Latest / Beyond the Paycheck / 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
Transcript
- Kelsey Willock (00:01) Welcome Dr. Jermaine King, Chief Human Resource Officer of the US Air Force. I am so beyond excited to have you here today. To kick us off, I'd love for you to introduce yourself to our audience, share a little bit about your career, your background, where you're calling in from, and your current role today. Dr. Jermaine King (00:09) Thank Okay, a lot to throw out, but thank you for having me today here, Kelsey. ⁓ I will tell you, ⁓ I'm originally from East St. Louis, currently in Dallas, Texas. ⁓ I was in the United States Air Force for a very long time and retired from it. ⁓ And then right now just overseeing HR operations and ⁓ Just love serving the community and serving the employees themselves. ⁓ Added a gym fanatic, ⁓ added a leadership advocate. I am also ⁓ a consultant on the side and been consulting on HR and workforce development for ⁓ close to a decade now. So thank you for having me today. Kelsey Willock (01:16) Thank you so much for joining us. I have so many follow up questions already, but before we dive into all the incredible work you're doing, the Air Force as well as consulting work, I want to get to know you personally a little bit better and share that with our audience. So if you'll indulge me, can you please share with us your earliest memory of money? Dr. Jermaine King (01:29) Okay? Okay. Wow, so ⁓ earliest memory of money. I will tell you ⁓ my earliest memory of money is I think ⁓ begging my parents for it. ⁓ Whenever we used to drive by McDonald's and I wanted to have the McDonald's, I remember them saying, you have McDonald's money? And ⁓ no, so ⁓ my earliest memories of money was ⁓ Just trying to understand what was the priority. The priority for me was getting the McDonald's and I didn't understand the big deal about it and stuff. But I guess at that time it was expensive. Kelsey Willock (02:24) Yeah, know, food, I think is so many of our earliest memory of our first purposes, because it's a necessity. But then you also realize, even if it is McDonald's, it's quite expensive. Right. Dr. Jermaine King (02:28) Yes. Especially back then so yeah, so that was the earliest time for me Kelsey Willock (02:43) How do you think that experience shaped how you see security, freedom, or even responsibility? Dr. Jermaine King (02:50) So I think ⁓ as people, the one thing I will say is a financial freedom ⁓ for everyone, ⁓ especially if you think of Maslow's hierarchy of needs, ⁓ it is the first thing that everybody thinks about is financial security. ⁓ And on foremost, on a lot of people mind is what is enough of it to live? So I think when it comes to financial security, I tend to think that people ⁓ are really curious about what their values are and ⁓ how that translates over to a company. ⁓ But I also think that other people tend to think about other things nowadays besides the financial security. Kelsey Willock (03:46) What was your first job and what do you remember doing with your first? ⁓ Dr. Jermaine King (03:50) My first job was a car wash so went down and I remember vacuuming inside the vehicles and stuff and being happy to find a quarter or something underneath the mat and I still remember my first check I was young it was around $150 and I swear I hit the jackpot so I remember being proud and coming back and having that money, $150. I was just proud to have it. But my first was a car wash. Well, I looked at it as I had a paycheck and I could find spare change. So, yeah. Kelsey Willock (04:34) Do you remember what you first spent that paycheck on? Dr. Jermaine King (04:38) Yes, pizza. Pizza, pizza, a pepperoni pizza. And I remember being excited to have my own pizza. So the $150, I think it came and went ⁓ on things that wasn't a priority, but it really was a priority to me at that time though. Kelsey Willock (04:41) Love it. More food. How do you think your money story, whether it's food related, parents introducing you to these places that you can spend your money on or your first job, how do you think they influence how you think about pay and benefits on behalf of your employees? Dr. Jermaine King (05:19) I think now... And thinking about the older generation, especially with my parents, I think that generation usually, especially ⁓ speaking for myself, really told me what I was gonna do, didn't tell me how to get there. So I think when the current position I'm in, whether it be consulting or the current title I'm in, is explaining the how and the why behind ⁓ ⁓ your benefits and your pay. A lot of people ⁓ know what they get, but they don't know how to invest it. They don't understand their benefits. They don't know how and when to utilize those benefits. And I think that's key. I think in the past generation, it was simply as here is your benefits, here is your pay. And I think now as leaders, we're really tending to focus on ⁓ When should you use your ⁓ investing for one case? When should you use your PTOs? When should you utilize ⁓ any other medical perks that you may have? So I think that's changing now in trying to get after the why instead of just what you have. Kelsey Willock (06:43) think that's such a good analogy that you're using because the reality is we're giving people more complicated benefits. And so expecting them to understand the why, expecting them to understand the how of leveraging them, especially when we see benefits packages that are tens and tens and sometimes even 100 pages long. It's so important for the employer to explain, use this at