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Lee Mataya, SVP Total Rewards at Cox Media Group · Beyond the Paycheck

• Kelsey Willock (00:42) Welcome Lee Mataya SVP of Total Rewards at Cox Media Group. We are so beyond excited to have you today. To kick us off, I'd love for you to introduce yourself to the audience, share a little bit about your background, where you're calling in from, and your current role today. Lee Mataya (00:58) Thanks Kelsey. My name is Lee Mataya. I'm the senior vice president, as you said, of Total Rewards for Cox Media Group. We're a local media, so TV and radio stations across the country. And a little bit about my background. I started my career as a compensation specialist, temporary employee at a subprime mortgage company back in, oh gosh, 2002. And I grew up through the ranks of compensation. I started a in California, Southern California, did, I was in the real estate industry. I've been in the for-profit education industry. I've worked for nonprofits. know, throughout my career, I've picked up HRAS because I needed to ensure data quality because compensation really has to have really good data quality. And now I'm at Cox Media Group and I run total rewards, comp benefits. I run payroll. I run HR ops. run. technology. So everything behind the scenes ⁓ my shop does. Kelsey Willock (02:02) What attracted you to this career path? Lee Mataya (02:05) It's funny. started, I went to Miami University in Ohio and I was like, Oh, I'm going to be a finance guy. That's who I am on finance. And it's a liberal arts school. So you have to take some different, different classes. And I took an HR class, just as part of my career or as my part of my studies. And I loved it. My teacher was amazing. He was actually the head of compensation and league or not compensation, sorry, the head of HR and legal for Kroger. So it's out in Cincinnati and ⁓ he actually worked with my grandpa. My grandpa worked for Kroger and he knew him. My grandpa was the head of ⁓ Kroger in Pittsburgh while they were still in Pittsburgh and they worked together on a lot of union issues. ⁓ And so it was incredible. So I actually ended up taking about four or five more classes just with him. So I made sure he was the professor and I kind of turned me into the HR world. I, to be honest, coming out of college, I had no idea. Like I knew all about HR, but I didn't know what jobs were in HR. So then I started temping, worked for an organization that was Subprime Mortgage. And I sat outside the office of the head of talent development. He's Tom, he's really smart and amazing kind of a mentor to me at that time. And he sat me down, we were talking, he's like, you're a comp guy. That's what your, that's your career path. I was like, okay, sounds good. was You know, 22, I had no idea. yeah, I'm a comp guy. Kelsey Willock (03:35) It's so crazy how, you know, there can be one interaction like class and it can really just shape the future of your life. Also, I to caveat, I am someone that bleeds black and gold, as both of my parents are from Pittsburgh. So hopefully I'm in good company on that. Lee Mataya (03:50) Very absolutely, absolutely big game coming up this weekend. Kelsey Willock (03:55) Yes. So before we dive into all the amazing work that you're doing at Cox, I want to dig a little bit deeper into who you are as a person. We've already gotten a little bit of a glimpse into it. So can you tell me your earliest money memory? Lee Mataya (04:10) When I read the script for the questions you're going to ask it, I laugh because it's a horrible memory. My parents cannot hear this podcast, but I remember in second grade or now I'm was either first or second grade. I stole twenty dollars from my parents and I took it to school and I had I used it to have ice cream like every day for weeks. But yeah, that was my earliest is selling twenty dollars from my parents so I could have ice cream in second grade. Kelsey Willock (04:40) Did you get caught? Lee Mataya (04:42) No, never. I will now. Now, some 40 something years later. Kelsey Willock (04:44) You What was your first job and if you remember what did you do with your first paycheck? Lee Mataya (04:55) So my first job, it's funny that you asked, I did a lot of work for my parents, obviously, they owned an office building, and I did stuff around that. But my first actual job, I wanted to get a job and my parents wouldn't let me, I was 16 and like, when you could start working. And then on the way home from my friend's house spent the night, I was driving and I rear ended somebody, not serious, but just enough. was like, I think it costs like $500. only accident I've ever been in. I've never gotten a speeding ticket or any tickets. That was literally like when I was 16. So that was now 30 years ago or 20 years, no 30. Yeah, math guy. I'm not that good. ⁓ But anyways, my parents then said you're getting a job. So I went and worked at a grocery store and my first paycheck was to pay off that debt. But then my next savings up and this is when like Minimum wage was like three or four dollars. So it took a long time to save up money. I bought some golf clubs. I'm terrible at golf. I've been terrible my whole life, but I bought golf clubs with my next paycheck. Kelsey Willock (05:56) How do you think both of those experiences shaped how you think about responsibility or even security? Lee