compensation Philosophy 14:00 Where Compensation and Benefits Break Down Most 19:30 The Quality-of-Life Math Most Offers Miss 23:45 Building Benefits by Listening to the Small Things 27:00 AI, Trends, and Staying Strategy-First 30:20 A 30-Day Financial Wellness Experiment Takeaways Most employees evaluate offers by salary alone — Hollie's framework adds hours required, career trajectory, and lifestyle delivered to the equation before any offer is accepted. The biggest compensation breakdown is not always the employer: it is employees who do not understand how their role is priced in the market and do not advocate based on that knowledge. Financial independence is built through ownership — of your market value, your negotiating position, and how you evaluate an opportunity beyond the number. Benefits that move people are not the big shiny ones. They are the day-to-day supports employees actually need: therapy benefits outside insurance friction, childcare subsidies, family planning coverage. Strategy determines whether any trend — including AI — actually improves the organization. Tools without a clear purpose create noise, not results. Guest Links Hollie Delaney on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/hollie-delaney-573b89a/ Power Home Remodeling: https://www.powerhrg.com/ (00:00) - Introduction and Welcome (02:15) - Hollie's Background: From Zappos to Power Home Remodeling (05:30) - The Financial Independence Lesson Learned at Age 9 (10:20) - How a Personal Money Story Shapes Compensation Philosophy (14:00) - Where Compensation and Benefits Break Down Most (19:30) - The Quality-of-Life Math Most Offers Miss (23:45) - Building Benefits by Listening to the Small Things (27:00) - AI, Trends, and Staying Strategy-First (30:20) - A 30-Day Financial Wellness Experiment
	Building Total Rewards Statements That Actually Change Retention	14 May 2026	00:25:03
Summary Jessica O'Leary runs benefits for 3,000+ employees across a charter school network in Dallas-Fort Worth. Her framework: treat every dollar of employee premium like your own. That means negotiating free behavioral health coaching through Cigna, building a maternity leave financial planning workshop, and creating total rewards statements that show teachers exactly where their compensation dollars go. She opens with a story about selling books on her front lawn in second grade—then connects that entrepreneur mindset to how she structures benefits today. Two core challenges emerge: school districts face severe budget constraints while competing for talent, and employees increasingly ask "what's my return on investment for working here?" Her answer includes EAPs with unlimited counseling, AI-powered enrollment tools that recommend plans based on health needs, and gift card incentives that drive 3x engagement at benefits fairs. Timestamps 00:16 From Milwaukee gamer to benefits director at a Texas charter network 02:50 First paycheck went to school clothes—and set a pattern for financial independence 05:16 Why Street Fighter and Sims taught early lessons about maximizing value 07:18 Delivering value under budget pressure: free behavioral health coaches and creative partnerships 10:25 Where compensation and benefits breakdowns happen most often 12:22 The transparency challenge: building total rewards statements that show the full picture 15:06 Mental health benefits evolve from three sessions to unlimited counseling 17:34 Measuring impact through retention and reduced out-of-pocket costs 19:28 Employees now negotiate for benefits, not just salary 22:16 Incentivizing engagement with gift cards and maternity leave financial planning workshops Takeaways - Tap your medical carrier's budget for free resources—Jessica secured a no-cost behavioral health coach through Cigna that handles chronic conditions, weight loss plans, and mental health counseling - Build a total rewards statement that shows employees exactly where their compensation goes beyond salary, including benefits contributions and education stipends - Incentivize benefits education with Amazon gift cards—employees mentally value a $20 gift card more than $20 cash and will show up to learn - AI enrollment tools can cut decision fatigue by recommending health plans based on family needs and current conditions - Create proactive financial planning workshops for major life events like maternity leave to prevent employees from running out of PTO and going unpaid Connect with the Guest LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jessica-o-leary-mba-phr-8b3a686/ Website: https://uplifteducation.org/ Sponsor Aura Finance helps you simplify compensation and benefits planning by bringing everything into one streamlined platform. No more juggling spreadsheets, disconnected tools, or manual calculations—Aura gives you a single place to design, compare, and communicate total rewards packages with confidence. With AI-powered insights, it takes the guesswork and busywork out of comp decisions, helps you spot pay equity gaps early, and makes it easy to model scenarios that keep your teams engaged and your budgets on track. See a demo at https://www.aurafinance.com/ (00:16) - From Milwaukee gamer to benefits director at a Texas charter network (02:50) - First paycheck went to school clothes—and set a pattern for financial independence (05:16) - Why Street Fighter and Sims taught early lessons about maximizing value (07:18) - Delivering value under budget pressure: free behavioral health coaches and creative partnerships (10:25) - Where compensation and benefits breakdowns happen most often (12:22) - The transparency challenge: building total rewards statements that show the full picture (15:06) - Mental health benefits evolve from three sessions to unlimited counseling (17:34) - Measuring impact through retention and reduced out-of-pocket costs (19:28) - Employees now negotiate for benefits, not just salary (22:16) - Incentivizing engagement with gift cards and maternity leave financial planning workshops
	Building a Mental Health Benefit Physicians Will Actually Use	12 May 2026	00:29:31
Summary Allison King runs total rewards at a national healthcare system where the pay gap between front-line staff and physicians spans six figures. After surveying 150+ employees, she found the real problem wasn't the benefits package—it was that no one understood what they already had. Physicians recommended benefits Sound already offered. Staff earning $50K and doctors clearing $300K needed radically different support, yet both groups were drowning in the same generic communication. King's response: build AI-powered decision tools herself, using dummy data and free accounts to prototype benefit recommenders before touching employee PHI. Allison is also shifting mental health support from generic EAPs to clinician-specific programs that send grief counselors on-site after traumatic patient events—because telling a burned-out ER doc to "set better boundaries" misses the entire problem. Timestamps 03:09 From piggy bank coin rolls to a math degree and VP of People Ops 07:14 First paycheck at Hollister bought a chunky silver Bulova watch she still owns 09:29 Why income gaps demand different benefit strategies for the same workforce 12:52 The top-three mistake: listing benefits without teaching employees how to use them 14:47 Building AI benefit decision tools with vibe coding and compliance guardrails 18:19 Transitioning from generic EAPs to clinician-specific mental health support 22:47 How to measure mental health impact when "wellbeing" means 10 different things 27:19 Subject matter experts will build personalized benefit tools without the price tag Takeaways - If employees are recommending benefits you already offer, your communication strategy has failed—survey to find the gap, then act on what you learn. - Income determines benefit priorities: high earners want tax optimization and 401(k) guidance; lower earners need affordable healthcare and debt support. - Build AI tools internally using dummy data and free accounts to prototype before involving IT, security, and compliance teams. - Generic EAPs don't work for physicians—clinicians need mental health providers who understand needle sticks, patient deaths, and charting burnout. - Personalization at scale is now accessible: subject matter experts can build decision tools without enterprise vendor contracts. Connect with the Guest Allison King on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/allisonkinghr/ Learn more about Sound Physicians: https://www.soundphysicians.com/ Sponsor Aura Finance helps you simplify compensation and benefits planning by bringing everything into one streamlined platform. No more juggling spreadsheets, disconnected tools, or manual calculations—Aura gives you a single place to design, compare, and communicate total rewards packages with confidence. With AI-powered insights, it takes the guesswork and busywork out of comp decisions, helps you spot pay equity gaps early, and makes it easy to model scenarios that keep your teams engaged and your budgets on track. See a demo at https://www.aurafinance.com/ (03:09) - From piggy bank coin rolls to a math degree and VP of People Ops (07:14) - First paycheck at Hollister bought a chunky silver Bulova watch she still owns (09:29) - Why income gaps demand different benefit strategies for the same workforce (12:52) - The top-three mistake: listing benefits without teaching employees how to use them (14:47) - Building AI benefit decision tools with vibe coding and compliance guardrails (18:19) - Transitioning from generic EAPs to clinician-specific mental health support (22:47) - How to measure mental health impact when "wellbeing" means 10 different things (27:19) - Subject matter experts will build personalized benefit tools without the price tag
	The Employee Benefits Paradox: Great Programs No One Uses	07 May 2026	00:22:13
Summary Melissa Zaino runs global benefits at Zayo Group, a fiber company competing with Google and Verizon. Her team serves 2,600 employees—half of them field technicians. She's also someone who once got underwater with credit cards and entered a consumer credit counseling program, an experience that still shapes how she thinks about financial stress at work. In this conversation, she explains why benefits teams are losing the plot: companies buy surgical point solutions for cancer, fertility, and weight management, then wonder why nobody uses them. The problem isn't the programs—it's the communication. Melissa's team stopped leading with vendor names and started leading with what the benefit actually does. She also shares why employee surveys matter more than ROI spreadsheets, and why AI might finally help demystify leave policies without violating PII. Timestamps 00:42 Melissa's role at Zayo Group and the makeup of a 2,600-person workforce 01:28 What a fiber company does and how Zayo competes with Google and Verizon 02:11 Melissa's earliest memory of money: quarters in Easter eggs 03:11 Her first job at Randall's Supermarkets and buying song lyric magazines 04:09 How her father's job loss during the Libya oil embargo shaped her relationship with money 05:56 Getting underwater with credit cards and entering consumer credit counseling 07:04 Why financial wellness can't just mean 401(k) matching 08:44 The point solution explosion: why employees don't know how cancer, fertility, and pharmacy carving all interact 11:18 Why benefits teams must stop leading with vendor names 12:32 How fertility and menopause benefits attract talent and show employees they're valued 15:22 Why employee survey feedback matters more than trying to nail down ROI on new programs 17:45 How Garner Health delivered hard-dollar savings by steering to top-performing providers 18:24 Melissa's prediction: AI will help demystify benefits without violating PII 21:29 Where to connect with Melissa on LinkedIn Takeaways Lead benefits communications with what the program does, not the vendor name—employees don't care who built it, they care what problem it solves. Employee survey feedback is ROI: if people feel valued and financially secure, you're already winning before the utilization reports come in. Point solutions break down when employees can't see how cancer coverage, pharmacy carving, and fertility benefits fit together—benefits teams must show the full medical ecosystem, not just the parts. AI's biggest benefits opportunity isn't chatbots—it's anonymized, deep analytics that surface cardiovascular trends or leave patterns without exposing PII. Connect with the guest LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/melissa-zaino-cebs-phr-b992b3/ Zayo Group: https://www.zayo.com Sponsor Aura Finance helps you simplify compensation and benefits planning by bringing everything into one streamlined platform. No more juggling spreadsheets, disconnected tools, or manual calculations—Aura gives you a single place to design, compare, and communicate total rewards packages with confidence. With AI-powered insights, it takes the guesswork and busywork out of comp decisions, helps you spot pay equity gaps early, and makes it easy to model scenarios that keep your teams engaged and your budgets on track. See a demo at https://www.aurafinance.com/
	Your Wellness Stipend Isn't Working—Here's Why	05 May 2026	00:26:30
Summary A company rolls out a $200/month wellness stipend with the best of intentions. It lands in employees' paychecks alongside everything else. Nobody changes their behavior. Claims don't go down. The intent was real, but without structure, there's no return. In this episode, Kelsey Willock sits down with Trice Stevenson-Wright, VP of People Operations and Total Rewards at Alma, for a sharp conversation about what happens when benefits design has the right intent but the wrong rigor. Trice has spent her career overhauling benefits programs at companies where the spend was high, the utilization was low, and nobody had connected the two. She walks through why employees gravitate toward the most expensive plan when a less expensive one would protect them just as well, how shifting from unlimited PTO to flexible PTO with actual parameters got people to take more time off, and why AI is quietly transforming the white-glove moments in benefits administration—like parental leave—that used to require a dedicated person. Trice also shares her grandmother's matching system (whatever you save, I'll match it), the daycare job that almost didn't pay her, and a 30-day experiment that any listener can try tomorrow: ask your employees if they understand how they're paid, then stop talking and listen. If you design benefits, manage total rewards, or are trying to make your company's spend actually mean something to the people it's meant for, Trice's perspective on structuring intent will stay with you. Timestamps 01:48 Trice's earliest money memory: frugality born from awareness, not scarcity 03:35 The daycare job that almost didn't pay her and the grandmother who matched her savings 05:31 Thinking about pay as an ecosystem, not a line item 06:47 Where benefits break down: over-indexing on offerings without connecting to ROI 09:15 Why employees pick the most expensive plan and what care navigation can fix 12:46 Unlimited PTO versus flexible PTO: the shift that actually got people to rest 15:45 AI in benefits administration: automating the white-glove parental leave experience 24:57 The 30-day experiment: ask employees if they understand how they're paid Takeaways Structure your intent—a wellness stipend deposited alongside a paycheck with no guardrails won't change behavior or claims Employees default to the most expensive medical plan because it feels safest; care navigation closes the gap between perception and what they actually need Shifting from unlimited PTO to flexible PTO with real parameters got employees to actually take more time off, not less AI can now automate the high-touch benefits moments—parental leave prep, return-to-work resources—that used to require a dedicated person Pay transparency works only if employees are equipped to receive it; education and enablement have to come before the reveal Try this tomorrow: ask your employees if they understand how they're paid and how they grow their earnings, then just listen Guest LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/tricestevensonwright/ Company website: https://www.helloalma.com Sponsor Aura Finance helps you simplify compensation and benefits planning by bringing everything into one streamlined platform. No more juggling spreadsheets, disconnected tools, or manual calculations—Aura gives you a single place to design, compare, and communicate total rewards packages with confidence. With AI-powered insights, it takes the guesswork and busywork out of comp decisions, helps you spot pay equity gaps early, and makes it easy to model scenarios that keep your teams engaged and your budgets on track.VP total rewards, benefits ROI, wellness stipend design, unlimited PTO problems, flexible PTO, care navigation benefits, benefits over-saturation, pay transparency education, AI in benefits administration, employee financial wellness, total rewards strategy, benefits communication, pay equity analytics, compensation philosophy, employee value proposition, lifestyle spending accounts, parental leave automation, benefits personalization, Beyond the Paycheck podcast See a demo at https://www.aurafinance.com/ (01:48) - Trice's earliest money memory: frugality born from awareness, not scarcity (03:35) - The daycare job that almost didn't pay her and the grandmother who matched her savings (05:31) - Thinking about pay as an ecosystem, not a line item (06:47) - Where benefits break down: over-indexing on offerings without connecting to ROI (09:15) - Why employees pick the most expensive plan and what care navigation can fix (12:46) - Unlimited PTO versus flexible PTO: the shift that actually got people to rest (15:45) - AI in benefits administration: automating the white-glove parental leave experience (24:57) - The 30-day experiment: ask employees if they understand how they're paid