this point. Dr. Jermaine King (06:53) Yes. Yeah. Kelsey Willock (07:11) or use this at this age or this health care offering is optimized in this way. ⁓ So thanks for sharing that. think it's super important to break down. Dr. Jermaine King (07:13) Mm-hmm. Thank you. Kelsey Willock (07:25) So kind of shifting into today's landscape, can you tell me a little bit about where you're seeing compensation and benefits breaking down most often today? I'm already hearing from you. It's really better understanding the why. Can we go a little bit deeper? What else is going on today? Dr. Jermaine King (07:41) What is that gap? I will tell you that I see ⁓ your pay bands ⁓ and your annual assessments are being done annually. ⁓ However, when we look at ⁓ market research, that is a living document. ⁓ pay bands are always being updated, compensation is always being reviewed. And that in itself is one area right here, but over to the other side, it's those annual reviews and the disconnect is the frequency of when we review it. And we're looking at that data. And I think that's the best big disconnect. When we're talking to executives or managers or directors within organizations, the first thing that they're highlighting is how well their people are doing such a great job at what they do. But they may be at the top of their payback. Well, the annual review has already occurred. It's not happening again to whenever that annual review occurs, whether it's in January or July. Well, that's where the disconnect tends to be, is how do we keep up with that living document, that market value versus our annual reviews? And do they need to be annual or does the frequency need to change? Kelsey Willock (09:17) I also imagine if people don't feel that their value is being reflected in their pay, it really affects how they show up at work and feel empowered. Are you seeing that in your data? Dr. Jermaine King (09:24) Mm-hmm. Yes, yes, ⁓ I will tell you ⁓ when you think about pay, ⁓ people attribute that to their value and I think that ⁓ when they're competing against other organizations in talent management, talent acquisition, ⁓ people the first thing that they're looking at is pay. But I don't only wanna focus on that because I tend to see that ⁓ there's a trend shifting away from not just pay, but schedule. So how can you... bring that balance because again, we're not in those COVID stages. A lot of organization is wanting employees to come back into the work center. But now you've already shown that the job can get done in a hybrid or remote type of position. So bringing people back in and are they willing to come down on those pay and that benefit just for their schedule to be ⁓ Two week two in the office three day in the office versus a two day or three day at home So I see a trend between what's my value in pay and am I willing to take that that that cut or or Reduction in the offer to offset. Hey now I can stay at home a little more now I can help with the kids or any appointments. So I do see that pay is still valuable to employees. Again, they gotta make a living. But I also see a trend, an upward trend on being able to stay at home to be able to help the household and be present for that. Kelsey Willock (11:19) It's kind of a part of this bigger theme that you're going back to the why, you know, and people really understanding their benefits. There's so much value and flexibility that doesn't translate into our pay stubs. You know, so if people highly value being able to stay at home and take their kids to appointments and whatnot without having, you know, a cumbersome approval process or whatnot, there's still probably, there's a disconnect. You know, if they're paid. Dr. Jermaine King (11:29) Exactly. Great. Mm-hmm. Kelsey Willock (11:47) as another colleague, they don't see that you being able to work from home versus coming in five days a week. Maybe the person coming in five days a week needs to be paid a little bit more, but the value is still the same if you believe that working from home provides a certain level of value. So I'm seeing that a lot in so many different aspects of pay. It's the not understanding the value of our total rewards. Dr. Jermaine King (11:58) Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Agreed. Agreed. Kelsey Willock (12:13) So shifting a little bit of gears, you had mentioned a lot of really interesting consulting work and obviously you do so much in your role today. I'm curious your perspective on a change that you've enacted, either your company or working with other companies that has really helped transform the lives of individuals that you're particularly proud of. Dr. Jermaine King (12:16) Okay. So I will tell you a couple of Fortune 500 companies that I worked with. I think there's two areas that I can be proud of. One is helping those organizations understand marketing. ⁓ Give you an example. Some companies are hospital corporations. And where their advertisement is coming in is they're advertising nurses, doctors. But what they're shifting away from and what we're trying to help them at. is try to focus on the support personnel that helps with those companies as well. You need ⁓ individuals in supply. You need individuals ⁓ in IT. And if you tend to focus only on maybe that 1 % that really has a huge impact on your company, such as those nurses, those doctors, but also show that your brand meets everybody. ⁓ then ⁓ what I did is I helped those companies realize they're only targeting only maybe 1 or 2 % of the total amount of employees that they need in their organization. ⁓ And then I