Mataya (06:04) I think, you know, I, I like my wife and I love spending money. like just, you know, we just, we have a family we like to buy. went a little overboard with our kids. ⁓ I think, you know, you, I work really hard so I can afford things that I enjoy in my lifetime. ⁓ so I think that's kind of that, but you know, just it, I guess I was taught just hard work, ⁓ pays off and then it does. you like my coming out of college before that ⁓ temp job at the Subprime Mortgage Company, I was temping. I was working like two or three jobs. So was temping and I was working at like a, it wasn't Macy's, but it was like a Macy's. I was all like, no day, my day off was when I had like one job in a day. usually I was going from the temp job to Macy's until I started like in my actual first job at that company. So ⁓ it just, you know, just. I enjoy working, guess. don't know if I'm retiring what I would do. So my dad actually worked till he was in his 70s. you know, same with my mom. She just retired like two years ago and she's in her 70s. So, yeah, I see myself working for a very long time. Kelsey Willock (07:19) There's a lot of interesting stats. The later you work in life, the longer you live. So I think that we oftentimes think it's the opposite, but keeping our views challenged is actually a really good thing. So I'm really interested in this one. It's one of my favorite questions to ask. What's your most recent embarrassing purchase? Lee Mataya (07:27) Yeah. Gosh, we've been on a self-imposed budget lately. ⁓ But I don't know, embarrassing? It's a great question. do, right now, I've been buying a lot of Pokemon cards for my kids. So I stand at the kiosk as a middle-aged man buying Pokemon cards at the kiosks for my kids, so. Which are a very interesting investment in any ways. If you pull a certain cards, they're worth a lot of money. So I have to go through the packs before I give them to my kids because I did, my kid did pull like a $50 card out of a pack and he put it in his binder. He's six years old and I let him keep it. The first day he took it to school, he traded it to somebody and I was like, yeah. Kelsey Willock (08:06) things you do. How do you think all these money stories and experiences has shaped how you think about paying benefits for your employees? Lee Mataya (08:40) I, when I look at paying benefits for my employees and just people who work for me, I look at, you know, they invest their time into this, into any company you work for. And it's so important to make sure that, they're not like, you hear the stories of your friends or your spouses, like they come home from work and they just hate work. There's something that was terrible. Their boss was terrible. This was terrible. That was terrible. You know, I, I don't want that for anybody. Like I've I've lived it, I've come home, I've had a terrible day, I've had a bad boss, and I just couldn't stand it. And I know how that feels. And so, you know, I don't want people to really have to think like, can I afford this or that? Like, you know, it's really important that the benefits are good enough so people can, you know, go get what they need done. our most, I'm sure mostly all plans have preventative is free. So. making sure that, but, you know, making sure they're comprehensive, that they can go see the doctors they want, go, like it's restricted to a degree. Like, you know, you have to look out for the company, making sure that, you know, the company is not overextending, but there's a balance between how much you can offer to the employee. But what's really important, ask them. I think a lot of people in our shoes and total rewards, you know, they put through benefits because it's market competitive. It's, you know, what their surveys tell them, but every company is slightly different. Like we did a benefit survey. We asked people what they wanted and one of the things was like fitness. They wanted a fitness program. So we went out and found one. mean, there was things that we found that, you know, just we didn't know. And then from a pay perspective, I mean, obviously like the worthy companies are with, you know, restructuring is always making sure things are as efficient as possible. Teaching people that they do need to recognize that surveys are. I think surveys are a little bit outdated. Like they can be good for a job that has a million people in it. But at the company I work at, you know, someone, two people with the same job title could be doing something completely different. And it's hard to overlay a survey and saying, you should make this much. mean, people need to understand the value that someone brings and really, really look at that. That's, that's, think we're moving more and more into as deficiencies happen, like people are, you don't have five people to do the same job. Like you now down to two people and they're doing different things. And so it's really, you know, balancing that and with merit budgets, you know, being small or, you know, that, that can't obviously pay, you know, to keep your highest performer. So you have to just figure out ways to constantly evaluate the talent that you have. Kelsey Willock (11:23) What I find really interesting about that is we head into such a tech forward world, you know, as we even think about leveraging AI to make certain decisions. What you're describing is how do we