	Building Total Rewards From the Ground Up	23 Jul 2026	00:22:33
Summary What does fair pay actually mean when your employees span more than 20 countries? In this episode of Beyond the Paycheck, host Kelsey Willock Jones talks with Felipe Uliani, Director of Global Total Rewards at Rimini Street, about the money story that started with giving his entire first paycheck to his parents in Brazil, why a total rewards leader has to be a steward of the employees, and how to design global programs when benefits can't cross borders. Felipe shares his 80/20 rule for global compensation, the story of an employee stock purchase plan that couldn't reach every country and the localized benefits that offset it, and his definition of fairness as a clear, consistent, defensible system rather than everyone getting what they want. A grounded conversation for HR, compensation, and total rewards leaders navigating global teams. Chapters 00:00 Introduction 01:45 First job and a first paycheck given to his parents 03:15 How a money story shapes a total rewards leader 04:30 Balancing rewards across more than 20 countries 07:30 Fairness as a clear and consistent system 09:45 A $1.6M investment in internal equity 12:15 The 80/20 rule and the experiment that didn't travel 14:15 Financial health and caring for aging parents 17:30 The shift HR leaders aren't ready for 20:00 Why executives keep investing in people Takeaways -A total rewards leader is a steward of the employees, holding company profitability and employee reality in mind at the same time, because a salary is someone's rent, food, or a dream they are fighting for. -Fairness is not everyone getting what they want; it is a clear, consistent, defensible system that employees can understand even when they disagree with an outcome. -Design global programs for the 80%, then accommodate the 20% exception with localized benefits like a richer 401(k) match, student loan repayment, or extended parental leave. -Clarity is a retention strategy: when employees understand the why behind pay decisions, confusion disappears, expectations get set, and the culture feels safe and stable. -One-size-fits-all compensation is ending; the next era requires individualized solutions and generational communication so employees actually understand and use what's offered. Connect with the Guest LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/fuliani/ Website: https://www.riministreet.com Sponsor Aura Finance helps you simplify compensation and benefits planning by bringing everything into one streamlined platform. No more juggling spreadsheets, disconnected tools, or manual calculations—Aura gives you a single place to design, compare, and communicate total rewards packages with confidence. With AI-powered insights, it takes the guesswork and busywork out of comp decisions, helps you spot pay equity gaps early, and makes it easy to model scenarios that keep your teams engaged and your budgets on track. See a demo at https://www.aurafinance.com/
	The Compensation Issue Nobody Has Solved Yet	30 Apr 2026	00:25:54
Summary The Mayo Clinic once surveyed its employees and found a 17% positive perception of pay. A year later, after running better enablement and transparency sessions—without spending a single additional dollar on comp—that number climbed to 80%. That story says a lot about what's actually broken in total rewards, and it's exactly the kind of thing Chris Toney thinks about every day. In this episode, Kelsey Willock sits down with Chris Toney, Senior Director of Total Rewards and HR Operations at Quest Software, for a warm and refreshingly candid conversation about pay, benefits, and the deeply personal nature of both. Chris started out as an English literature major who, by his own admission, is bad at math—and somehow ended up leading total rewards for a global tech company. That mix of left and right brain comes through in how he talks about the work. He and Kelsey get into why comp can't be purely prescriptive, how job-hopping has scrambled the math on raises, what he looks for when introducing benefits like fertility coverage, and why the biggest gap in most programs isn't the design—it's the communication. If you lead people, design benefits, or just want to think more clearly about pay, this one's worth your time. Timestamps 01:28 Chris's earliest money memory and the first communion savings bonds 05:01 Taking money off the table versus fairness relative to peers 07:08 The tension between structured comp and a deeply personal pay experience 09:49 The subtle shift from "what do you make" to "what do you want to earn" 12:03 Introducing fertility benefits and why it's personal for Chris 15:10 Measuring benefits impact through utilization, exit reasons, and round tables 17:23 The weight loss benefit coaster and where AI may change the game 22:50 The Mayo Clinic pay perception study that moved 17% to 80% Takeaways Design comp structures that are compliant and fair, but leave room for the fact that pay is deeply personal Check your ranges and then communicate the "why" behind them—enablement moves perception more than dollars do When you introduce a high-impact benefit like fertility coverage, pair it with the other programs that make it meaningful Use round tables alongside surveys to hear from quiet employees, not just the most vocal ones Spotlight one benefit at a time in an ongoing communications channel so employees find the value before they need it Every time you get a raise, bump up your retirement contribution before you adjust to the extra money Guest LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/chris-toney/ Company website: https://www.quest.com Sponsor Aura Finance helps you simplify compensation and benefits planning by bringing everything into one streamlined platform. No more juggling spreadsheets, disconnected tools, or manual calculations Aura gives you a single place to design, compare, and communicate total rewards packages with confidence. With AI-powered insights, it takes the guesswork and busywork out of comp decisions, helps you spot pay equity gaps early, and makes it easy to model scenarios that keep your teams engaged and your budgets on track. See a demo at https://www.aurafinance.com/ (01:28) - Chris's earliest money memory and the first communion savings bonds (05:01) - Taking money off the table versus fairness relative to peers (07:08) - The tension between structured comp and a deeply personal pay experience (09:49) - The subtle shift from "what do you make" to "what do you want to earn" (12:03) - Introducing fertility benefits and why it's personal for Chris (15:10) - Measuring benefits impact through utilization, exit reasons, and round tables (17:23) - The weight loss benefit coaster and where AI may change the game (22:50) - The Mayo Clinic pay perception study that moved 17% to 80%
	Why Most Benefits Programs Break the Moment They Meet Real Life	28 Apr 2026	00:22:44
Summary A pharmaceutical company was about to roll out student loan repayment—until they actually looked at the data and realized it was the parents and grandparents carrying the loans, not their employees. That one insight changed everything about how they approached financial wellness. In this episode, Kelsey Willock sits down with Tom Ellis, VP of Total Rewards at Emplify Health, who has spent over 20 years building people programs inside some of the largest health systems in the country—from Tennessee to Maine to Florida and now Wisconsin. Tom is one of those rare total rewards leaders who is equally comfortable talking about data warehouses and frontline employees living paycheck to paycheck. Together, Kelsey and Tom get into why so many elegant benefits programs fall apart when they hit real employee lives, how to build a direct behavioral health partnership that actually works (his prevented eight suicidal ideations in its first year), why HR is so bad at telling its own story, and where the future of benefits is heading when it comes to flexibility and shared accountability. If you design, measure, or communicate benefits programs, Tom's perspective will stay with you. Timestamps 00:56 Tom's first paycheck and how growing up without money shapes his work 04:11 The student loan assumption that data completely upended 06:41 Why data matters for baselines and measuring what's actually working 08:30 The ED utilization problem they accidentally created through education 11:03 The "messy middle" of employee lives and why programs break there 12:40 Building a direct behavioral health partnership that prevented eight suicides 15:07 How to actually tell the story of benefits up to executives 18:32 Where benefits are heading: flexibility, choice, and shared accountability Takeaways Before building a program, get the data to confirm the problem actually exists the way you think it does Design for the "messy middle" of real employee lives, not the theoretical average Measure the efficacy of every intervention so you can tell the story when leadership asks Pair quantitative data with employee stories; both are needed to make the case stick Build shared accountability into benefits so employees have a clear role to play in the outcome Guest LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/tom-ellis007/ Company website: https://www.emplifyhealth.org Sponsor Aura Finance helps you simplify compensation and benefits planning by bringing everything into one streamlined platform. No more juggling spreadsheets, disconnected tools, or manual calculations Aura gives you a single place to design, compare, and communicate total rewards packages with confidence. With AI-powered insights, it takes the guesswork and busywork out of comp decisions, helps you spot pay equity gaps early, and makes it easy to model scenarios that keep your teams engaged and your budgets on track. See a demo at https://www.aurafinance.com/ (00:56) - Tom's first paycheck and how growing up without money shapes his work (04:11) - The student loan assumption that data completely upended (06:41) - Why data matters for baselines and measuring what's actually working (08:30) - The ED utilization problem they accidentally created through education (11:03) - The "messy middle" of employee lives and why programs break there (12:40) - Building a direct behavioral health partnership that prevented eight suicides (15:07) - How to actually tell the story of benefits up to executives (18:32) - Where benefits are heading: flexibility, choice, and shared accountability
	Why Open Enrollment Isn't Where Employees Actually Use Benefits	23 Apr 2026	00:23:21
Summary Most employees don't think about their benefits until something goes wrong—and by then, they've already forgotten the open enrollment presentation, the brainshark, and the guide they skimmed in October. In this episode, Kelsey Willock sits down with Chloe Jones, Executive Director of Global Benefits at CACI International, for an honest conversation about where benefits delivery actually breaks down and what it takes to reach people when it matters. Chloe's path into benefits started with a serendipitous lunchroom friendship at a small insurance brokerage—a colleague she'd chatted with for a year wrote her an unsolicited recommendation on the way out the door, and Chloe got the job that launched everything. That story tells you a lot about how she thinks: relatable, generous, and grounded in the reality that most people don't grow up learning how money works. She and Kelsey get into why benefits communication has to happen everywhere all year (not just at enrollment), why employees won't tell you they don't understand the information, how AI is about to reshape benefits navigation while raising serious data privacy questions, and what at-home diagnostic kits could mean for the future of preventative care. If you design, deliver, or communicate benefits programs, Chloe's perspective on meeting employees where they actually are—not where you assume they are—will sharpen how you think about the work. Timestamps 00:16 – Chloe's winding path from history degree to global benefits leadership 06:17 – First job at Limited Too and the first paycheck that went straight to a manicure 07:16 – Why Chloe has no earliest memory of money—and what that says about financial education 10:26 – How humble beginnings shaped her approach to employee communication 14:22 – Where benefits break down: the delivery gap between enrollment and real life 18:23 – AI, PII, and the tension between personalization and data privacy 21:00 – At-home diagnostic kits and what's coming next for the employee experience Takeaways Open enrollment gets people enrolled—it doesn't teach them how to use what they have; the real work happens all year long Employees wear work masks and won't tell you they don't understand the information; you have to communicate across every channel, not just the one that fits your company's "look and feel" Frame benefits so people can find what they need in the moment they need it, not just when you're ready to present it Financial education is missing from most people's upbringing; staying relatable in how you communicate isn't optional, it's the job Watch the intersection of AI-powered benefits navigation and data privacy closely—legislation is coming, and your contracts need to be ready Guest LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/chloe-jones-5a60556b/ Company website: https://www.caci.com Sponsor Aura Finance helps you simplify compensation and benefits planning by bringing everything into one streamlined platform. No more juggling spreadsheets, disconnected tools, or manual calculations Aura gives you a single place to design, compare, and communicate total rewards packages with confidence. With AIpowered insights, it takes the guesswork and busywork out of comp decisions, helps you spot pay equity gaps early, and makes it easy to model scenarios that keep your teams engaged and your budgets on track. See a demo at https://www.aurafinance.com/ (00:16) - Chloe's winding path from history degree to global benefits leadership (06:17) - First job at Limited Too and the first paycheck that went straight to a manicure (07:16) - Why Chloe has no earliest memory of money—and what that says about financial education (10:26) - How humble beginnings shaped her approach to employee communication (14:22) - Where benefits break down: the delivery gap between enrollment and real life (18:23) - AI, PII, and the tension between personalization and data privacy (21:00) - At-home diagnostic kits and what's coming next for the employee experience
	What a Dime Jar Taught Me About Pay, Anxiety, and Employee Empathy	23 Apr 2026	00:27:44
Summary What does a first confession in 1980s Arizona have to do with how a Chief People Officer thinks about pay and benefits today? More than you'd expect. In this episode, Kelsey Willock sits down with Ann Watson, Chief People Officer at Cover Genius, for an honest, humane conversation about money, empathy, and the quiet benefits that change people's lives. Ann leads people operations for a global insurtech company with roughly 700 employees across 23 countries, and she's spent most of her career guiding tech startups through the messy 50to500 growth phase. She opens up about growing up in a family that didn't have much but valued education, her first salaried job at an earlystage Starbucks, and why she works hard to never assume she knows someone's financial story—even when she technically knows their salary. Ann and Kelsey get into where compensation and benefits are breaking down in the US, the trap of chasing global parity, a failed "will and advanced directive" lunch that taught her a lot about the gap between what people say they want and what they'll actually act on, and why she's a true believer in pay transparency. If you care about building benefits programs that actually show up for people in their hardest moments, this one's worth your time. Timestamps 02:18 – Ann's earliest memory of money (and a first confession confession) 05:14 – Her first fulltime salary and what it revealed about generational money 07:25 – Why knowing what everyone earns teaches you to assume nothing 12:16 – Where US pay and benefits are breaking down most 14:50 – The trap of chasing global parity across countries 17:30 – The willandtestament lunch that didn't go as planned 20:30 – Remote work as a lifechanging benefit, not just a perk 26:48 – Why Ann is allin on pay transparency Takeaways Check your assumptions about what employees earn, know, or can handle financially—salary tells you almost nothing about someone's real money story Design benefits for the worst moments of someone's life, not just the recruiting pitch Resist chasing global parity—build locally relevant benefits and communicate the "why" clearly Test desire against action before building a program; what people say they want and what they'll show up for are rarely the same Enroll employees in the safetynet benefits they'll never think to ask for—life insurance, LTD, autoenrolled 401(k)s Lean into pay transparency even when it feels uncomfortable; the rigor it demands makes everything else better Guest LinkedIn:https://www.linkedin.com/in/annwatson5404a48/ Company website: https://www.covergenius.com Sponsor Aura Finance helps you simplify compensation and benefits planning by bringing everything into one streamlined platform. No more juggling spreadsheets, disconnected tools, or manual calculations Aura gives you a single place to design, compare, and communicate total rewards packages with confidence. With AIpowered insights, it takes the guesswork and busywork out of comp decisions, helps you spot pay equity gaps early, and makes it easy to model scenarios that keep your teams engaged and your budgets on track. See a demo at https://www.aurafinance.com/ (02:18) - Ann's earliest memory of money (and a first confession confession) (05:14) - Her first fulltime salary and what it revealed about generational money (07:25) - Why knowing what everyone earns teaches you to assume nothing (12:16) - Where US pay and benefits are breaking down most (14:50) - The trap of chasing global parity across countries (17:30) - The willandtestament lunch that didn't go as planned (20:30) - Remote work as a lifechanging benefit, not just a perk (26:48) - Why Ann is allin on pay transparency
