Did you miss WorldatWork Total Rewards ’24? Or did you attend but miss out on the talks featuring Walmart, Dow, Micron, FTI Consulting and other leaders in workplace equity? Don’t worry, we’ve put together bite-sized summaries so you can review, remember, and re-share their insights and learnings.
Each of these leaders takes a customized approach to workplace equity based on their company’s unique stage, pressures, and strategy. Read on to find out whose journey is most similar to yours and learn key takeaways from their experiences.
BMC Software: Building trust by leaning into dynamic employee expectations.
BMC Software’s journey began years ago when this global information technology services, consulting, and Enterprise Software company with 6,000 employees worldwide first made the decision to be transparent about their progress and approach to pay equity.
The reason? Lynn Moffett, Vice President of Human Resources, described it as part of their business values and their strategy. As Lynn put it, employees’ expectations were changing — they wanted evidence of fair pay. According to Lynn, “When we sat back and thought about pay equity, pay transparency, and what it all means, we came back to our core values: Do the right thing and prioritize our people. Employees expect you to drive culture, do the right thing, and live your values. You as a company need to be on the forefront and not fall behind.”
BMC Software also serves other businesses that want to work with companies prioritizing ESG and DEI. Lynn was frequently asked to complete ESG questionnaires, validating their approach to workplace equity with hard data.
Lynn led the charge to provide this clarity to their people and their prospective customers. BMC Software partnered with Syndio to use PayEQ® to conduct their pay equity analysis because it allowed them to get their hands on their data while trusting in third party experts to ensure accuracy. They also use Syndio’s OppEQ to ensure equity in advancement.
Finally, they also became Fair Pay Workplace certified. This certification validates BMC Software’s workplace equity methodology and approach, so all their stakeholders can trust the results they are achieving.
“Fair Pay Workplace helped us talk publicly about pay equity and celebrate our commitment to the process.”
TD SYNNEX: Preparing for the EU Directive while going “beyond compliance and into culture.”
Hywel Jones, Vice President of Total Rewards at this global technology solutions company with 23,000 employees in 49 countries explained that “beyond compliance and into culture” is how they encapsulate their workplace equity strategy.
They see workplace equity as essential to the work they’ve done to harmonize the two different cultures of Tech Data and SYNNEX and to retain employees during this time of massive change for both organizations. And as a global company with presence in the EU, they are also preparing for the EU Equal Pay & Transparency Directive, which will require companies to not only run annual pay equity analyses that compares work of equal value, but also act to correct gaps greater than 5%, and communicate the results.
Why this approach? According to Hywel, “Pay equity and transparency are two sides of the same coin, but pay transparency is more in its infancy. As we prepare for the EU Directive, we are focusing on getting ahead of it rather than letting the train hit us. This meant we invested time in our data and methodology, as well as a technology partner that gave us confidence in presenting to our leadership.”
Hywel and the TD SYNNEX team got a leg up using Syndio’s PayEQ software and third party expertise to accelerate their strategy and add credibility to their approach. Then, with the CFO as their sponsor, they made the case for preserving pay equity, reducing costs, and improving the governance of ongoing pay decisions using Syndio’s Pay Finder™.
“Pay Finder not only allows us to proactively manage pay equity, but has informed how we prepare our front line for pay transparency.”
This also improved the relationship between Talent Acquisition and Compensation teams.
As Hywel explains, the Talent Acquisition and Compensation teams work together to ensure fair and consistent hiring, transfers, and promotions using Pay Finder. While embedding workplace equity in all people decisions is core to TD SYNNEX’s culture, it’s also helping them prepare for the greater pay and career transparency that will be required by the EU Equal Pay & Transparency Directive, and, as a public company, it has the added benefit of being a strong indicator of the strength of their business.
FTI Consulting: Treating employees right with a “compliance plus” approach.
Warren Mueller, Senior Director Global Compensation at this market-leading global consulting firm with over 8,000 employees across 7 businesses and 32 countries, faced an onslaught of pay equity and transparency requirements globally. At the same time, unlike some companies facing pressure to prove workplace equity achievements from ERGs or other employee representatives, FTI Consulting’s employees were relatively quiet on the topic.
That meant that FTI could have taken a surgical, compliance-only approach. But he didn’t. Instead, FTI decided to go beyond the requirements and build workplace equity into their people strategy. Warren calls this “Compliance Plus”. As he put it, “We call our work Compliance Plus because we didn’t have employee expectations driving the work. Instead, we reviewed where we had requirements and decided on focusing on a nationwide approach versus drip by drip. It comes back to employee treatment instead of expectations. If we report pay ranges only where it is required and not everywhere, that feels unfair to the employees in the eyes of our leaders.”
How did they do this tactically? Because each business operates independently, they needed a solution that could work globally but also support local compliance requirements. They used Syndio’s PayEQ and OppEQ products to analyze, achieve, and communicate about pay and opportunity equity across all 32 countries within which they operate in their annual Corporate Sustainability report. This gave them the insights to comply with regulations, support ESG reporting, and ensure employee treatment is fair and aligned to their values.
The power of having software allowed them to look at workplace equity in an ongoing way, further embedding it into their HR operations.
“This work is never going to go away. You’ll never achieve it or be done. It constantly evolves, so you must evolve too.”