actually still bring back in the qualitative because it's not just the data is not all in the numbers. It's about listening. It sounds like your company is doing a really interesting or has a really interesting approach to look at quantitative as well as the qualitative. Lee Mataya (11:49) Yeah, yeah, it's, yeah, it's gonna be interesting with AI because you can, you know, I've sat through all the AI demonstrations. ⁓ I've seen the enterprise version of chat GPT, all super cool. Like you could just, you could plug in your turnover data and say, give me insights rather than like trying to figure out every little thing. And it can definitely help you out. Pay equity will be interesting because pay equity has been a kind of a thing that's been high on everybody's list for the last like, five to 10 years, but you have to have really, really good data. Two jobs ago, I worked at the P-Chartable Trusts. We actually, we didn't have like 10,000 employees, so we were able to do this on a scale, but we were able to create a database for every single employee, like how many professional years they had, how many years directly related to the job, like all their performance. So there was more data to be able to do a really good pay equity. It's so hard to get that now. It's like, because two people could be in the same job. One person could have been there for 20, one could have had five and you're like comparing them. And it's so hard to make these comparisons at like the, at the lower levels. ⁓ So I am, know, AI will do certain analyses, but it's not going to solve all the issues with pay. Kelsey Willock (13:10) Do you think pay equity is where compensation and benefits break down most often today? Or would you say there's even something else? Lee Mataya (13:18) think it's everything. think it's so hard to like, everybody's always gonna be underpaid, right? You're gonna ask the survey question, how much, or do you think you're paid fairly? I'm gonna say no, of course not, I'm not, pay me more. ⁓ But it's gonna be that qualitative and it's gonna be like teaching your leaders how important, ⁓ I think it was in my first job as a manager, the head of HR, like, said at the very simplest level, like you've got to line all of your employees up and just, you know, who's your, who, who's going to be the most impactful. And you just, you need to start making pay decisions on how impactful ⁓ each employee is. I mean, you want to be fair. You want to give everybody merit increases to cover the cost of living and labor, all that stuff. But you really need to like, really evaluate your talent to understand where the, where the limited dollars you have go. Kelsey Willock (14:12) And is there anything you're doing or introducing tools that you're building in-house, external resources that if you, you've seen move the needle? Lee Mataya (14:21) I think ⁓ it's not me. give credit to the performance talent teams. ⁓ They really do a lot ⁓ of communications and work with leaders on how to evaluate talent. We do a lot of work when it comes up to when they're ⁓ high significant position becomes open on how much we pay and really do a lot of work at that level. We're very lean organization. We're very lean ⁓ HR team. We outsource a lot. I do. primarily all the executive compensation ⁓ work just within the company. So ⁓ we really have to look at it on an individual basis. We don't have the ability to look at it on scale. Kelsey Willock (15:06) Yeah, I'd say that's one of the more common subjects that I'm hearing more and more. And I think the deep irony is we're almost absorbed in too much data to actually filter anything meaningful out of it right now. ⁓ So again, like going back to that theme of we've got to go back to a bit of the qualitative to really be able to assess an individual's value. ⁓ Lee Mataya (15:27) Yeah, what I've learned is from salary. it used to be, like when I started my career, as a comp person, you have your salary surveys and no one could see them because it's your data. And so much data is out there, they don't salary survey surveys are a data point. Like your internal equity is a data point. There's so many data points and you have to look at it all. There's no, there's no answer. Like I can't give you the answer. Like there isn't an answer. There's a recommendations and you can talk through it, but it like, the data alone doesn't give you the answer. And I think a lot of people do look for that answer through just the data points. Kelsey Willock (16:04) I love that the data alone doesn't give you the answer, especially if you can't it effectively. Let's talk a little bit about some of the changes that you've enacted and where you've seen leadership in action really effective. Can you talk a little bit about a change that you've seen at the company that has shifted from just attracting talent to really transforming the lives of people? You had already mentioned introducing a fitness benefit. Is that the one we want to talk about and dig deeper into or there are other changes that you've made? Lee Mataya (16:37) We've, ⁓ we've made a lot of changes. mean, we, went from being a division of a much bigger company into carving out to our own separate company, ⁓ six years ago. And we've had to, we've had to rebuild the entire HR or corporate infrastructure specifically, you know, the HR backend. I think the biggest