	Why Your Benefits Communications Are Still Too Complicated to Work	23 Apr 2026	00:27:28
Summary A hotel company with 120 properties across the country went from 20% open enrollment engagement to over 85% in a single year—and 21 properties hit 100%. The trick wasn't a new platform or a bigger budget. It was handing ownership to local leaders and a little friendly competition. In this episode, Kelsey Willock sits down with Brian Sosa, Director of Benefits at Crestline Hotels and Resorts, to talk about what actually moves the needle on benefits engagement when your workforce is scattered, multilingual, and rarely sitting at a desk. Brian brings a refreshingly analytical but human perspective to the work. He shares the story of buying a toy Hummer as a kid that taught him it's okay to spend money, how he invoiced his dad in dessert for his first "real" job, and how those early lessons shaped the way he designs tools and communications today. Kelsey and Brian get into why benefits break down most often (hint: it's not just communication), how to translate retirement contributions into "gallons of gas" so employees actually understand them, why sometimes launching the wrong thing is faster than running another survey, and where AI and care navigation tools may genuinely reshape the employee experience in the year ahead. If you lead a distributed workforce or just want sharper ideas for making benefits land, Brian's perspective is worth an hour. Timestamps 00:48 The toy Hummer and the lesson that it's okay to spend 04:00 Brian's first "paycheck" paid in dessert by his dad 08:18 Where benefits break down: complication, not just communication 10:19 Translating retirement contributions into gallons of gas 12:37 The 120-property competition that drove 85%+ open enrollment engagement 16:31 Why the right benefits admin platform is really a data strategy 19:14 Launching things intentionally instead of waiting for survey results 21:24 Care navigation, AI, and what may actually shift the employee experience Takeaways Make benefits language relatable — translate percentages into real-world dollars or something people already spend money on Hand ownership of engagement down to local leaders and add a little friendly competition Don't let survey fatigue stall you; sometimes launching the wrong thing surfaces what people actually need faster than asking Invest in data infrastructure, not just benefits programs — the insights shape next year's strategy Watch care navigation tools and AI closely; the real employee impact may be less about features and more about cost and access Guest LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/brian-sosa/ Company website: https://www.crestlinehotels.com Sponsor Aura Finance helps you simplify compensation and benefits planning by bringing everything into one streamlined platform. No more juggling spreadsheets, disconnected tools, or manual calculations Aura gives you a single place to design, compare, and communicate total rewards packages with confidence. With AI-powered insights, it takes the guesswork and busywork out of comp decisions, helps you spot pay equity gaps early, and makes it easy to model scenarios that keep your teams engaged and your budgets on track. See a demo at https://www.aurafinance.com/ (00:48) - The toy Hummer and the lesson that it's okay to spend (04:00) - Brian's first "paycheck" paid in dessert by his dad (08:18) - Where benefits break down: complication, not just communication (10:19) - Translating retirement contributions into gallons of gas (12:37) - The 120-property competition that drove 85%+ open enrollment engagement (16:31) - Why the right benefits admin platform is really a data strategy (19:14) - Launching things intentionally instead of waiting for survey results (21:24) - Care navigation, AI, and what may actually shift the employee experience
	Why Your Benefits Strategy Is Failing Employees (And How to Fix It)	21 Apr 2026	00:26:15
Summary What if the secret to building a thriving workforce started with a five-year-old saving a dollar a day? In this episode, we sit down with Dr. Charmion "Charm" Patton, Chief Human Resources Officer at Hillsborough County Public Schools and a 25-year HR generalist, to explore how personal money lessons shape the way leaders design benefits that actually transform lives. Dr. Patton shares the childhood habit that taught her financial discipline, then unpacks how that same mindset informs her approach to employee well-being today. From bundled surgery programs that eliminate out-of-pocket costs, to the looming questions around GLP-1 medications, to the simple power of reminding overworked educators it's okay to take a bio break, this conversation is packed with practical wisdom for HR leaders, benefits professionals, and anyone navigating the intersection of compensation, care, and culture. Dr. Patton makes a compelling case that financial wellness isn't just about retirement — it's about meeting employees where they are today and giving them the tools to build a quality life right now. Timestamps [00:54] – Dr. Patton's earliest money memory: saving a dollar a day [05:52] – How her money story shapes her benefits philosophy [06:46] – Why financial wellness matters beyond retirement [09:15] – Where compensation and benefits break down most often [12:33] – A bundled surgery benefit that's transforming employee care [18:07] – Benefits trends shaping the next year: advocacy and GLP-1s [22:41] – A 30-day financial wellness experiment anyone can try Takeaways Reframe saving as a reward, not a sacrifice, to build sustainable money habits Design benefits with the employee's full financial picture in mind, not just the company's bottom line Offer bundled care options to remove cost barriers and encourage preventative treatment Track claims data over time to measure the real impact of new benefit programs Prepare for rising employee advocacy around high-cost medications like GLP-1s Start small with financial goals — $10 saved beats $0 every time Sponsor Aura Finance helps you simplify compensation and benefits planning by bringing everything into one streamlined platform. No more juggling spreadsheets, disconnected tools, or manual calculations Aura gives you a single place to design, compare, and communicate total rewards packages with confidence. With AI-powered insights, it takes the guesswork and busywork out of comp decisions, helps you spot pay equity gaps early, and makes it easy to model scenarios that keep your teams engaged and your budgets on track. See a demo at https://www.aurafinance.com/
	How Crunch Fitness Cut Part-Time Turnover 24% With One Bold Benefits Move	16 Apr 2026	00:25:04
What happens when you stop assuming what employees need and actually ask them? Pamela J. Brown, EVP and Head of People & Culture at Crunch Fitness, joins Beyond the Paycheck to share how she's transforming the employee experience across 550+ gym locations in six countries. From implementing a 401(k) with match after an inaugural engagement survey to making Crunch Fitness the only big-box gym offering full benefits to part-time employees — resulting in a 24% retention improvement — Pam reveals the framework behind building benefits programs that deliver measurable ROI. She opens up about her earliest money memories, the mentor who shaped how she leads, and why mental fitness training, leadership development, and creative no-cost benefits are just as critical as traditional compensation. Whether you're trying to get buy-in from senior leadership on a new pilot program or looking for hidden value in your existing vendor relationships, this episode is packed with tactical strategies you can start using this week. Timestamps [00:49] – Pam's earliest money memory and the Disneyland lesson that changed her perspective [06:00] – How personal money experiences shape her approach to total rewards [07:43] – Driving engagement and utilization: closing the loop on employee feedback [09:30] – Why Crunch Fitness offers full benefits to part-time employees [12:02] – Leadership development and mental fitness as total rewards [16:29] – Getting executive buy-in for mental health programs [18:19] – The hypothesis-test-prove framework for benefits ROI [23:43] – A 30-day experiment: unlocking hidden vendor benefits Takeaways Close the feedback loop — tell employees what you heard, what you did, and show the results Test bold hypotheses with pilot programs, prove ROI with retention data, and pivot fast when something isn't working Explore no-cost and low-cost benefits like low-interest loan programs, EAP negotiations, and vendor partnerships Treat leadership development and mental fitness training as part of your total rewards package — not separate line items Audit your vendor relationships: brokers, 401(k) providers, and EAPs often have hidden benefits you haven't activated Incentivize preventative care usage to drive healthier outcomes and reduce insurance cost increases Guest LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/pamelabr/ Company Website: https://www.crunch.com
	Why Your Employees Are Choosing the Wrong Health Plan — And How to Fix It	14 Apr 2026	00:21:06
Summary What if the biggest obstacle to your employees' financial well-being isn't their salary — it's that they don't understand what they already have? In this episode of Beyond the Paycheck, host Kelsey Willock sits down with Erin Desrosiers, CCP, Compensation and Benefits Leader at HOK, the global architecture and design firm with 1,700+ employees across 27 offices. Erin brings over a decade of experience in compensation and benefits to an honest conversation about the affordability crisis facing today's workforce, why employees consistently choose the wrong health plan, and what companies can actually do about it. From the triple tax advantage of HSAs that most workers overlook, to why fertility benefits generate the most gratitude she's ever seen, to the "job hugging" phenomenon keeping people frozen in place — Erin doesn't shy away from the hard truths. She also makes a compelling case for something deceptively simple: just talk to your benefits team. They want to hear from you. Whether you're an HR leader designing your next open enrollment or an employee trying to stretch your paycheck further, this episode delivers practical, actionable guidance you can use starting today. Timestamps [00:35] – Erin's earliest money memory: the nickel-and-dime sibling hustle [03:10] – Why data matters more than personal opinion in comp & benefits [05:05] – Job hugging, AI anxiety, and why employees aren't moving [08:24] – Shopping for health insurance like car insurance [11:08] – The deductible conversation most adults still need [14:18] – Fertility benefits: the most appreciated offering Erin has ever provided [16:01] – Remote, hybrid, or in-office: why companies are holding to their values [18:00] – The 30-day experiment: HSAs, feedback, and advocating for yourself Takeaways Treat health insurance decisions like car insurance — compare premiums, deductibles, and out-of-pocket maximums rather than defaulting to the most expensive plan Leverage HSA triple tax advantages: pre-tax contributions, tax-free growth, and tax-free withdrawals for eligible expenses Share candid feedback with your benefits team — they hear complaints but rarely learn what employees actually value Consider fertility benefits as a high-impact offering that transforms employee loyalty and builds families Recognize "job hugging" as a real workforce trend driven by AI uncertainty and distrust in hiring processes Educate employees year-round on their benefits, not just during open enrollment season Guest LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/erin-desrosiers-ccp-50652536/ Company Website: https://www.hok.com
	From Cost Shift to Care Shift: Tom Armani on Value-Based Primary Care and Personalizing Benefits	14 Apr 2026	00:21:33
Summary High-deductible plans were meant to save money—but for many employees, they’ve created “functional uninsured” risk and delayed care that drives bigger costs later. Tom Armani, most recently Director of Global Benefits at Dayforce and a 20+ year benefits leader, unpacks how employers can reverse the affordability crisis while improving outcomes. He explains why self-funded benefits should be run like a small business, the misaligned incentives across carriers, providers, and PBMs, and how value-based advanced primary care can lower total cost of care. Tom shares a practical model he implemented—partnering with a curated marketplace of independent primary care groups with fees at risk and clinical reconciliation. He also tackles the engagement gap: why point solutions go unused, how just‑in‑time personalization (via claims and wearable data) boosts relevance, and how to do it within HIPAA using vendor-led outreach. The episode closes with actionable steps for financial wellbeing—from capturing the employer match to using HSAs/FSAs and advocacy partners—plus a call to build healthcare literacy so employees can actually navigate their plans. Timestamps [00:40] – Early money mindset: Depression-era frugality and why affordability matters [02:15] – First jobs to benefits philosophy: Understanding paycheck-to-paycheck realities [07:35] – Where benefits break down: Self-funded spend, misaligned incentives, HDHP pitfalls [10:59] – The true cost of delayed care and ER utilization [11:30] – Fixing incentives: Value-based advanced primary care and independent networks [14:45] – The engagement gap: Point solutions, personalization, and AI-driven outreach [16:15] – Doing personalization right: HIPAA, vendor-led targeting, and data privacy [19:10] – Healthcare literacy for new workers and navigation challenges [21:05] – Next best actions: Employer match, HSAs/FSAs, emergency savings, and advocacy Takeaways - Run benefits like a P&L—interrogate incentives across insurers, providers, and PBMs. - Reduce overexposure from HDHPs; restore first-dollar coverage for prevention and primary care to avoid downstream costs. - Pilot value-based advanced primary care with independent groups and at-risk fees tied to outcomes. - Close the engagement gap with personalized, just-in-time outreach powered by claims/biometric data—delivered by privacy-compliant vendors. - Build healthcare literacy and offer advocacy so employees can navigate networks, prior auth, and plan design. - Coach “next best actions”: capture the employer match, fund HSAs/FSAs with pre-tax dollars, create an emergency savings buffer, and ask for help early. Sponsor Aura Finance helps you simplify compensation and benefits planning by bringing everything into one streamlined platform. No more juggling spreadsheets, disconnected tools, or manual calculations Aura gives you a single place to design, compare, and communicate total rewards packages with confidence. With AI-powered insights, it takes the guesswork and busywork out of comp decisions, helps you spot pay equity gaps early, and makes it easy to model scenarios that keep your teams engaged and your budgets on track. See a demo at https://www.aurafinance.com/
	Why You'll Compare TVs but Not Doctors: The Baldwin Group's Nick Getz on Healthcare's Consumerism Problem and What's Coming in 2027	09 Apr 2026	00:24:16