will say the second one that ⁓ I'm really proud of is helping your organization with ⁓ its benefits, its perks. ⁓ I think there was a lot of information that was put out, but I think we talked about it earlier in the podcast, the why and when to use those benefits. But also I worked with a helping out organization ⁓ which ⁓ its facilities will spread ⁓ greatly or vast ⁓ or across a large amount of land. And the problem that it had was the gas prices in the local area was affecting the ability of organizations to continue to come in and be employed because the facilities were about two hours away. So benefits-wise wasn't money, it was transportation needs. And how could we build an internal and external transportation system as a perk? to help ⁓ employees get from point A to point B. It reduced their costs ⁓ on gas prices. It reduced their costs on vehicle maintenance. ⁓ And it was seen as something that ⁓ the company really touted as successful. ⁓ again, we talked about it a little earlier, ⁓ a little shift from pay to maybe the benefits of being able to work hybrid or remote. or maybe even the transportation plans ⁓ that can make a company help sell its brand within the market. Kelsey Willock (15:48) I love the idea of transportation because it can be so often forgotten, especially as folks move further and further outside of certain city hubs for affordability purposes. It can be such a great way to attract additional talent and keep the talent that you have. So when you're introducing concepts like this, whether it has to do with workforce flexibility, transportation improvements, what kind of outcomes are you looking for and measurable impact? Dr. Jermaine King (16:03) you Kelsey Willock (16:18) higher levels of engagement, employee satisfaction? Is it retention? Dr. Jermaine King (16:24) So I think you asked a great and loaded question. I think a great and loaded question. think half of it is ⁓ where am I sitting at during these issues? Am I at the head of the table or am I the consultant that's sitting at the side of the table? Because I think as a consultant, it's all about what your client wants. ⁓ I think... As the client, as the person at the head of the table, ⁓ it also, means, ⁓ what's your bottom line? What are you trying to get after? I think you've looked, you can look at data ⁓ such as, know, pay scale and look at pay equity analytics. Are you looking at turnover? ⁓ Are you looking at vacancies? How long those vacancies have been there? I think you can look at benchmarking. And also you can look at things under Microsoft Power BI and you can look at dashboards. So what I've done is I have always utilized, most importantly, is Qualtrics and looking at the voice of the customer. And the voice of the customer may be the employees, it may be the director, may be the public. But I believe in data. I've always said, you know, everybody... Everyone ⁓ in God we trust, know, everyone else must bring data. So ⁓ I think ⁓ you got to pay attention to what your employees are saying, ⁓ what their main concerns are. And then I think the second part that you've got to look at is what are the measurements that you're using to drive your business and drive your organization? And what I've always looked at is maybe those vacancy rates, the high turnover rates, ⁓ and then also utilizing the voice of the customer, which is the employees through Qualtrics, to try to figure out what's the midpoint and how we can get after success. Kelsey Willock (18:35) I love that you mentioned Qualtrics because one of my follow up questions was going to be, there any tools or data sets that you think that our audience should be aware of as they are managing different systems, particularly also when looking at measuring impact in ROI? Dr. Jermaine King (18:51) So I will tell you, one of my best friends ⁓ is Microsoft Power BI Qualtrics. ⁓ Why? Those dashboards from Microsoft BI is ⁓ right there staring at you in your face. I mean, it's the truth and that's what you need. I think I love Qualtrics because believe it or not, I need to have the difference of opinions. I need it to be coded and I need to see those themes ⁓ that's coming from people. And I think when you are looking at those metrics, such as Power BI, I think the issue with it is it gives you facts, but it may not give you the circumstances behind those facts. And I think that's where Qualtrics comes in because Qualtrics gives you the why. It's telling you why maybe the employee or the customer feel the way they do. And when you can bring those two things together, it's going to give you a full picture to be able to make an informed decision. So those are the two things that I live and die by, ⁓ besides a few others, but, ⁓ recommend making sure that your team have access to those, dashboards, those heat maps, and then also a way to capture. of the voice of the customer, which may be your employees, not just your customer base. Kelsey Willock (20:22) I love how you're thinking about it in terms of it's not just the quantitative, it's also the qualitative data that can inform the numbers. So thank you for sharing those two. ⁓ My next question is about, you know, looking ahead, what compensation and benefits trends do you think are going to shape the employee experience most over the next year? Dr. Jermaine King (20:29) Exactly. Thank you, exactly. You Maybe it's a wish, maybe I'm supposed to send everybody in a frenzy by saying this, but ⁓ custom built benefit packages. ⁓ And I think ⁓ we put a lot of things out there that are take it or leave it. This is your medical, this is