HR BESTIES - Pay Transparency

Episode Date: September 4, 2024

Today’s agenda:  Listener Bestie story Cringe corporate speak: Thought Leader Hot topic: All things pay transparency What does it look like? Consequences, consequences... Pay disparity Pay transparency can benefit the organization Questions/Comments  Your To-Do List: Grab merch, submit Questions & Comments, and make sure that you’re the first to know about our In-Person Meetings (events!) at https://www.hrbesties.com. Follow your Besties across the socials and check out our resumes here: https://www.hrbesties.com/about.  We look forward to seeing you in our next meeting - don’t worry, we’ll have a hard stop! Yours in Business + Bullsh*t,  Leigh, Jamie & Ashley Follow Bestie Leigh! https://www.tiktok.com/@hrmanifesto https://www.instagram.com/hrmanifesto https://www.hrmanifesto.com Follow Bestie Ashley! https://www.tiktok.com/@managermethod  https://www.instagram.com/managermethod https://www.linkedin.com/in/ashleyherd/ https://managermethod.com Follow Bestie Jamie! https://www.millennialmisery.com/ Humorous Resources: Instagram • YouTube • Threads • Facebook • X Millennial Misery: Instagram • Threads • Facebook • X Horrendous HR: Instagram • Threads • Facebook Tune in to “HR Besties,” a business, work and management podcast hosted by Leigh Elena Henderson (HRManifesto), Ashley Herd (ManagerMethod) and Jamie Jackson (Humorous_Resources), where we navigate the labyrinth of corporate culture, from cringe corporate speak to toxic leadership. Whether you’re in Human Resources or not, corporate or small business, we offer sneak peeks into surviving work, hiring strategies, and making the employee experience better for all. Tune in for real talk on employee engagement, green flags in the workplace, and how to turn red flags into real change. Don't miss our chats about leadership, career coaching, and takes from work travel and watercooler gossip. Get new episodes every Wednesday and Friday, follow us on socials for the latest updates, and join us at our virtual happy hours to share your HR stories. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

I have a story from an HR Besties listener. This listener thought that we would love this story. And actually she corrected and said, well, probably not love, but it's one of those HR nightmare experiences. So in her previous role, and I'll just switch to I, I was head of people for a startup. Red flag number one, I know. And those who have been in that role will know. I was on maternity leave with my first child, which was six weeks that I had to lobby for

when I got a call from some of my department heads that the CEO had announced company-wide layoffs, which is quite the surprise when you're ahead of people and you're on leave and you find out after this happened, right? As the HR bestie I am, I emailed the CEO and COO that I would like to come back early from leave if they were going to do layoffs to aid the teams and put together severance packages. I think this HR bestie is Jamie, right? Oh my God. The COO then set up an eight-minute meeting with me.

Eight minutes, that's all they had. Eight-minute management and laid me off instead with no severance, no insurance, while she was out on leave. No insurance continuation, and truly no empathy for the bread-winning four-week postpartum mother that she just shocked with the news. That alone is a nightmare. But then the CEO proceeded to lay off other staff members and go to a conference to speak about how the company had to eradicate the toxic cancers of the organization.

Oh my God. When truly all layoffs were high-performing employees. Not done yet. After ramping up my social media presence in my job search, I had the COO reach out to me stating that my stance on social media is geared too much toward employees and not enough about how CEOs can optimize workforce costs

and use AI in place of HR. Oh, get the fuck out of here. Thankfully, I am now employed with a progressive company who believes in my employee experience mindset. But I'd love to bring attention to this toxic workplace. Blue skies, bestie. Oh, screw them. There you go.

We put them on the pod. We put them on blast and we know we don't name names just because we don't have it. We don't have the name. But when I read this one, this one just stuck out because this has happened, I'm sure to some of you all. Like, I feel like I've heard that story several times, sadly. Yes. Yes.

But like all the things are running through my head. Like how many people were laid off, Warn Act, you know, like I'm going through all this stuff like what? Yes. That is brazen. What a nightmare. When people say like, HR is not your friend, it's not even a friendship mindset. It is this like, in this case, mother hen or like this, this, you know, regardless of

gender, this aspect that so often HR is trying their hardest to protect the people in the organization. So much so that this person is four weeks postpartum and is volunteering, raising their hand, let me come back and at least help you to do this somewhat right or at least more humane. Exactly. And then shot down, shot down and dusted out the door. Wow, God, I had someone tell me earlier this week, well gosh, HR is the one just firing everybody. Why don't you just fire all the bad people? And it's like...

I wish it was that easy. I know. I wish I could, right? I really wish I could, but here's a great example. Look, I mean, when you try to affect a difference and just culturally, you don't have the same values, right? HR, we're just employees too that get fired and we get surprised and all of this like it's wild.

I'm excited because I just thought of my comment for the end of the episode. So, I am I am I'm writing I'll have a little glimpse. But this is like on LinkedIn when people do those posts like I'm leaving. And then they're like, I do those posts like, I'm leaving. And then they're like, I'll tell you soon what I'm doing. And I'm like, come on, I don't have time for this. And now I'm curious. You don't have to wait long, but just listen till the end of the episode. Right.

There you go. A teaser for your comment. Thank you again, Bestie, for sharing that. That is some hot gossip there for the water cooler. My God. You'll flip for $4 pancakes at A&W. Wake up to a stack of three light and fluffy pancakes topped with syrup. Only $4 on now. Dine in only until 11 a.m. at A&W's in Ontario.