Summary How do you help employees make smarter healthcare decisions in a system that’s anything but consumer-friendly? Nick Getz, National Director of Underwriting & Innovation, Employee Benefits at The Baldwin Group, breaks down how employers can communicate value, drive preventive care, and control rising costs—without overwhelming their people. The Baldwin Group is one of the fastest-growing brokerages in the U.S. with 5,000+ employees, and Nick brings a clear, practical lens: benefits are a retention engine, not just an attraction perk. He shares how to tell the full total-compensation story, why messages need 8–9 touches across existing channels, and how to tailor preventive care to each person’s reality—from GLP‑1 users to simple habit stacking. Nick also explains why U.S. healthcare lacks true consumerism, what that means for navigation and price transparency, and which trends—like pass-through PBMs and regulation—will reshape the employee experience in the next two years. Expect actionable guidance on steering employees to high‑value care, simplifying choices, and preparing for a noisy but necessary wave of change. Timestamps [00:17] – Nick’s role at The Baldwin Group: underwriting innovation, controlling healthcare and pharmacy spend [01:23] – Early money lessons: earning, saving, and the value of choice [02:23] – First jobs and spending that first paycheck—plus the saving lesson that stuck [04:07] – Benefits as retention: telling the total compensation story and what really drives loyalty [06:17] – Communication that works: 8–9 touches, multi-channel, and quarterly focus themes [09:36] – Preventive care redefined: habits, chronic conditions, GLP‑1 use, and meeting people where they are [15:22] – The biggest breakdown: where to go for care and why healthcare lacks true consumerism [19:38] – What’s ahead: regulation as a warning sign, drug costs, transparent PBMs, navigation—and a noisy 2027 Takeaways - Treat benefits as a retention engine—tell the full total compensation story, not just premiums and copays. - Communicate with repetition and variety—use existing channels, aim for 8–9 touches, and theme messages by quarter. - Personalize preventive care—meet people where they are, connect mental and physical health, and promote small, stackable habits. - Steer employees to high‑value care—offer navigation support, explain cost differences, and demystify copays vs. HDHPs. - Tackle pharmacy spend—evaluate transparent, pass‑through PBMs and support access strategies for high-cost, life-saving meds. - Prepare for regulatory shifts—expect noise before clarity; prioritize member experience and cost transparency now. Sponsor Aura Finance helps you simplify compensation and benefits planning by bringing everything into one streamlined platform. No more juggling spreadsheets, disconnected tools, or manual calculations Aura gives you a single place to design, compare, and communicate total rewards packages with confidence. With AI-powered insights, it takes the guesswork and busywork out of comp decisions, helps you spot pay equity gaps early, and makes it easy to model scenarios that keep your teams engaged and your budgets on track. See a demo at https://www.aurafinance.com/
	Why Financial Stress Is a Safety Problem	21 Jul 2026	00:15:46
Summary What does an employee working a second job actually tell you about your workplace? Sarah Cornelio, Total Rewards Manager at Urban Engineers, joins host Kelsey Wheelock to make the case that financial stress is a burnout and safety indicator most HR leaders miss. She shares the "never let the first answer be no" vendor philosophy that surfaced a long-term care benefit her team never went looking for, her framework for measuring the non-scale victories engagement surveys can't capture, and why focus groups are one of the most valuable tools in her 20-year HR toolbox. For total rewards, benefits, and HR leaders who want programs that meet employees where they are. Chapters 00:00 Introduction and welcome 00:45 Sarah's 20 years across HR 01:45 First paychecks and the money story behind a benefits career 03:45 Never letting the first answer be no 05:15 AI tools and keeping pulse on new offerings 07:15 Non-scale victories and measuring what surveys miss 08:45 Focus groups and listening to real struggles 10:15 The sandwich generation and life-stage benefits 12:00 Financial stress, second jobs, and burnout risk 13:45 What keeps programs from sitting idle Takeaways -Never let the first answer be no: taking every vendor call surfaced a long-term care insurance benefit Urban Engineers never went looking for, meaningful to employees at both ends of the age spectrum. -The best benefits intelligence is often already paid for: brokers, retirement carriers, and peer surveys across employee-owned firms reveal what is working before a pitch ever lands. -Programs create non-scale victories: impact that never shows in survey data. Capture it by ending every employee interaction with "What can we be doing better to support you?" -Focus groups reach the people who never fill out the survey, turning engagement scores into named, real struggles HR can act on. -Employees working multiple jobs are a burnout and safety signal, not a policy problem. Remove barriers to second jobs or pay a living wage, and treat sustained financial stress as workplace risk. Connect with the Guest LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/sarah-cornelio-82470672/ Website: https://www.urbanengineers.com/ Sponsor Aura Finance helps you simplify compensation and benefits planning by bringing everything into one streamlined platform. No more juggling spreadsheets, disconnected tools, or manual calculations—Aura gives you a single place to design, compare, and communicate total rewards packages with confidence. With AI-powered insights, it takes the guesswork and busywork out of comp decisions, helps you spot pay equity gaps early, and makes it easy to model scenarios that keep your teams engaged and your budgets on track. See a demo at https://www.aurafinance.com/
	Pay Transparency Is Coming Whether You're Ready or Not: Silicon Labs' Total Rewards Leader on Education, Equity, and What Managers Must Learn	06 Apr 2026	00:21:09
Shiny offer letters don't build trust—clear education and consistent execution do. Nick Oliveri, Senior Director of Total Rewards at Silicon Labs (a 1,800-person global semiconductor company with 18 locations), shares a practical playbook for modern compensation and benefits. Grounded in the belief that every dollar represents someone's effort, Nick explains why the biggest breakdowns happen in education—especially manager enablement—and how simplifying salary bands and benefits can close the gap. He details Silicon Labs' enterprise ChatGPT program with custom GPTs for safe, on-demand benefits questions, the guardrails they use in comp planning (live dashboards, merit/equity matrices), and why he prefers buying tech to avoid upkeep drag. Nick also unpacks benefits that truly change lives—parental leave with flexible return and real-life supports—how he measures impact (pulse surveys, external signals), and lessons from an unexpected backlash over a pet insurance switch. Looking ahead, he argues pay transparency is a trust strategy, not just a compliance exercise, with narrower base ranges and incentives doing more of the performance lifting. Tools mentioned include Pave for dynamic comp planning and total rewards visibility. Timestamps [00:45] – Meet Nick Oliveri: career path into Total Rewards and leading comp/benefits at Silicon Labs [02:07] – First memories of money: why "every dollar equals effort" shapes his pay philosophy [04:19] – Where comp/benefits break down: education, transparency, and manager enablement [06:07] – Applying AI: custom GPTs for benefits questions and safer employee learning [08:03] – Guardrails that work: dashboards, comp planning matrices, automation, fresher data [09:01] – Build vs. buy: why upkeep tips the scale toward purchasing HR tech [10:17] – Benefits that change lives: parental leave, flexible returns, and real-world support [17:16] – The next wave: pay transparency as a trust strategy; narrower ranges, bigger incentives [19:18] – Tools to watch: Pave for virtual offers, total rewards visibility, and live comp data Takeaways Educate managers to be your primary communicators on pay, ranges, and trade-offs. Simplify salary bands and benefits; clarity increases perceived value and trust. Deploy AI chatbots for private, 24/7 benefits questions to boost understanding and utilization. Build comp guardrails with real-time data: dashboards, merit/equity matrices, and automation. Invest in parental leave and flexible returns; pair with practical supports to reduce stress. Treat pay transparency as table stakes; narrow base ranges and use incentives to drive performance. Expand financial wellness access—advice, budgeting tools, and education on 401(k)/ESPP—especially in uncertain markets. Favor buying HR tech to reduce maintenance burden and accelerate outcomes. Sponsor Aura Finance helps you simplify compensation and benefits planning by bringing everything into one streamlined platform. No more juggling spreadsheets, disconnected tools, or manual calculations Aura gives you a single place to design, compare, and communicate total rewards packages with confidence. With AI-powered insights, it takes the guesswork and busywork out of comp decisions, helps you spot pay equity gaps early, and makes it easy to model scenarios that keep your teams engaged and your budgets on track. See a demo at https://www.aurafinance.com/
	Employees in Their 70s with $0 Saved: How Northside Hospital Is Using Age-Banded Strategy to Fix Retirement Before It's Too Late	05 Apr 2026	00:24:42
If employees don't use their benefits, they don't create value. Tomekia Williams, Manager of Benefits Administration at Northside Hospital in Atlanta, shares how her team moves beyond "check-the-box" offerings to utilization, impact, and true care for a largely frontline workforce. Northside—known as the "baby hospital" for delivering more babies than any hospital in the U.S.—faces the complexity of educating busy caregivers. Tomekia breaks down how targeted, time‑of‑need communications outperform broad blasts, from hosting segmented info sessions on new IRS catch‑up rules to building age‑banded financial wellbeing programs that start with budgeting for early‑career employees. She also details what changed lives during the pandemic—rolling out Headspace and normalizing proactive mental health support—and why the hospital doubles down on EAP access for employees and their households plus coaching via meQuilibrium. Looking ahead, she highlights AI's role in streamlining benefits administration and why measuring relevance and utilization (not volume) should guide every plan decision. Expect practical moves you can apply now, including a 30‑day experiment to target the largest age cohort in your workforce. TIMESTAMPS [00:45] – From temp role at Fidelity to a career in benefits education [01:32] – Inside Northside: serving frontline caregivers at the "baby hospital" [05:10] – The real gap: time‑of‑need education vs. information overload [07:43] – Targeted outreach in action: IRS catch‑up changes and live Q&A sessions [08:45] – Mental health that moves the needle: Headspace and proactive support [12:16] – Measuring what matters: utilization, relevance, and sunsetting low‑value perks [13:50] – Financial wellbeing for 2026: pension + DC readiness and age‑banded coaching [20:12] – Trends to watch: AI for benefits admin and easier access to mental health care TAKEAWAYS - Deliver education at moments that matter—map life events and push targeted, timely communications. - Host segmented info sessions for plan or regulatory changes; pair concise content with live Q&A. - Manage your portfolio by utilization and outcomes; retire low‑value perks and reinvest in what's used. - Build retirement readiness early with age‑banded financial wellbeing—teach budgeting and compounding to new grads. - Promote your EAP year‑round (to employees and households) and add coaching tools like meQ to support clinicians. - Apply AI to streamline benefits administration—reduce eligibility/enrollment errors and clarify communications. Sponsor Aura Finance helps you simplify compensation and benefits planning by bringing everything into one streamlined platform. No more juggling spreadsheets, disconnected tools, or manual calculations Aura gives you a single place to design, compare, and communicate total rewards packages with confidence. With AI-powered insights, it takes the guesswork and busywork out of comp decisions, helps you spot pay equity gaps early, and makes it easy to model scenarios that keep your teams engaged and your budgets on track. See a demo at https://www.aurafinance.com/
	The Benefit Nobody Expected: GoHealth's Eric Waggoner on Financial Well-Being, Pay Equity, and Why Custom Insoles Outperformed Every Prediction	04 Apr 2026	00:24:54
Summary How do you modernize total rewards for a 6,500-person frontline healthcare workforce—without losing the human touch? Eric Waggoner, Director of Total Rewards at GoHealth Urgent Care, shares how his team balances compliance, cost, and culture across 17 states and multiple health system joint ventures. With a career that began in sales redesigning commission plans, Eric brings a pragmatic lens to compensation, benefits, and financial well-being. He explains how AI can supplement—not replace—HR teams, from speeding compensation cycles with tools like Better Comp to deflecting benefits FAQs during open enrollment. Eric also details how he educates employees on the full value of total rewards, tailors financial well-being by generation, and measures success beyond claims data. Don’t miss his unexpected, high-impact benefit for frontline staff—3D custom insoles—and his take on pay equity guardrails and the rising pressure of prescription drug costs. The episode closes with a 30-day money experiment any listener can try. Timestamps [00:45] – Guest intro: From sales commissions to leading Total Rewards in healthcare [01:57] – GoHealth at a glance: 17-state JV model and a 6,500-person frontline workforce [03:05] – Early money lessons and first jobs—and how they shape empathy in pay and benefits [06:47] – Where comp and benefits break down today: manual work, healthcare costs, and AI as a supplement [09:02] – Tools in practice: Better Comp for compensation cycles and an AI benefits assistant for open enrollment [11:09] – Teaching total rewards value: whole-person design, financial well-being, and generational needs [16:08] – A small benefit with big impact: 3D custom insoles, MSK prevention, and cultural ROI [20:28] – Pay equity readiness: fast-changing laws, annual audits, and transparent guardrails [22:05] – The near-term trend to watch: managing rising RX costs [23:27] – A 30-day experiment to boost your financial well-being: track every dollar Takeaways - Treat AI as a force multiplier: use it to automate FAQs and accelerate comp work while upskilling your team. - Make total rewards visible: share annual total comp statements and explain employer-paid value clearly. - Design for the whole person: integrate physical, emotional, and financial well-being across the career journey. - Personalize financial education: meet generational needs with 401(k) basics, Roth options, and investing literacy. - Pilot targeted frontline benefits: test high-utility perks like 3D custom insoles that reduce MSK strain and lift morale. - Prepare for pay equity at scale: run annual pay audits with demographic cuts and document processes to meet evolving laws. - Tackle RX spend proactively: explore plan design, vendor partnerships, and education to blunt near-term cost pressure. Sponsor Aura Finance helps you simplify compensation and benefits planning by bringing everything into one streamlined platform. No more juggling spreadsheets, disconnected tools, or manual calculations Aura gives you a single place to design, compare, and communicate total rewards packages with confidence. With AI-powered insights, it takes the guesswork and busywork out of comp decisions, helps you spot pay equity gaps early, and makes it easy to model scenarios that keep your teams engaged and your budgets on track. See a demo at https://www.aurafinance.com/
	Wealth on the Rails: How Amtrak's Benefits Leader Is Building Financial Futures for 24,000 Employees	04 Apr 2026	00:20:46
Summary How do you drive benefits engagement when most of your workforce is union, frontline, and constantly on the move? Robert Fortin, Senior Manager of Benefits Wealth at Amtrak and former pension consultant, shares how his team thinks beyond retirement to help employees build wealth across their careers. From his earliest money lessons (savings bonds from his grandmother) to riding Amtrak routes to hear frontline feedback firsthand, Robert brings a practical, people-first lens to plan design. He explains why automatic programs beat awareness campaigns, what the Pension Protection Act unlocked for savers, and how default choices still shape outcomes years later. Robert also unpacks Amtrak's unique context—balancing federal funding stewardship with attraction and retention, operating under the Railroad Retirement system, and tailoring offerings like lifestyle spending accounts to a diverse, largely union workforce. He closes with what's next: more employee choice—with the caveat that simplicity, vendor partnership, and updated legislation are essential to make it work. Timestamps [00:20] – Guest intro: Robert's role leading wealth-building at Amtrak and career journey from pensions to plan sponsor [01:21] – Inside Amtrak: mission, union-heavy workforce, and a public service footprint across the U.S. [02:56] – Early money lessons: savings bonds, time value of money, and saving for your future self [05:59] – First job habits: quarters for trash cans, diligence, and forming financial discipline [07:13] – The engagement challenge: remove barriers, use automatic programs, and make saving effortless [08:46] – Policy that changed saving: PPA 2006, auto-enrollment/escalation, default rates, and SECURE 2.0 [11:36] – Reaching frontline employees: safety/benefit fairs, riding the trains, and word-of-mouth influence [14:19] – Balancing the benefits mix: federal funding, healthcare costs, Railroad Retirement, LSAs, and demographics [18:09] – The next trend: expanding employee choice—while managing complexity and regulatory constraints Takeaways Automate savings: implement auto-enrollment and auto-escalation with meaningful default rates to boost participation. Get out of the office: supplement surveys with listening tours, benefit/safety fairs, and ride-alongs to hear frontline needs. Design for frontline realities: communicate in simple, timely ways and leverage peer networks to spread awareness. Balance the portfolio: weigh healthcare, retirement, and flexible accounts against budget and mission to drive retention. Offer choice with guardrails: simplify through vendor partnerships and advocate for policy updates that enable equitable flexibility. Start with your demographics: build benefits around who you have today and the workforce you need in 3–5 years. Sponsor Aura Finance helps you simplify compensation and benefits planning by bringing everything into one streamlined platform. No more juggling spreadsheets, disconnected tools, or manual calculations Aura gives you a single place to design, compare, and communicate total rewards packages with confidence. With AI-powered insights, it takes the guesswork and busywork out of comp decisions, helps you spot pay equity gaps early, and makes it easy to model scenarios that keep your teams engaged and your budgets on track. See a demo at https://www.aurafinance.com/