your dental, this is your 401k. ⁓ This is the package you're gonna get and take it or leave it. ⁓ You have... some military members that may or veterans that retire and they already got medical benefits. So they don't need the medical benefits that comes with the company. So I think some people want to say, well, I understand that you have childcare, but I don't have any kids. So the thing is, are you ⁓ giving one standard option? Or are you really catering to the people that you say you care about? So I would love to see and I think we're starting to see a trend where ⁓ you have a lot of available options and people can choose what they want to fit their lifestyle and be happy with the company that they're coming into and be able to say what is good for you, what's good for your family instead of ⁓ one It takes all systems. Kelsey Willock (22:17) I also imagine that's better for the company, right? Because if you create these more customized tools, the company then can therefore pay for what's used and not pay for what's not. in your specific example, why would you be paying for a benefit for childcare for an individual that doesn't want children, right? Dr. Jermaine King (22:37) I I think, and what a lot of people don't understand is ⁓ companies usually invest with an insurance company and that insurance company is going to say, the more people you have on the plan, the more discounts you're going to have. Got it. Understood. But if we can talk to ⁓ these insurance companies and be able to say, hey, I want to be able to give ⁓ options to my employees. to be able to say you don't need to do all of these. And if we can work within that, we will see more of our employees be happy. Kelsey Willock (23:18) couldn't agree more, you know, as someone even personally working for a company, giving, giving people the option to choose is quite empowering. ⁓ Because, you know, choosing what you don't want as well, ⁓ I think is incredibly important. So my next question for you is about a 30 day experiment that listeners could try to burst boost their own financial well being or engagement. Dr. Jermaine King (23:19) Yes. Yes. Yes. Kelsey Willock (23:47) curious what's yours. Dr. Jermaine King (23:51) 15 minutes, 15 minutes just to sit and listen to your employees, just to ask them, what do you think about ⁓ financial stability within the organization? What do you think we can do better ⁓ concerning finances and benefits and pay and all those things? And here's the hard part, no matter what they say, your job is to use your two ears. Don't say anything back, take it all in. That's part one, but part two is ⁓ micro investment. Take that P back. and go and try to resolve at least one thing that came out of those discussions. One, and then be able to come back and talk to people and say, hey, this is what I'm working on. This is what I'm trying to fix one at a time. If you want to prove that you care, that you understand their pay concerns, that you understand that work matters, that you understand that people come first, the people ⁓ that actually work. operations to make your organization successful. That's how you get after it. By listening one issue at a time and try to come back to people and say, hey, this is what I did to try to take step one or step two to try to solve your issues. And if you can do that one at a time, I believe your people will work harder for you. They just want to know that you care. Kelsey Willock (25:18) Dr. Jermaine King, thank you so much for joining us today. I have learned so much from you. As just recap in our conversation, some of the many things that I've learned. One of the things that you shared was most people don't know how and why to use their benefits. And we really need as HR and benefits leaders to help them understand just by starting by explaining that why. Another thing you had mentioned that I found really interesting was that pay bands and annual reviews have a disconnect going on. Dr. Jermaine King (25:24) you Kelsey Willock (25:47) And so looking at if we need to do them more frequently is becoming much more important. Benefits also go beyond the dollar. In some cases, it's about transportation. It's about giving people extra time. It's about giving people flexibility to work from home. So we can't forget that it does go beyond that dollar. You also mentioned some incredible tools that I want to remind our listeners of. Microsoft Office Power BI, as well as combining it with tools like Qualtrics to really better understand the why. Dr. Jermaine King (25:48) Absolutely. Kelsey Willock (26:15) as well as the what behind that data. And finally, custom benefits are deeply the future. And so we don't just have one standard of benefits anymore. We need to think about more customized options for our people. So thank you so much again. As a last question for you, I'm curious, how can our listeners connect with you beyond this conversation? Dr. Jermaine King (26:36) So I will just say reach out to me. ⁓ I am very active on LinkedIn. I believe in helping people. I believe in leadership. I believe in mentorship. So reach out to me on LinkedIn. ⁓ Jermaine King, ⁓ follow me there. And then also with my company. ⁓ my consulting company, is Lighthouse Leadership Strategies, LLSStrategy.com. And my personnel will reach out and try to help you in any type of way we can. Kelsey Willock (27:09) Thank you so much again. It's been a delight having you as a part of this conversation. I hope you stay warm and have a wonderful West of your February. Dr. Jermaine King (27:17) YouTube. Thank you for having me.