change, and this isn't even a total common benefits thing. The biggest change that we enacted was. changing our HR system over to success factors. And I mean, we outsource payroll, we outsource benefits to, we don't have a payroll person on staff, we don't have a benefits person on staff. We all of our, not all, our first line of defense for employee questions is outsourced, but our satisfaction score is at 94%. Like, I mean, the biggest change is putting a really robust HR, suite of systems in and outsourcing a lot of work to a really good partner and getting a lot of questions and the first line of questions answered by our outsourced group. so I think overall that's been just such a significant change. I spoke at the SAP conference around our journey and the journey is quite remarkable, I think, from what our team has been able to do. Kelsey Willock (18:04) It's important to think, you know, how do you prioritize build versus buy? And that's such a great example of just buy. You know, we don't need to build this in-house. We can outsource to someone that's an expert in space. And then the measurable impact being 94 % employee satisfaction rate is phenomenally high. I think some folks think that they need to build in-house in order to see those types of success scores. Lee Mataya (18:23) Yeah. Yeah, think it's having folks and I have some other metrics about it that I pulled up. ⁓ I think it's, yeah, just keeping your eye on your vendors and making sure that they're doing all the work that you need them to do. mean, payroll has been an eye-opening experience for me because it's so complex and no one understands how complex it is, especially with payroll taxes. one thing I... I think is amazing also is that we put in this system and it's a lot and we haven't had any turnover on our team internally, involuntary, like everybody's super engaged and it's ⁓ just been a great experience. Kelsey Willock (19:12) Can you say a little bit more about how you navigate coms with vendors and make sure that they're delivering the highest level of service to the company? That can be particularly challenging to manage with Point Solutions. How have you seen success? Lee Mataya (19:26) Right, right. lot of measuring ⁓ really, we have a survey that every time someone has a question that goes through our Ask HR ⁓ portal, someone gets it. get satisfaction surveys out. We do a lot of surveying, ⁓ not just with our Ask HR questions, but we have surveys for onboarding, like how is your onboarding. ⁓ So we do a lot of ⁓ surveying and measuring. ⁓ So that helps us understand how our employees feel. ⁓ And then we have really adept ⁓ HR folks. Everybody is, we just had a of a town hall for our whole HR team. ⁓ And one of the things that comes out is like everybody is a high performer. Everybody likes working with each other. So we're open and honest if we're hearing stuff from our employees. And that always, then we can translate that back to keeping our vendors accountable. So if someone's gonna have an issue with our medical program, you know, they'll hear about it and I'll go straight to our vendor. ⁓ But we have really good vendor partnerships and they really take action if they hear something from us that ⁓ is unacceptable. And we haven't had that. We we've put a lot of really good partnerships in place and everybody wants to work together like we have great, great meetings once every couple weeks with our medical, our pharmacy, our technology, so it's just making sure that you're meeting, discussing, and you look at it as a partnership. I think that's another thing that people kind of lose sight on. Your vendor's not going to do everything 100%. You can't just say, I'm out. You got this. You have to partner together. And it helps them as well. If you're giving them feedback, that makes them better, and that makes them better for the next customer that they're going to go get. Kelsey Willock (21:18) It keeps ⁓ me thinking back to this theme of ⁓ quantity and quality. You're setting up operational systems in which to get really good data through those surveys. But culturally, you're making sure that there's this open line of communication. So it's such a clear theme at the company. We need to be looking at both to understand whether things are working or not. Lee Mataya (21:41) Absolutely. Yeah, yeah. No one takes blame. I mean, it's kind of like, it's the world. Like you're just trying to make things better. You're doing the best that you can. And I think that was like kind of a theme that I learned a few years back is like, don't take blame for everything. you're doing literally the best that you can and like be proud of that. And like, and if something goes awry, it's not because you purposely did it. It's just it happened and you're gonna go fix it. And it's not gonna, you're gonna try it, for it not to happen again. Kelsey Willock (22:13) ⁓ What compensation and benefits trends do you think are going to shape the employee experience most over the next year? Lee Mataya (22:22) from, from a benefits perspective, I mean, you hear so much out there in the media. I think it's keeping them affordable, keeping them, ⁓ in a place that, you know, the employees can use it they don't feel burdened. like, do I pay my rent or do I go to the doctor today? Cause I think that's so important. ⁓ and just cause stress levels are high and you