	From Unemployment Lines to the C-Suite: Julie Bell on Building Pay Equity, Doubling Wellness Enrollment, and Why Merit Beats COLA	02 Apr 2026	00:24:25
Summary What does it take to transform a billable-rate-driven pay culture into a fair, transparent, and data-backed system? Julie Bell, Global CHRO at Roush, shares how she built a rigorous compensation architecture from the ground up—partnering with Willis Towers Watson, standardizing hundreds of roles, and running annual adverse impact analyses that have cut pay inequities by 50% year over year. With a nontraditional HR path through org effectiveness and M&A integration, Julie brings a transformation-first lens to HR—centralizing offer decisions in Compensation, using regression analysis to win over engineering leaders, and challenging the tendency to overpay unproven new hires while overlooking internal performers. She also breaks down why benefits often go unused, how spouse-inclusive, targeted wellness communications nearly doubled enrollment, and how this strategy helps contain healthcare costs without shifting burden to employees. Julie closes with where AI is heading next in HR—personalized benefits navigation and mental health support—plus her dignity-first approach to difficult workforce actions. Timestamps [00:45] – Julie’s nontraditional path to CHRO and an expanded HR scope (EHS, security, internal comms) [03:20] – Early money memory: layoffs, empathy, and leading with dignity in tough decisions [05:40] – Humane layoffs: designing a process that preserves respect and support [09:20] – From “Wild West” to structure: job architecture, WTW partnership, and pay equity audits [12:00] – Data-led comp: regression analysis, centralized offers, and curbing overpaying new hires [15:40] – Benefits breakdown: closing the usage gap with spouse-targeted wellness outreach [18:10] – Affordability and performance: no COLA, merit-based increases, and promotion velocity [20:40] – What’s next: AI in benefits navigation and mental health; human + AI in practice Takeaways - Build a job architecture and market-based comp structure; run annual adverse impact analyses and close gaps systematically. - Centralize offer decisions with Compensation; benchmark against internal peers to start new hires at equitable levels. - Replace peanut-butter merit and COLA with performance-based merit and targeted promotions; educate leaders and employees on the why. - Treat benefits like a product: drive proactive utilization with targeted communications—especially to spouses—and tailor for workforce demographics. - Use transparent, data-rich reporting (e.g., regression analysis, equity dashboards) to align engineering/ops leaders to the comp model. - Pilot human + AI solutions for benefits education, navigation, and mental health to increase personalization and access while managing costs. Sponsor Aura Finance helps you simplify compensation and benefits planning by bringing everything into one streamlined platform. No more juggling spreadsheets, disconnected tools, or manual calculations Aura gives you a single place to design, compare, and communicate total rewards packages with confidence. With AI-powered insights, it takes the guesswork and busywork out of comp decisions, helps you spot pay equity gaps early, and makes it easy to model scenarios that keep your teams engaged and your budgets on track. See a demo at https://www.aurafinance.com/
	The $200 Jordans My Parents Made Me Return: What a Benefits Leader at Universal Learned About Money, Empathy, and Taking Care of Every Single Person	17 Mar 2026	00:30:44
Summary Rising costs are squeezing employees at every level—so how do you design pay and benefits that truly meet people where they are? K Bighom, a benefits leader at Universal Destinations & Experiences with 20+ years in global benefits (US, UK, Canada, APAC), shares a pragmatic, human-first playbook. A former pre-med student turned HR pro, K frames people leaders as “healers,” responsible for financial, physical, and mental well-being. He breaks down where compensation and benefits most often fail (inequitable pay, plan design gaps), how to fix them with data and empathy, and why supporting your lowest-paid employees lifts the whole organization. K details practical tools like earned wage access (e.g., DailyPay), EAP expansion, and pay equity analysis—plus how to measure ROI quickly with utilization data and pulse surveys. He also forecasts the benefits trends to watch next: HSAs/FSAs/HRAs, parental leave, onsite childcare, wellness, and transit support. K closes with a simple 30-day savings experiment listeners can start today. Timestamps [00:45] – Early money memories: saving, big families, and the real cost of living [02:41] – First job at Walmart pharmacy: the “Jordans” lesson and building a savings habit [04:06] – From money story to policy: fair pay, equity, and earned wage access done right [06:30] – Career pivot from pre-med to HR: choosing your path and “HR as healers” [12:55] – Where comp/benefits break: pay gaps, plan design misses (dental/vision), and EAP [15:38] – Measuring impact fast: claims/utilization, surveys, and presenting ROI to leadership [22:07] – What’s next: HSAs/FSAs/HRAs, parental leave, onsite daycare, wellness, and transit [25:48] – A 30-day savings experiment and K’s growth goals in global benefits Takeaways - Audit and close pay gaps using data (gap analysis, market benchmarks); meet employees halfway with phased increases and clear timelines. - Design benefits holistically—fill real-life gaps (e.g., missing tooth clauses, annual frames), and invest in EAP and mental health support. - Offer earned wage access to reduce hardship and 401(k) loans; pair it with education and thoughtful guardrails. - Measure ROI early: track speed-to-impact, utilization, and sentiment with quick surveys; bring board-ready visuals and stories. - Expand supportive benefits: HSAs/FSAs/HRAs, parental leave, childcare solutions, wellness/gym, and transit subsidies. - Build personal resilience: automate a small monthly transfer to a separate account to grow an emergency fund. Sponsor Aura Finance helps you simplify compensation and benefits planning by bringing everything into one streamlined platform. No more juggling spreadsheets, disconnected tools, or manual calculations Aura gives you a single place to design, compare, and communicate total rewards packages with confidence. With AI-powered insights, it takes the guesswork and busywork out of comp decisions, helps you spot pay equity gaps early, and makes it easy to model scenarios that keep your teams engaged and your budgets on track. See a demo at https://www.aurafinance.com/
	How to Fund a Bonus Program Without Killing Morale: Kong's Ademar Martins on Creative Budgeting, Pay Transparency, and the Calculator That Saved the Rollout	17 Mar 2026	00:30:08
Summary If employees don’t understand their rewards, they can’t value them. Ademar Martins, Head of Total Rewards and People Operations at Kong Inc., shares how he turns complex comp and benefits into clear, trusted programs. With nearly two decades in HR across public and private companies, Ademar blends budget-savvy design with crisp communication—think shifting merit timing to preserve value, launching a companywide bonus funded thoughtfully, and equipping managers with simple, personalized calculators. He details how Kong uses pay equity tools like Sindio Solutions, analytics via Visier and Workday, and a “test with non-HR first” rule to make messaging stick. Ademar also breaks down time-off practices that truly change lives—flexible time off, quarterly unplugged days, a year-end shutdown, sabbaticals, and flexible work—plus how he measures impact with benefits pulses, engagement, and eNPS. He closes with the implications of pay transparency mandates, AI’s effect on roles and ranges, and a 30-day experiment to spark financial well-being. Timestamps [00:45] – Guest intro: Ademar’s role at Kong and two-decade HR journey [03:36] – Early money lessons: integrity, first jobs, and how they shape pay decisions [06:20] – Budget creativity: changing merit effective dates to meet savings without gutting raises [09:04] – Where comp breaks down: communications; rolling out a bonus with calculators and cascade training [14:08] – Manager enablement: simplify tools, test with non-HR, record sessions, hold office hours; pay equity audits with Sindio [17:18] – Programs that transform lives: FTO, year-end shutdown, quarterly unplugged days, sabbaticals, recognition, flexible work [19:51] – Measuring impact: benefits surveys, engagement, and internal NPS [24:52] – What’s next: pay transparency mandates, AI’s impact on compensation, and a 30-day experiment to boost financial well-being Takeaways - Make rewards understandable: use simple calculators, show before/after, and cascade training from execs to managers to employees. - Equip managers to communicate: strip jargon, test with non-HR partners, record sessions, and host office hours. - Stretch limited budgets: adjust timing (not only amounts) and design bonus transitions with higher individual weighting to reduce risk. - Build time-off into the system: FTO, companywide shutdowns, quarterly unplugged days, sabbaticals, and flexible work drive real-life impact. - Measure and iterate: run benefits pulses and engagement/eNPS, and refine programs based on what each workforce values most. - Prepare now: embrace pay transparency, monitor AI-driven market shifts, and use tools like Sindio, Visier, and Workday to stay proactive. Sponsor Aura Finance helps you simplify compensation and benefits planning by bringing everything into one streamlined platform. No more juggling spreadsheets, disconnected tools, or manual calculations Aura gives you a single place to design, compare, and communicate total rewards packages with confidence. With AI-powered insights, it takes the guesswork and busywork out of comp decisions, helps you spot pay equity gaps early, and makes it easy to model scenarios that keep your teams engaged and your budgets on track. See a demo at https://www.aurafinance.com/
	The Future Is Personalized Benefits: Keri Seppala on Pay Transparency, Manager Training, and Why Biometric Screenings Need Flexibility to Work	02 Mar 2026	00:23:52
Summary If employees don’t understand their pay and benefits, even great programs miss the mark. Kerry Seppala, a 25+ year executive in Total Rewards, HRIS, and Payroll across manufacturing, public/private, and government organizations, breaks down how to build trust-first compensation and benefits that people actually use. Drawing on experience with large frontline workforces and deep Workday expertise, Kerry explains where comp/benefits communication fails, how to train managers to discuss ranges, compression, and fairness, and why flexibility must extend to the shop floor—not just corporate roles. She explores the EU’s pay transparency ripple effects, the rise of employees as “benefits consumers,” and how personalized benefits allowances could reshape cost and choice. Kerry also shares where AI already adds value—bots for first-line HR questions and recruiting—and why consolidating tools inside core systems matters. Expect practical tactics: building HRIS to surface total rewards clearly, enabling on-the-clock biometric screenings to drive wellness and equity, and creating feedback loops through engagement surveys and town halls. She closes with a 30-day experiment to sharpen personal financial wellbeing. Timestamps [00:45] – Guest intro: 25+ years in Total Rewards/HRIS across manufacturing, public/private, and government [04:45] – Where comp/benefits break down: education gaps on benefits, paychecks, and program design [06:13] – Systems and transparency: Workday done right; manager training; Illinois pay ranges [08:14] – Manager mindset shifts: compression, equitable decisions, and bias-proof review cycles [09:44] – Frontline-first benefits: on-site flexibility and paid biometric screenings to boost wellness [15:59] – What’s next: EU pay transparency, employees as savvy consumers, and personalized benefits [18:25] – Practical AI in HR: bots for first-line questions and recruiting; fewer bolt-ons, more integration [21:18] – 30-day experiment: track every expense to reveal savings opportunities and habits Takeaways - Train managers to talk pay with confidence—ranges, comp ratios, compression, and bias checks. - Build HRIS (e.g., Workday) to surface total rewards clearly; pair with ongoing employee education. - Extend flexibility to frontline teams; pay for wellness screenings on-the-clock to drive participation. - Prepare for pay transparency at scale—upgrade systems, craft clear talking points, and expect more questions. - Treat employees like consumers; pilot personalized benefits or stipends to align cost with actual usage. - Deploy AI bots for first-line HR and recruiting questions to speed responses and reduce ticket volume. Sponsor AllVoices brings all your employee relations work together in one place. No more jumping between spreadsheets, emails, and legacy systems just one place to document and manage reports, cases, investigations, and performance conversations. It helps you run a more consistent process, takes busywork off your plate with AI, and makes it easier to spot trends early, so you can work proactively, not just put out fires. See a demo at ⁠⁠⁠⁠https://www.allvoices.co/
	Your Employees Don't Experience Pay the Way You Do: Dallas College's Eric Rodriguez on Trust, Transparency, and Treating Employees Like Customers	27 Feb 2026	00:32:10
Summary When compensation gets complex, trust erodes. Eric A. Rodriguez, Deputy CHRO at Dallas College, shares how he simplifies pay and benefits to reduce anxiety and build credibility—grounded in a personal money story that equates every paycheck with unseen effort, dignity, and stability. With oversight of HR operations, shared services, HRIS, and quality improvement, Eric explains how to move HR from programs to operational excellence: communicate early, remove jargon, and design for the day-to-day employee experience. He details a practical model for bridging leadership and employee needs, why “best practices” must be tailored to each organization, and how a culture of curiosity turns employees into co-creators. Eric also breaks down Dallas College’s HR transformation, from clearer ways of working across EX centers, COEs, and HRBPs to de-risking AI through hands-on training. Expect real examples—from a kid-run car wash to grocery-store tips that shaped his service mindset—and actionable guidance on role-based flexibility, development that employees actually want, and leading with the “why” behind work. Timestamps [00:18] – From sales to senior HR: Eric’s role and remit at Dallas College (HR ops, shared services, HRIS, QA) [02:23] – Money as sacrifice and dignity: how early lessons shape views on pay [04:19] – First jobs: entrepreneurship, tips, and the power of service [08:46] – Turning beliefs into practice: trust, stability, and plain-language pay/benefits [12:27] – Where comp/benefits break down: overcomplexity, late comms, copy-paste “best practices” [15:21] – Bridging the gap: the “why” behind work, autonomy, and modern leadership [19:51] – Beyond surveys: building a culture of curiosity and treating employees like customers [22:34] – Transforming HR: operating excellence, EX centers/COEs/HRBPs, and AI training to reduce fear [26:14] – What’s next: AI adoption, RTO nuance, and role-based flexibility Takeaways - Simplify pay and benefits—strip jargon to build trust and reduce employee anxiety. - Communicate early and often; co-design solutions with leaders and employees. - Customize “best practices” to your culture, workforce mix, and stage of maturity. - Treat employees like customers—ask specific, frequent questions to uncover real needs. - Invest in development that matters (especially AI literacy) to drive engagement and retention. - Define flexibility by role and outcomes, pairing empathy with high-performance expectations. Sponsor AllVoices brings all your employee relations work together in one place. No more jumping between spreadsheets, emails, and legacy systems just one place to document and manage reports, cases, investigations, and performance conversations. It helps you run a more consistent process, takes busywork off your plate with AI, and makes it easier to spot trends early, so you can work proactively, not just put out fires. See a demo at ⁠⁠⁠⁠https://www.allvoices.co/
	The Healthcare Switch That Almost Backfired: What BVI Medical's CPO Learned About Chasing Cost Savings at the Expense of Employees	25 Feb 2026	00:31:50