What’s next for Warren and FTI Consulting? Continuing to review emerging European Union and Global Pay Transparency requirements and looking to scale transparency with Syndio’s Pay Finder, which puts fair pay guidelines into the hands of decision makers, speeding up salary decisions while ensuring they are fair and consistent with pay policies. “We’re internally focused on laying the groundwork for increased transparency.”
Warren also sees the increasing use of technology like Syndio’s as an opportunity for Total Rewards teams to acquire the skills needed for the future of compensation. “Pay equity, pay gaps, integrations, and data management are things today’s compensation professionals need to know.”
Micron Technology: “No good deed goes unpunished.”
Athar Siddiqee, VP Total Rewards at this 43,000-employee global leader in semiconductor technology, joked that he uses the title “no good deed goes unpunished” in his presentations on Micron’s workplace equity, because every time they complete an analysis, they challenge themselves to achieve the next goalpost. Why is Micron so committed to workplace equity?
Micron competes with Amazon, Apple, and other Silicon Valley giants for talent. They can’t always pay the highest amounts, but they can stand out with their workplace equity achievements.
They started with achieving pay equity in base compensation and then expanding to bonus and stock, long before other companies were doing so. They achieved pay equity in total compensation across gender, race, age, disability, and other factors. Then they started sharing their results.
“Candidates have told us, ‘I’ve had multiple offers, but I chose to work with Micron because you are committed to pay equity.’”
New hires are voting with their feet and they’re choosing Micron.
And it’s not just candidates, but also employees. According to Athar, “Our engagement scores were not where we wanted them to be. We wanted to be sure everyone had equal opportunities. This wasn’t about paying exorbitant sums of money or only recruiting underrepresented employees. This work is about fairness for all people and it has contributed to a significant increase in our engagement scores that can be directly tied to the work we are doing in pay equity.”
One of Micron’s secrets to success is partnering with Syndio’s PayEQ, where they could dig into the methodology and results of their analysis directly. “Using Syndio gave us instant credibility” as they were able to respond with agility to the many questions from leaders. It wasn’t long before they moved beyond analyzing just base pay to bonus, then worked with Syndio to be one of the first companies to analyze stock.
Next up for Micron? They seek to be proactive in ensuring internal equity and consistency with every hiring, promotion and transfer pay decision by using Syndio’s Pay Finder.
Walmart: “We want to own our own narrative.”
Zack Vinton, Vice President of Enterprise Compensation at Walmart, the largest employer in the world with 2.1 million associates, faces pressures from all sides to build a more equitable workplace. But Zack doesn’t see this as a set of risks, but rather as a set of opportunities. “It’s an opportunity to build our brand, engage candidates and employees, get ahead of legislation, and own our own narrative.”
Walmart uses Syndio’s Workplace Equity Platform — including PayEQ to measure and achieve pay equity and OppEQ to diagnose opportunity gaps and ensure equity in promotions and performance — to drive a comprehensive, data-driven workplace equity strategy.
But that’s not all. According to Zack, communicating is one of the greatest challenges and requires extra care.
“The analysis is the easy part: how to talk about it is what I think about on a daily basis.”
Working with Syndio, they are experts in their own analysis and can talk about them with authority. Walmart is also leveraging the power of always-on software to be more proactive with ongoing analyses, better pay governance, and more frequent and in-depth communications on pay and opportunity. “You’re going to be chasing your tail if you just do adjustments,” Zack advised.
Dow: Partnering in pay transparency to build community and trust.
Dow has been committed to workplace equity for a long time. According to Beth Leff, Senior Compensation & Mobility Consultant at this 127-year-old chemical company, they are on a journey that is still underway, but which had its beginnings 25 years ago. Their commitment is directly tied to their ambition to be the most innovative, customer-centric, inclusive, and sustainable materials science company in the world. The leaders at Dow know the importance of leveling the playing field and that data is at the heart of proving that Dow has done the work and is accountable to the results.
At first, Dow conducted pay equity analyses in-house, but they wanted a deeper understanding of their data so they could be more transparent and prevent future pay gaps. As Beth put it, “We needed more insights and granularity to our pay equity story.”
They sought a third party, best-in-class technology and partnership with a team that could help them apply best practices. Dow uses Syndio, which gives them the depth of understanding to not only get pay right, but also understand the analysis, their pay practices, and ultimately become champions for fair and transparent pay practices.
Beth calls this achievement “pay clarity” and described Dow’s community of senior leaders who are now championing pay communication and education efforts.
“We want to make sure we’re all ready to have that additional transparency with employees.”
She’s already seeing the results in improved culture, trust, and a sense of community.
From insights to action: How to carry the momentum forward
WorldatWork Total Rewards ’24 underscored the pivotal role of Total Rewards professionals in driving workplace equity. The insights shared by these industry leaders highlighted the importance — and benefits — of embracing transparency, building trust, and aligning workplace equity with business strategy.
Navigating the evolving landscape of pay equity, compliance, and disclosure can feel daunting — and every company is at a different place in their journey. Syndio’s Workplace Equity Platform provides a central, holistic solution to turn these challenges into an opportunity to build trust by pinpointing pay and opportunity gaps, ensuring fair and consistent decisions throughout the employee lifecycle, and consolidating reporting and communications.
Is your organization prepared for the transparency era? Take our 12-question assessment to get your readiness score — and get a guide to learn how to balance culture, compliance, and efficiency to successfully meet transparency demands.