know, that affects people and affects their health. so that, you know, I, From a benefits, it's affordability. I mean, from a pay standpoint, like there's a broader for everybody, like keeping wages where you can, paying as much as possible, paying merits, doing decent bonuses where people bonus eligible. But I think, you know, being able to ensure that people can, you know, live. I mean, I think that's the big. big thing and so many people worried about you know food everything rising or all the costs rising and so you know I just think keeping people like keeping people at a level where they can you know maintain their life. Kelsey Willock (23:31) You're the third person in a row that has said and used the word affordability looking ahead. So clearly we're on trend that this is going to be a big part. And given where inflation is at, it makes sense. People are really feeling that pressure against their dollar. Lee Mataya (23:50) Yeah, think that's been the for us, it's been like that for years. It's not just like a today thing. It's like it's, you know, trying to keep your merit budgets at a place where it's like keeps up with rent or mortgage or whatever the costs are. And it's hard. mean, with two to three to four percent merit budgets isn't like it's not a huge amount. And it's so hard to stretch that to a to a level that helps, you know, every single employee. So. Kelsey Willock (23:54) Yes. This is a hard question, but what are you all doing about that? thinking, how are you thinking through ensuring that affordability is at the forefront? Lee Mataya (24:28) Yeah, you got to get really creative. ⁓ have to like one way that we do it one way I we did it on our team, but you have to do it also is like if someone people 10 to 20 % of your workforce were turnover in every given year. So ⁓ you have to really get creative. Like so if someone leaves if someone's making $50,000 and they leave, can you repurpose that money? Can you restructure? Can you do something differently? to be able to keep your payroll budgets flat or like around flat, but do it differently. Like, and I think there's ways to do that. Like we were able to outsource payroll and actually like we saved money and we were able to hire headcount to do other things that we needed. So we were able to do like through different tactics. I think you just have to be really creative and I, cause you're not. A lot of times you're not going to be able to go unless you're in a growth mode company. You can't go to your boss and be like, I need three headcount. We need to do more. They're going be like, we're how like we can't afford that. You're like, I need to give everybody 20 % raises. I can't do that. But if you went to the, to your boss and say, you know, so and so just left, I would like to do, take that money, repurpose it in this way. And we'll still save our, our department money. They're going to be, they're going to be much more open to the, to that. Kelsey Willock (25:57) I love that answer and I think it's something that we can also tangibly take away. It's not an easy solution to think creatively, but it's important to recognize everyone is doing that right now. There's a lot of interest. Let's go for it. Lee Mataya (26:09) I think you... I was just gonna say, I was gonna say, you also have to have a plan. I think a lot of times people don't have plans. So your plan has to be more than a year. Here's like my three year plan, knowing so many different things are gonna happen. But like, I wanna take this person who's an individual contributor now, and I want to get them to a manager. But how do like you need to socialize that early and then you need to have a plan and you need to get buy-in ⁓ and knowing things work. Kelsey Willock (26:14) Right. Lee Mataya (26:39) will change. Kelsey Willock (26:42) Well, Lee, this has just been such a phenomenally helpful and interesting conversation just to kind of recap some of the great insights I learned from you, particularly around data, is data is not enough. I love that line. So we really need to think through the combination of both qualitative and quantitative information to really get a better snapshot of what's going on at the company. I also loved how you had mentioned that surveying is a great way to get a pulse on what's not working and what is, and that it's extremely important to keep your vendors accountable with that direct line of communication. And then to kind of wrap it up, I loved how you brought up how important affordability is. This is such a theme that keeps coming up over and over again. It's also wrapped in pay equity that we had spoken about in the beginning of our conversation. And in order for folks to really find solutions, we all need to... really bring our heads together and get creative on how to keep payroll flat, people happy, and move forward in such an ever-changing world. So thank you so, much for your time today. I'd love for you to share with our listeners what's a way in which they can connect with you beyond this conversation. Lee Mataya (27:51) look me up on LinkedIn and hit me up and definitely be open to any conversation. Kelsey Willock (28:00) Wonderful. Well, enjoy the rest of your holiday season. Go Steelers and thank you again for your time, particularly given the busy year end that we're in. Lee Mataya (28:10) Thank very much, as well. fun. Appreciate it.