Summary Designing fair, effective compensation and benefits across countries isn’t about finding a unicorn vendor—it’s about listening locally and leading with care. Andy Dawson, Chief People Officer and Head of Corporate Affairs at BVI Medical, brings two decades of global HR experience (UK, Switzerland, US; Novartis alum) to unpack how he builds programs that work for diverse markets, life stages, and frontline populations. He shares why BVI rejected a “perfect on paper” U.S. healthcare renewal after a disruption analysis, how pulse and onboarding data guide local benefit design, and why money alone delivers only short-term engagement. Andy dives into pay equity, transparent ranges, and hiring for potential (not years of experience), plus simple-but-powerful communication tactics—like a quarterly “B Well” newsletter—that help employees actually use their benefits. Expect a pragmatic blueprint for localizing global benefits, balancing costs with continuity of care, and empowering managers to make fair, human decisions. Timestamps [00:45] – Guest intro: global HR journey from UK/Switzerland to the U.S. and BVI Medical [01:51] – Early money lessons at McDonald’s: value exchange and frontline empathy [04:00] – Evolving views on pay: life stages, geography, and avoiding “race to the top” [06:56] – Global benefits without the unicorn: local tailoring, acquisitions, and demographics [09:57] – Listening loops: pulse surveys, revamped onboarding, TA insights to shape offerings [13:02] – Choosing a U.S. healthcare partner: disruption checks vs. “paper savings” [15:25] – Where comp breaks down: beyond pay, culture and meaningful work matter [20:14] – Pay equity in practice: internal fairness, manager trust, and hiring for potential [23:45] – Turning benefits into behavior: the “B Well” newsletter and showing up in crises [27:07] – Practical AI and life-stage education: college savings, retirement, and quick answers Takeaways - Localize benefits by market and demographic—define core tenets, then tailor country-by-country. - Build a continuous feedback engine: use pulse and onboarding surveys and TA data to guide decisions. - Prioritize continuity of care: run disruption analyses on providers, not just cost comparisons. - Treat pay as part of a total offer—optimize environment, recognition, and meaningful work. - Protect internal equity: trust managers, price to market, and avoid breaking bands for one hire. - Educate simply and often: newsletters and lunch-and-learns boost benefit usage across life stages. - Hire for potential, not just years of experience; embrace transparency with managerial courage. Sponsor Aura Finance helps you simplify compensation and benefits planning by bringing everything into one streamlined platform. No more juggling spreadsheets, disconnected tools, or manual calculations Aura gives you a single place to design, compare, and communicate total rewards packages with confidence. With AI-powered insights, it takes the guesswork and busywork out of comp decisions, helps you spot pay equity gaps early, and makes it easy to model scenarios that keep your teams engaged and your budgets on track. See a demo at https://www.aurafinance.com/
	400 Sign-Ups in a Week: The Hidden Demand for Financial Wellness	16 Jul 2026	00:21:06
Summary What does a 400-signup week reveal about your workforce? In this episode of Beyond the Paycheck, host Kelsey talks with Ernie Florkowski, Director of Benefits at Element Materials Technology, about the overwhelming employee response to a free financial coaching benefit, how his team designed an HR help desk AI that routes people to answers instead of generating them, and why he believes Amazon-style personalization is the benefits shift most HR leaders aren't ready for. A conversation for CHROs, benefits leaders, and anyone rethinking what employees need beyond pay. Chapters 0:00 Introduction 0:45 Meet Ernie Florkowski and Element Materials Technology 2:40 First paychecks and Air Jordans 4:50 Keeping the big three benefits affordable 6:10 Financial coaching and 400 signups in one week 8:20 The wellness program that caught cancer early 12:45 A culture where health and family come first 14:00 AI in HR: tool, not threat 16:15 Staying current through networking 18:25 The next shift: personalized benefits Takeaways -Financial stress in the workforce is bigger than it looks: a free financial coaching benefit announced in a single company email drew 400 signups in its first week. -Affordable core benefits are a strategy, not an accident: Element keeps medical, dental, and vision under $800 a year for employee-only coverage across 27 states. -Reducing money stress at home shows up at work as focus, attendance, and better performance. -AI in HR works best when it routes employees to answers instead of generating them, avoiding the liability of confidently wrong responses. -Benefits are heading toward Amazon-style personalization, with carriers proactively reaching out based on individual health signals. Connect with the Guest LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/ernieflorkowski/ Website: https://www.element.com Sponsor Aura Finance helps you simplify compensation and benefits planning by bringing everything into one streamlined platform. No more juggling spreadsheets, disconnected tools, or manual calculations—Aura gives you a single place to design, compare, and communicate total rewards packages with confidence. With AI-powered insights, it takes the guesswork and busywork out of comp decisions, helps you spot pay equity gaps early, and makes it easy to model scenarios that keep your teams engaged and your budgets on track. See a demo at https://www.aurafinance.com/
	Your Employees Are Guessing What Their Pay Means—and That's a Problem: Orion Innovation's Alana Gisleson on Transparency, AI Decision Tools, and Why FP&A Is Your Best Friend	23 Feb 2026	00:20:51
Pay Transparency, Total Rewards, and AI: Orion Innovation’s Rewards Leader on Building Trust Summary If employees don’t understand how they’re paid, trust erodes—and performance follows. Alana Gisleson, Senior Manager of Compensation and Benefits at Orion Innovation, shares how she turns “total rewards” from a spreadsheet into something people can feel: clarity, stability, and growth. With a background spanning HR generalist roles, Rutgers labor studies, and WorldatWork certifications, Alana explains why pay transparency is now table stakes and how to operationalize it with job architecture, governance, and manager enablement. She details what breaks down most—opaque decisions and under-communicated benefits—and how to fix it with education and total rewards statements. Alana also walks through building tangible wellness programs (from mothers’ rooms to decompression spaces), designing variable pay and sales incentives that drive revenue, and “managing up” with a business case that wins Finance and the executive team. She closes with practical ways to use AI as an augmentation—not a replacement—to make rewards data actionable and benefits choices simpler, plus a 30-day savings experiment listeners can try immediately. Timestamps [00:42] – Guest intro and career path: from HR generalist to rewards leader at Orion Innovation [01:42] – Early money lessons shaping a human, fairness-first approach to pay [05:34] – Where comp and benefits break down: transparency gaps and lack of education [08:00] – Pay transparency as table stakes: job architecture, governance, and manager enablement [10:59] – Tangible programs: wellness/mothers’ rooms and revenue-driving incentive design [12:19] – Managing up: building the business case, winning FP&A, and measuring ROI [15:46] – Practical AI: aggregating rewards data and improving benefits decision support [18:22] – A 30-day savings experiment to boost personal financial well-being Takeaways - Make pay transparent with clear job architecture, ranges, and decision rules that employees can understand. - Show total rewards value year-round—use simple education and total rewards statements to close knowledge gaps. - Equip managers with talking points and tools to lead confident, consistent compensation conversations. - Build cross-functional governance with Finance/Tax/HR; bring a business case and track retention and post-bonus attrition. - Leverage AI to aggregate rewards data and support benefits decisions—augment human judgment, don’t replace it. - Run confidential, purpose-built wellness/benefits surveys and turn insights into visible programs (e.g., wellness and mothers’ rooms). Sponsor Aura Finance helps you simplify compensation and benefits planning by bringing everything into one streamlined platform. No more juggling spreadsheets, disconnected tools, or manual calculations Aura gives you a single place to design, compare, and communicate total rewards packages with confidence. With AI-powered insights, it takes the guesswork and busywork out of comp decisions, helps you spot pay equity gaps early, and makes it easy to model scenarios that keep your teams engaged and your budgets on track. See a demo at https://www.aurafinance.com/
	Respect Your Money, You Earned It: What a Grandmother's Checkbook Taught Learn Behavioral's CHRO About Pay, Dignity, and Meeting Every Employee Where They Are	18 Feb 2026	00:30:30
Benefits That Actually Help: LEARN Behavioral’s CHRO on Financial Wellness and Student Debt Summary Most employees don’t need more perks—they need benefits they can actually use. Maggie Ruvoldt, Chief Human Resources Officer at LEARN Behavioral, shares how her early money lessons (thanks, Grandma) shaped a people-first approach to total rewards for a largely hourly workforce. She breaks down where comp and benefits often fail—financial literacy gaps, one-size-fits-all design, and confusing communication—and how to fix them with clarity, segmentation, and vendor partnerships that go beyond retirement. Maggie details LEARN’s student loan support (including counseling via Summer), why HR should measure utilization and outcomes, and how listening tours revealed a childcare benefit no one actually used. She also offers timely guidance for leaders navigating rising medical costs, plus a simple 30-day habit employees can adopt to build money awareness today. If you’re rethinking financial wellness, pay transparency, and benefits equity, this episode gives you the playbook. Timestamps [00:10] – Maggie’s path to CHRO and LEARN Behavioral’s mission [01:02] – Money lessons from Grandma: “Respect your money” and early habits [04:22] – First paycheck: checking + savings, and “pay yourself first” [07:15] – Translating money lessons to HR: hourly vs. salaried needs [09:21] – Where benefits break down: literacy, communication, and one-size-fits-all [12:28] – Student loans and vendor partners: education beyond 401(k), plus Summer [16:44] – Measuring impact: utilization, surveys, and unsolicited employee stories [24:20] – What leaders should do now—and a 30-day daily money check-in Takeaways - Segment your workforce and tailor benefits by population; hourly, salaried, and clinical roles need different solutions. - Communicate total compensation simply and often; teach beyond base pay so employees see real value. - Demand more from vendors: budgeting, debt reduction, and student loan guidance—not just retirement talk. - Measure what matters: track utilization and contribution rates, then validate with qualitative feedback and stories. - Reallocate dollars from low-impact perks by listening in the field and replacing what employees don’t use. - Lead with empathy and transparency—especially in an employer’s market—to show employees they’re valued year-round. Sponsor Aura Finance helps you simplify compensation and benefits planning by bringing everything into one streamlined platform. No more juggling spreadsheets, disconnected tools, or manual calculations Aura gives you a single place to design, compare, and communicate total rewards packages with confidence. With AI-powered insights, it takes the guesswork and busywork out of comp decisions, helps you spot pay equity gaps early, and makes it easy to model scenarios that keep your teams engaged and your budgets on track. See a demo at https://www.aurafinance.com/
	Listen for 15 Minutes, Fix One Thing: Dr. Jermaine King on Pay Band Disconnects, Transportation as a Benefit, and Why Custom Packages Are the Future	16 Feb 2026	00:26:40
Rethinking Total Rewards: Dr. Jermaine King on Pay, Flexibility, and Custom Benefits Summary Are your pay practices and benefits keeping pace with what employees actually value? HR executive and leadership consultant Dr. Jermaine King—retired from the United States Air Force—breaks down how to modernize compensation and benefits with clarity, choice, and data. He explains the biggest gap he sees today: market pay is a living, moving target, while reviews are still annual. Dr. King shares why HR must teach the “how and why” of benefits (not just list them), how flexibility has become real currency alongside pay, and why recruitment marketing should spotlight all roles, not just headline ones. He offers concrete examples—from building a transportation program to reduce turnover to pairing Power BI dashboards with Qualtrics to capture the “why” behind the numbers. He closes with a 30-day listening experiment any leader can run to increase trust and take action fast. Timestamps [00:45] – Guest intro: USAF roots, HR leadership, and consulting focus [01:29] – Early money lessons and how they shape views on security and priorities [05:19] – From “what” to “why”: teaching employees how and when to use benefits [07:41] – The comp gap: living market data vs. annual reviews—and what to change [09:24] – Flexibility as currency: pay trade-offs, hybrid/remote, and total rewards clarity [12:16] – Case studies: recruiting beyond clinicians; transportation as a retention-driving perk [16:24] – Proving impact with data: Power BI dashboards + Qualtrics “voice of employee” [23:51] – 30-day experiment: 15-minute listening sessions and micro-actions Takeaways - Educate employees on the how and why of benefits—when to use 401(k), PTO, and care options. - Recalibrate pay practices: align review frequency with real-time market data, not just annual cycles. - Treat flexibility as part of compensation; quantify and communicate total rewards trade-offs. - Broaden recruiting messages to highlight critical support roles and strengthen employer brand. - Combine quantitative dashboards (Power BI) with qualitative insights (Qualtrics) to guide decisions. - Pilot choice-based benefits so employees pick what fits their life—and negotiate options with carriers. Sponsor Aura Finance helps you simplify compensation and benefits planning by bringing everything into one streamlined platform. No more juggling spreadsheets, disconnected tools, or manual calculations Aura gives you a single place to design, compare, and communicate total rewards packages with confidence. With AI-powered insights, it takes the guesswork and busywork out of comp decisions, helps you spot pay equity gaps early, and makes it easy to model scenarios that keep your teams engaged and your budgets on track. See a demo at https://www.aurafinance.com/
	Your Employees Think They Make $100K—They're Actually Getting $140K: Why Total Reward Statements Are the Most Underused Tool in HR	11 Feb 2026	00:21:05
Beyond the Paycheck: Total Rewards, Recognition, and Pay Transparency with Anthony Renella Summary If employees only see a salary number, they undervalue what they receive—and engagement suffers. Anthony Renella, VP of Total Rewards with global experience across media, tech, retail, and real estate, shares how to turn compensation from a “black hole” into a clear, trusted system. He outlines how to publish personalized total rewards statements, automate them through your HRIS, payroll, and vendor data, and help employees understand employer contributions, incentives, and long-term value. Anthony also unpacks recognition as a culture driver—peer-to-peer and leader-led—using social feeds and on-the-spot tools that tie directly to company values. He explains how to measure impact through engagement, performance, and retention, and how to prepare leaders for pay transparency with practical coaching on ranges, midpoints, and comp ratios. Expect actionable steps to de-risk transparency, close inequities with ongoing analytics, and make recognition part of daily operations. Timestamps [00:15] – Guest intro: Anthony’s global total rewards leadership across multiple industries [03:57] – From money mindset to rewards philosophy: holistic, inclusive pay and benefits [05:53] – Where Comp & Ben breaks down: the transparency gap and “black hole” effect [07:35] – Building total rewards statements: HRIS, payroll, and vendor data automation [09:38] – Recognition that changes culture: peer-to-peer feeds, on-the-spot apps, thank-yous [12:49] – Measuring impact: engagement, performance linkage, and retention outcomes [14:12] – The year ahead: pay transparency, manager enablement on ranges and comp ratios [17:43] – Tools and cadence: pay equity analytics and continuous monitoring Takeaways - Publish personalized total rewards statements by integrating HRIS, payroll, and vendor data. - Train managers to explain salary structures—ranges, midpoints, comp ratios—and your pay philosophy. - Build a recognition system: peer-to-peer and leader-driven, with social feeds and on-the-spot nominations. - Tie recognition to company values and performance; track engagement, retention, and award patterns. - Treat pay transparency as ongoing: surface inequities, act with a plan, and communicate the “why” behind pay. - Invest in pay equity analytics and review continuously, not as a one-time audit. Sponsor Aura Finance helps you simplify compensation and benefits planning by bringing everything into one streamlined platform. No more juggling spreadsheets, disconnected tools, or manual calculations Aura gives you a single place to design, compare, and communicate total rewards packages with confidence. With AI-powered insights, it takes the guesswork and busywork out of comp decisions, helps you spot pay equity gaps early, and makes it easy to model scenarios that keep your teams engaged and your budgets on track. See a demo at https://www.aurafinance.com/
	Your Employees Don't Understand Their Benefits—and That's Costing You Everything: Shannon Nelson on the Misalignment Most Companies Ignore	09 Feb 2026	00:30:04
Flexibility Is the New Currency: Personalizing Benefits with Anthology’s Shannon Nelson Summary Benefits are costly and complex—so how do you ensure employees actually understand, value, and use them? Shannon Nelson, Director of Global Benefits at Anthology (formerly Blackboard), shares how she designs programs that meet people where they are—balancing data, compliance, and real human needs. With a career spanning retail, nonprofit, and tech, Shannon explains why one-size-fits-all programs fall short, how misalignment and knowledge gaps derail value, and what leaders can do to communicate smarter. She details “life-centered” flexibility—from paid family leave to tuition support and caregiving benefits—plus a practical, multi-metric way to show ROI to executives. Shannon also breaks down the next wave in total rewards: personalization, financial wellness, and proactive pay equity analytics powered by AI. She closes with a 30-day experiment listeners can try to curb impulse spending by identifying triggers, not just cutting purchases. Timestamps [00:45] – Meet Shannon: global benefits at Anthology and a people-first rewards philosophy [02:01] – Early money memories: small-business lessons and the human impact of finances [04:50] – First paycheck to first choices: independence, taxes, and spending pride [06:54] – Funny fail: the pandemic garden that became a weed sanctuary [08:52] – From spreadsheet to human: how money stories shape benefits design [11:10] – Where total rewards breaks: misalignment and lack of employee knowledge [14:36] – Fixing the gap: know your population, time education to life events, invite feedback [17:19] – Life-centered flexibility: paid leave, tuition aid, and benefits that change lives [18:54] – Proving ROI: retention, time-to-fill, pulse scores, and benefit engagement [20:45] – What’s next: flexibility, personalization, LSAs, mental health, and financial wellness [24:10] – Tools that help: predictive pay equity analytics and real-time pulse surveys [26:30] – A 30-day experiment to improve financial wellness: spot and replace spending triggers Takeaways - Design benefits around life stages—avoid one-size-fits-all and meet employees where they are. - Close the knowledge gap: segment messaging, time education to milestones (e.g., Medicare at 65), and communicate just-in-time. - Prioritize life-centered flexibility: paid family leave, tuition reimbursement, caregiving support, and lifestyle spending accounts. - Prove value with a portfolio of metrics: retention, time-to-fill, pulse results, and program utilization—not just cost. - Use analytics and AI to spot pay equity issues, compression, and trends early; integrate performance data to act proactively. - Elevate financial wellness: offer student loan support, emergency savings tools, and encourage behavior-based habits (identify spending triggers). Sponsor Aura Finance helps you simplify compensation and benefits planning by bringing everything into one streamlined platform. No more juggling spreadsheets, disconnected tools, or manual calculations Aura gives you a single place to design, compare, and communicate total rewards packages with confidence. With AI-powered insights, it takes the guesswork and busywork out of comp decisions, helps you spot pay equity gaps early, and makes it easy to model scenarios that keep your teams engaged and your budgets on track. See a demo at https://www.aurafinance.com/
	Do You Actually Understand Your Paycheck? NFP's SVP of Total Rewards on Pay Transparency, Breaking Silos, and the Autopilot Problem	06 Feb 2026	00:26:07
Making Pay Make Sense: NFP’s Megan Nail on Pay Transparency, Total Rewards, and Financial Wellness Summary If your merit budget is flat while healthcare costs climb, employees can feel like they got a pay cut—even with a raise. How do you fix that? Megan Nail, SVP of Total Rewards Practice at NFP and a 25-year HR leader, lays out a practical playbook to move compensation and benefits off autopilot and into a coherent strategy. She explains how to align comp and benefits decisions, time financial wellness support to raises and bonuses, and communicate pay with clarity and fairness. Megan demystifies 2026’s biggest shift—pay transparency—covering what to publish, how to explain it, and how to equip managers for better conversations. She also shares real-world pay equity approaches (from Excel regressions to software) and why root causes—not one-time fixes—matter. Expect concrete guidance on targeted increases vs. “peanut butter” budgets, sunsetting low-usage benefits, and a 30-day experiment any listener can use to get more value from their paycheck. Timestamps [00:21] – Guest intro: Megan’s path to compensation and NFP’s Total Rewards practice [01:48] – Early money lessons and a first job that foreshadowed “total rewards” [07:56] – Where comp/benefits break down: autopilot strategies and siloed comms [10:16] – What’s working: joint decision-making, reallocation, targeted increases, incentives [12:20] – Pairing financial wellness with raises; bringing comp into year-round benefits comms [15:58] – The 2026 shift: pay transparency laws, ranges, and explaining the why/how [18:27] – Pay equity in practice: analyses, tools, and fixing root causes [22:35] – A 30-day experiment: decode your paycheck and realign elections Takeaways - Build a total rewards strategy—stop autopilot. Align comp and benefits decisions and messaging. - Reallocate for impact: sunset low-usage benefits, restructure high-cost areas (e.g., pharmacy), and target comp to market gaps over across-the-board increases. - Time financial wellness coaching to raises/bonuses so employees channel new dollars to their highest priorities. - Prepare for pay transparency now: publish ranges, explain how pay is determined, document processes, and train managers to talk about the “why” and “how.” - Run recurring pay equity analyses (Excel or software) and fix root causes by standardizing decision-making—not just one-time adjustments. - Equip managers with guardrails, FAQs, and career-path talking points so pay conversations build trust and momentum. Sponsor Aura Finance helps you simplify compensation and benefits planning by bringing everything into one streamlined platform. No more juggling spreadsheets, disconnected tools, or manual calculations Aura gives you a single place to design, compare, and communicate total rewards packages with confidence. With AI-powered insights, it takes the guesswork and busywork out of comp decisions, helps you spot pay equity gaps early, and makes it easy to model scenarios that keep your teams engaged and your budgets on track. See a demo at https://www.aurafinance.com/
	His Sister Negotiated $4 of Candy on a 60-Cent Allowance: What Starkey's VP of Health and Wellbeing Learned About Every Dollar Mattering	04 Feb 2026	00:29:05
Summary With healthcare costs rising and five generations in the workforce, how do you build benefits that are clear, equitable, and actually used? Ryan J. Seman, VP of Total Rewards (Health & Wellbeing) at Starkey in Eden Prairie, MN, shares how his team pairs transparency with hands-on guidance so employees make smarter decisions in moments that matter. With three decades of experience across healthcare, manufacturing, and Goodyear, Ryan explains Starkey’s pillars of social, mental, financial, and medical wellbeing—and why “every dollar matters” from the front desk to the C‑suite. He details the company’s new global mental health program with Spring Health (and what real engagement should mean), how an onsite wellness center reduces avoidable ER visits, and why inviting spouses to financial sessions boosts outcomes. Expect practical, repeatable ideas: cross-promoting care options when employees need them, helping early-career talent choose between HSA and 401(k), and using peer stories to break stigma and drive adoption. Timestamps [00:20] – Ryan’s path to Starkey and four-industry view of Total Rewards [01:34] – Money memories: allowances, Lemonheads, and early lessons on value [02:50] – First job, layaway in retail, and saving a first paycheck for a bike [04:49] – “Every dollar matters”: affordability, flexibility, and coaching employees [07:00] – Navigating healthcare costs: onsite wellness center, urgent care vs. ER, and timely education [10:18] – Where benefits break down: clarity, early-career choices, HSA vs. 401(k), PPO vs. HDHP [15:55] – Launching a global mental wellbeing solution with Spring Health and aiming for >15% true engagement [22:38] – Tools that work: Spring Health; Beyond Medicare and the RAINN group’s Social Security/Medicare/“aging well” series [20:34] – Trends ahead: transparency, equity, and giving employees permission to pause and use resources Takeaways - Redefine engagement beyond account creation; target meaningful use and peer-driven adoption. - Equip employees to navigate care choices in the moment—promote onsite clinics, nurse lines, and urgent care to reduce ER overuse. - Coach early-career talent on HSA (triple tax advantage) vs. 401(k) and maximize the employer match. - Build a global mental health strategy with local language, local providers, and clear privacy assurances. - Treat wellbeing as multidimensional—social, mental, financial, and medical—and invite spouses to key financial sessions. - Normalize “set it and forget it”: automate contributions and nudge increases with each raise. Sponsor Aura Finance helps you simplify compensation and benefits planning by bringing everything into one streamlined platform. No more juggling spreadsheets, disconnected tools, or manual calculations Aura gives you a single place to design, compare, and communicate total rewards packages with confidence. With AI-powered insights, it takes the guesswork and busywork out of comp decisions, helps you spot pay equity gaps early, and makes it easy to model scenarios that keep your teams engaged and your budgets on track. See a demo at https://www.aurafinance.com/
	Sharon John, VP Global Total Rewards & Mobility at Thoughtworks	02 Feb 2026	00:27:40
Building Trust in Compensation: Pay Transparency, Skills-Based Pay, and the Manager’s Role with ThoughtWorks’ Global Head of Total Rewards Summary If pay transparency is the destination, what foundations do you need to build first? Sharon John, Global Head of Total Rewards and Mobility at ThoughtWorks, shares a practical blueprint for designing fair, relatable rewards that employees actually understand. With two decades across tech, fintech, and financial services, Sharon blends the art and science of compensation grounded in governance, clear job architecture, and plain-language storytelling. She explains where rewards programs break down (skipping basics), how to equip managers to communicate decisions without jargon, and why skills-based pay is becoming the new currency. Sharon also details ThoughtWorks’ path to global transparency, how simulations can pinpoint inequities for targeted remediation, and the role of AI-era “hot skills” in retention. Expect clear guidance on lifecycle benefits, dual career paths (IC vs. manager), and a 30-day financial well-being experiment you can pilot immediately. Timestamps [00:45] – Guest intro: Sharon’s career journey and rewards philosophy (fair, relatable, data-backed) [02:08] – Early money lessons: intentionality, boundaries, and how values shape rewards design [03:24] – First paycheck story and the meaning behind money: experiences over transactions [05:35] – Where rewards break down: skipping basics, missing job architecture, rushed transparency [07:46] – Equipping managers: remove jargon, provide toolkits, and unify messaging across the lifecycle [10:31] – Designing for lives, not just jobs: lifecycle benefits and dual career paths (IC vs. manager) [13:31] – What to measure: retention, engagement, and clarity—plus the art and science of pay [15:02] – Operationalizing transparency: simulations, EU directives, and targeted pay equity remediation [16:36] – 12–24 month outlook: skills-based pay, expanded transparency, and personalized benefits [19:41] – Build, buy, or borrow: skills inventories, cross-pollination, and recognizing hot skills [22:58] – 30-day experiment: 50–30–20, emergency funds, and modern budgeting tools Takeaways - Ground transparency in basics—job architecture, pay education, and clear methodology—before publishing ranges. - Equip managers with plain-language toolkits and narratives so they can explain decisions confidently and consistently. - Adopt skills-based pay: run skills inventories, define progression, and reward demonstrated capability (not just tenure). - Use modeling to detect pay inequities, plan remediation within budgets, and stay ahead of global regulations. - Design rewards that support whole careers: lifecycle benefits, visual communications, and both IC and manager growth paths. - Try a 30-day financial well-being sprint: apply the 50–30–20 rule, build a 3–6 month emergency fund, and use online planning tools. Sponsor Aura Finance helps you simplify compensation and benefits planning by bringing everything into one streamlined platform. No more juggling spreadsheets, disconnected tools, or manual calculations Aura gives you a single place to design, compare, and communicate total rewards packages with confidence. With AI-powered insights, it takes the guesswork and busywork out of comp decisions, helps you spot pay equity gaps early, and makes it easy to model scenarios that keep your teams engaged and your budgets on track. See a demo at https://www.aurafinance.com/
	Jeff Bettinger, CHRO and Chief Administrative Officer at Hudson Talent Solutions	30 Jan 2026	00:23:49
HSAs, AI, and Total Rewards: A CHRO’s Playbook for Employee Financial Wellness Summary Employees are overwhelmed by benefits choices—and it’s costing them real money. Jeff Bettinger, Chief Human Resources Officer at Hudson Talent Solutions, shares how he’s putting power back in employees’ hands with clearer total rewards, an HSA-first strategy, and early moves into AI-driven guidance. A former high school teacher and now a three-time CHRO, Jeff explains how living on low wages and watching premiums outpace raises shaped his people-first lens. He breaks down where benefits commonly fail (option overload, short-term thinking), why uptake of financial planning remains low, and how one employee used company-provided planning to fund a future restaurant. Jeff details Hudson’s shift to an HSA-compatible plan tailored to a young workforce—keeping rates flat while many employers saw 12–20% increases—and how employer contributions can help employees harness compounding. Looking ahead to 2026–27, he outlines how AI agents can personalize benefits decisions, the need for portability as job moves increase, and practical guardrails amid ACA noise and fast-changing rules. He closes with a simple readiness framework—Maslow’s hierarchy—to time education when it will actually stick. Timestamps [00:09] – Guest intro: from teacher to three-time CHRO at Hudson Talent Solutions [01:13] – Early money memory: saving, agency, and the “karate chop” piggy bank [03:26] – Costly mistake: buying a franchise and the due-diligence lesson [06:52] – Where benefits break down: option overload, empathy from lived experience, and planning that pays off [09:01] – Redesigning total rewards: HSA-first plan, employer seeding, and keeping rates flat [11:51] – 2026–27 trends: AI benefits agents for personalized decision support [14:09] – Guardrails and clarity: portability, ACA noise, and benchmarking to stay competitive [19:14] – Readiness to learn: applying Maslow to money and benefits education Takeaways - Reframe open enrollment as a long-term strategy—nudge employees to use financial planning and revisit goals twice a year. - Introduce HSA-compatible plans where demographics fit; seed accounts and teach the triple-tax advantage to harness compounding. - Deploy AI decision-support agents to simplify choices, personalize recommendations, and boost benefits literacy. - Benchmark benefits to your industry to balance competitiveness and cost—and adjust as margins and markets shift. - Design for portability and clarity so employees can navigate job changes without losing continuity of coverage. - Teach to readiness: stabilize base needs first, then deliver benefits education at moments of high relevance. Sponsor Aura Finance helps you simplify compensation and benefits planning by bringing everything into one streamlined platform. No more juggling spreadsheets, disconnected tools, or manual calculations Aura gives you a single place to design, compare, and communicate total rewards packages with confidence. With AI-powered insights, it takes the guesswork and busywork out of comp decisions, helps you spot pay equity gaps early, and makes it easy to model scenarios that keep your teams engaged and your budgets on track. See a demo at https://www.aurafinance.com/
	Lee Mataya, SVP Total Rewards at Cox Media Group	28 Jan 2026	00:28:38
Beyond the Survey: Cox Media Group’s SVP of Total Rewards on Affordability, Pay Equity, and Vendor-Led HR Summary How do you keep pay and benefits fair, affordable, and truly usable when budgets are tight and roles are changing fast? Lee Mataya, Senior Vice President of Total Rewards at Cox Media Group, oversees compensation, benefits, payroll, HR operations, and HR tech for a nationwide TV and radio business—and he’s candid about what works. Lee shares why “data isn’t the answer—context is,” and how CMG blends quantitative inputs with qualitative listening to shape programs employees actually value. He unpacks the limits of salary surveys, the data rigor required for pay equity, and why AI can support analysis but won’t fix messy inputs. Lee also details CMG’s carve-out journey: rebuilding the HR stack on SAP SuccessFactors, outsourcing payroll and benefits, and achieving a 94% satisfaction score with an Ask HR model. He closes with pragmatic tactics to keep benefits affordable—repurposing dollars through attrition, partnering tightly with vendors, and building multi-year talent plans that anticipate change. Timestamps [00:18] – Guest intro: Lee’s role leading Total Rewards at Cox Media Group [01:25] – Career path to compensation and the mentor who spotted his strengths [03:29] – Early money lessons: responsibility, work ethic, and practical tradeoffs [07:59] – Pay and benefits philosophy: affordability, listening, and the limits of market surveys [11:08] – AI and pay equity: useful insights require strong, consistent data [15:57] – From carve-out to 94% CSAT: SuccessFactors, outsourcing, and a lean HR model [18:46] – Holding vendors accountable: pulse surveys, SLAs, and partnership cadences [23:48] – Making benefits affordable with flat budgets: repurposing dollars and multi-year plans Takeaways - Treat salary surveys as one input—pair them with internal equity, role impact, and qualitative feedback before making pay decisions. - Keep affordability front and center: design benefits people can actually use and avoid forcing tradeoffs between care and basic living costs. - Use AI to speed analysis, not to decide—pay equity and comp recommendations depend on clean, contextualized data. - Build a lean, scalable HR backbone: implement a robust HRIS (e.g., SuccessFactors), outsource where specialized, and track satisfaction relentlessly. - Instrument your operations: send pulse surveys for Ask HR and onboarding, review outcomes regularly, and bring data to vendor conversations. - Fund priorities creatively: repurpose dollars from attrition, restructure roles, and socialize multi-year talent plans to invest without inflating payroll. Sponsor Aura Finance helps you simplify compensation and benefits planning by bringing everything into one streamlined platform. No more juggling spreadsheets, disconnected tools, or manual calculations Aura gives you a single place to design, compare, and communicate total rewards packages with confidence. With AI-powered insights, it takes the guesswork and busywork out of comp decisions, helps you spot pay equity gaps early, and makes it easy to model scenarios that keep your teams engaged and your budgets on track. See a demo at https://www.aurafinance.com/
	Why Paying People More Doesn't Make Them Work Harder	14 Jul 2026	00:25:19
Summary In this episode of Beyond the Paycheck, host Kelsey Willock Jones sits down with Jonathan Taddeo, Director of Total Rewards at Syniverse, the company powering intercarrier text messaging across 24 countries. Jonathan explains why pay is a hygiene factor rather than a motivator, why recognition is the most underused lever in employee engagement, and why the EU Pay Transparency Directive is only the tip of the iceberg for total rewards leaders. Along the way, he shares how a Division I swimming career shaped his money story, how Syniverse wins executive buy in for wellbeing programs by pairing data with the right story, and what it takes to keep pay fair across a global workforce. This conversation is for HR and total rewards leaders, people managers, and anyone who wants to understand what really drives engagement beyond the paycheck. Chapters 00:00 Introduction 01:15 From talent acquisition to total rewards 01:55 Inside the world's most connected company 03:45 A money story shaped by athletics 05:45 Financial wellbeing at Syniverse 09:15 The recognition gap 10:55 Why pay is a hygiene factor 13:15 Making the case with data 15:35 Fair pay and job architecture 21:35 The pay transparency wave Takeaways -Pay is a hygiene factor: it has to be fair and competitive, but money alone doesn't motivate people, and for creative work financial incentives can actually backfire. -Recognition is the biggest gap in employee engagement, and it doesn't have to be monetary; regular, frequent recognition from leaders and peers is what moves performance. -The EU Pay Transparency Directive is only the tip of the iceberg; US total rewards leaders should prepare now for right to information requests and expanding state laws. -Executive buy in comes from pairing data with the right story, like Syniverse's wellness incentive that lowers long term benefits costs by 20 to 30 percent by catching health issues early. -Fair pay starts with job architecture that matches market benchmarks and internal equity checks, so offers are anchored in data rather than gut feeling. Connect with the Guest LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jonathan-taddeo/ Website: https://www.syniverse.com Sponsor Aura Finance helps you simplify compensation and benefits planning by bringing everything into one streamlined platform. No more juggling spreadsheets, disconnected tools, or manual calculations—Aura gives you a single place to design, compare, and communicate total rewards packages with confidence. With AI-powered insights, it takes the guesswork and busywork out of comp decisions, helps you spot pay equity gaps early, and makes it easy to model scenarios that keep your teams engaged and your budgets on track. See a demo at https://www.aurafinance.com/
	Kristine Karnath, Group VP of Total Rewards at Moog	26 Jan 2026	00:37:57
Root-Cause Benefits: Moog’s VP of Total Rewards on Onsite Care, Profit Sharing, and AI Personalization Summary What if your benefits strategy could lower costs and improve health outcomes at the same time? Kristine Karnath, Vice President of Total Rewards at Moog—an aerospace and defense company headquartered outside Buffalo, NY—shares how a fiscally disciplined, data-led approach turns benefits into a real business advantage. With 20+ years at Moog, Kristine connects her own “needs vs. wants” money mindset to equitable pay practices and spending every company dollar like it’s her own. She breaks down Moog’s company-wide profit sharing (aligned to enterprise performance), why they solve root causes instead of shifting costs, and how onsite wellness centers—with primary care, labs, pharmacy, PT, dietitian, and vision—improve outcomes in care deserts. Kristine also looks ahead at AI-powered personalization to deliver just-in-time financial guidance, explains generational shifts shaping compensation and benefits, and offers pragmatic guardrails people leaders can use to keep pay both fair and empowering. Timestamps [00:45] – Guest intro and Moog at a glance [02:25] – Early money story: needs vs. wants and saving for college [08:30] – From frugal to fair: a philosophy for equitable pay and smart spend [12:30] – Company-wide profit sharing and why it beats siloed bonuses [14:50] – Solving access, not shifting costs: onsite clinics in rural NC [16:30] – Real outcomes: adherence, prevention, retention, and cost trend (GLP-1s) [22:40] – The next wave: AI-driven, just-in-time, personalized financial wellness [30:37] – Generational shifts and guardrails for keeping pay fair and empowering Takeaways - Apply a root-cause lens to benefits—fix access and prevention instead of shifting costs to employees. - Align incentives with company-wide profit sharing to reinforce “we’re in this together.” - Treat company dollars like your own: design equitable pay and spend with intention and transparency. - Build onsite or near-site care to improve adherence, catch issues earlier, and reduce high-cost claims. - Personalize financial wellness with AI; deliver timely nudges before major life decisions. - Fit programs to your culture and back them with data to drive adoption and measurable outcomes. Sponsor Aura Finance helps you simplify compensation and benefits planning by bringing everything into one streamlined platform. No more juggling spreadsheets, disconnected tools, or manual calculations Aura gives you a single place to design, compare, and communicate total rewards packages with confidence. With AI-powered insights, it takes the guesswork and busywork out of comp decisions, helps you spot pay equity gaps early, and makes it easy to model scenarios that keep your teams engaged and your budgets on track. See a demo at https://www.aurafinance.com/
	Markus Enzner, VP of Total Rewards Americas at The Adecco Group	23 Jan 2026	00:32:04
Beyond Salary: Adecco’s Total Rewards VP on TR Statements, Living Wage, and Inflation Readiness Summary If employees only see their salary, you’re leaving value—and retention—on the table. Markus Enzner, VP of Total Rewards (Americas) at The Adecco Group, brings 18 years of experience and an economist’s lens to show how to turn compensation and benefits into clarity, confidence, and impact. Supporting ~10,000 employees and an ~$8B business across North and Latin America, Markus explains where rewards most often break down—affordability and poor communication—and how to fix it with consumer-grade simplicity and Total Rewards statements that quantify value. He shares a personal story of a promotion that helped an employee become debt-free, why personalization and living wage frameworks are the next frontier, and how leaders should prepare for AI-enabled communication and a likely return of inflation. He closes with a practical 30-day financial experiment any listener can try. Timestamps [00:13] – Role and scope: Adecco’s Americas Total Rewards across 3 GBUs, ~10k employees, ~$8B [02:26] – Early money lessons: independence, first jobs, and a lifelong investing mindset [08:39] – Why an economist chose Total Rewards: analytics meets human impact [12:09] – Where rewards break down: affordability, pay transparency, and weak communication [14:48] – Turning benefits into value: Total Rewards statements vs. 70-page guides [18:45] – Individual impact: the promotion that erased student debt [24:24] – Personalization and the rise of living wage frameworks [26:05] – 2026 outlook: AI in rewards communication, preparing for inflation, and a 30-day money experiment Takeaways - Quantify total rewards—use personalized TR statements to show the full value beyond base pay. - Design within affordability while increasing clarity: make pay and benefits communication simple, visual, and concise. - Replace dense benefits guides with consumer-grade experiences employees can grasp in minutes. - Personalize rewards using data and tech; explore living wage frameworks to align pay with real-life costs. - Prepare for inflation’s return with scenario planning, agile mid-year adjustments, and proactive employee messaging. - Empower managers to connect policy to people—promotions and bonuses can be truly life-changing. Sponsor Aura Finance helps you simplify compensation and benefits planning by bringing everything into one streamlined platform. No more juggling spreadsheets, disconnected tools, or manual calculations Aura gives you a single place to design, compare, and communicate total rewards packages with confidence. With AI-powered insights, it takes the guesswork and busywork out of comp decisions, helps you spot pay equity gaps early, and makes it easy to model scenarios that keep your teams engaged and your budgets on track. See a demo at https://www.aurafinance.com/
	Lisseth Zouhbi, CHRO at Child Care Resource Center	21 Jan 2026	00:21:48
Beyond Base Pay: CCRC’s CHRO on Total Rewards, Pay Equity, and Financial Wellness Summary If employees only focus on base pay, they miss the true value of their compensation. Lisseth Zouhbi, Chief Human Resources Officer at Child Care Resource Center, breaks down how her team is demystifying total rewards for a large, fast-growing nonprofit. With 25 years in HR—including two decades in luxury hospitality—and as a co-author of Latinas Rising Up in Human Resources (Executive Edition) and United Latinas (Vol. 3), Lisseth shares a practical blueprint: build clear total reward statements, equip managers to communicate them, and design benefits through a multigenerational, life-stage lens. She details CCRC’s approach to competitive pay in nonprofits, maintaining internal equity through every hire and promotion, and pairing health benefits with financial wellness education. Expect actionable tactics—from leveraging Workday and broker partners to a simple 30-day money experiment—plus the metrics that matter: lower turnover, stronger equity, and broader talent attraction. Timestamps [00:45] – Lisseth’s 25-year HR journey: from luxury hospitality to CHRO at CCRC [01:51] – Writing and representation: Latinas Rising Up in HR and United Latinas [02:30] – Early money lessons: first paycheck, first checking account, and independence [05:13] – Convenience vs. cost: valuing time (the “ugly sweater” story) [06:57] – Designing total rewards by life stage and educating beyond base pay [09:45] – Building total rewards statements in Workday and training managers to explain them [13:06] – Competing for talent in a growing nonprofit; inflation and internal pay equity [15:00] – Health + financial wellness: webinars, education, and a 30-day money experiment Takeaways - Build and share total rewards statements so employees see employer-paid value (retirement match, insurance, and more). - Train managers with plain-language guides and FAQs to explain comp and benefits confidently. - Design benefits through a multigenerational lens—offer options that fit life stage, not one-size-fits-all. - Monitor equity continuously: analyze internal pay with every hire/promotion and benchmark against market data. - Pair health benefits with financial wellness education to reduce stress and boost benefit utilization. - Try a 30-day expense-tracking reflection to align spending with values and goals. Sponsor Aura Finance helps you simplify compensation and benefits planning by bringing everything into one streamlined platform. No more juggling spreadsheets, disconnected tools, or manual calculations Aura gives you a single place to design, compare, and communicate total rewards packages with confidence. With AI-powered insights, it takes the guesswork and busywork out of comp decisions, helps you spot pay equity gaps early, and makes it easy to model scenarios that keep your teams engaged and your budgets on track. See a demo at https://www.aurafinance.com/
	Michael Downey, Director, Total Rewards at DataRobot	19 Jan 2026	00:25:44
Pay Transparency & Total Rewards: DataRobot’s Director on Benchmarking, AI, and Paying for Performance Summary Curious why employees mistrust comp decisions — even when they’re paid well? Michael Downey, Director of Total Rewards at DataRobot and a compensation leader with 15+ years of experience (and a former teacher), explains how clearer communication, practical benchmarking, and smarter use of AI can turn compensation from a source of confusion into a competitive advantage. Michael walks through "retro tech" benchmarking practices, why leaders must become educators on total rewards, how to shift from tweaks to true pay-for-performance, and the surprising ROI of simply telling employees when they’re paid above market. Listen for concrete steps to improve trust, retention, and manager conversations using tools like Workday, market data, and simple leader-led calibration exercises. Timestamps [00:19] – Guest intro: Michael Downey, Director of Total Rewards at DataRobot [01:21] – Earliest money memories and how childhood work shaped views on responsibility [07:37] – Teaching background → translating complex comp into education for employees [10:15] – Where comp and benefits breakdown most often: the total rewards understanding gap [12:12] – Moving from uniform raises to true pay-for-performance; eliminating undifferentiated bonuses [15:10] – Trend focus: why pay transparency will keep shaping hiring and retention [19:44] – Tools and approaches: AI, Workday, market data and the “retro tech” benchmarking routine [22:35] – 30-day experiment: one practical audit to boost financial well‑being and engagement Takeaways - Lead with data: run regular benchmarking conversations (anchors and outliers) to set a fair foundation for pay decisions. - Tell employees where they sit: proactively communicate when someone is paid above market to build trust and retention. - Shift pay design: replace undifferentiated bonuses with meaningful, differentiated increases to reward top performers. - Equip managers: train leaders to explain total rewards (salary, benefits, equity, perks) not just post ranges. - Use simple tech and routines: leverage Workday/AI and a retro-tech calibration every 6 months before broader comp changes. - Run a 30‑day pilot: identify employees paid above market, check whether they know it, and start those recognition conversations. Sponsor Aura Finance helps you simplify compensation and benefits planning by bringing everything into one streamlined platform. No more juggling spreadsheets, disconnected tools, or manual calculations Aura gives you a single place to design, compare, and communicate total rewards packages with confidence. With AI-powered insights, it takes the guesswork and busywork out of comp decisions, helps you spot pay equity gaps early, and makes it easy to model scenarios that keep your teams engaged and your budgets on track. See a demo at https://www.aurafinance.com/

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