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Well, on that point, let's get you closer to those Qs and Cs there. First things first, we'll do our Cringe Corporate Speak and that is going to be brought to us from me. I'd like to thank myself. I know. I would like to thank myself for making that possible for this meeting this week. And then we'll shift into our meeting hot topic, which

is all about pay transparency. So what is it, the importance of, the pros, the cons, you name it, all of the things, pay transparency. And then, of course, we'll do our questions and comments and we'll start with Ashley for those and she already has hers identified and is excited. Pick me, pick me. So the Cringe Corporate Speak for this week is Thought Leader. And I laugh because oh my gosh, this is like a recent cringe.

Do you have this in your LinkedIn profile, Lee? No, I don't. I have to be careful. Those of you that have listened the whole time are going to know what I'm about to say. If you haven't, right at the beginning, yep, we were talking about this. I said servant leader and was making fun of that as a term, not being a servant leader, but saying it. And I didn't

realize that Bestie Lee has that in her LinkedIn headlines. So I'm about to... She's double checking. No, you don't have thought leader. No, no, no, you don't have thought leader. You're good. So what does thought leader mean? Do you have it pulled up? I thought you were going to read it. Like, you know what I mean? I was like, I thought you were... Yeah, you did Google it. I mean... Oh yes, I did. I did Google it.

Okay. What does Google say? I feel like I think I know what it means. Well, Jamie, Jamie is the person in the meeting that sounds real smart because she kind of like the leader says something and you're like just repeated back, but in a question at the end, real like, you know, it is what it is. It is what it is. So what is thought leadership?

Jamie, you're getting a second turn. A person or organization that is recognized as an authority in a specific field and as a source of guidance for others in that industry. So SME. Subject Matter Experts. Yeah, that's right. Yeah, we say SME. We say SME's, subject matter experts. But now, socially,

the last few years, it seems like thought leaders, the hot thing. I don't think that's what I thought. I was thinking more like thought partner. Have you all heard of thought partner? No. Oh, I've heard that partner. I've said that many, many times. Yeah, like I was thinking more on that realm. Yeah, I see a number of people have that in their LinkedIn headline. Yeah. I just know it's a thing.

I feel very similarly about thought leader as I feel about like influencer. Like sometimes it'll be on like a podcast and people will say influence. Oh, please know. Oh yeah. Like, I mean, I, I turn on my camera and record some Tik Toks talking to a fictional ish CEO. And so if that means that other people look to that for guidance, well, that's great. But I would call myself probably a lot more words than thought leader. It just cringes to me.

Yeah. Like I make funny jokes sometimes, do not call me an influencer. Don't call me a thought leader. We used to just say expert. Yes. Yeah. You know what I mean? And now it's thought leader. But you know, if there's a thought leader, that means there's a what? An action leader? Like, are there other like an extra zero at the end of your fee? Exactly. You know what I mean? You get paid more at conferences now because you're a thought leader and something. I can see what my

biopic would look like if I describe myself as a thought leader. And it's it's like the shoulder first. It's like it's like the glamour shots. Zoolander? That's look like blue steel. Like a thought leader to me is the glamour shots of that. Oh, yeah. Power stance.

Experts. Yeah. I mean, it goes to show also, what it really means is that at some point you have something to say you may have for many times muted yourself, not brought up what you had to say. Finally, just get it out there and say it and people will start to listen. You talk enough and everybody has the capacity within themselves to teach other people something. And so what I don't like about this term is that I think it's like this echelon and it makes those that feel like, oh, no one will listen.

I don't have anything to say. It's intimidating. Do not feel intimidated. You have something that other people can learn from and would be interested in, even if you find it to be like easy and boring to you at this point. That's exactly it though, right there. It's like that differentiator of have and have nots like what other people don't have thoughts, you know, but you're saying I'm leading the amount of thoughts on this subject. Yeah, you're saying I'm leading the amount of thoughts on this subject.

Yeah, right. Like I'm a thought trailer. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Oh gosh. Be a thought middle of the pack is just fine. A thought middle manager. A thought individual contributor. Thought middle manager.

Thought I see. Exactly. That's right. Going level and near, not above and beyond, you know? But if you see thought leaders out there, just know that they just call themselves that. Yeah. Like they just made that up for themselves. That's not like a real thing, you know?

Yeah. Right? I mean, you know, that's how they perceive themselves. Good for them. You can perceive yourself that way too. I mean, I've now worked, certainly worked with leaders, meaning people at the top of the org chart, or talked with people that are in this kind of space and that I think, oh, they have it all together. And I talked to them and they're trying to figure shit out just like anybody

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All investing is subject to risk, terms apply. Learn more at meetfabric.com. Oh gosh. Well, my fellow thought leaders, shifting gears now into our hot topic of this meeting. All things pay transparency. So what the hell is pay transparency? I'll kick it off because unfortunately, the laws have at times taken the lead on this because common sense tends to be a thought back of the packer. But the idea of pay transparency is this idea of being vocal and clear about what pay ranges are, what others are paid, and what, especially as an organization, you've budgeted to pay

for a certain role. Why I say the laws is because the laws vary. In the U.S., there's no uniform law saying that you have to show pay transparency. What happens in the U.S. frequently is that different states or cities will have these laws. Like, you have to do this, not that, and they're all a little different. There are now a growing number of states that have laws that will say, in job postings, and it depends.

Sometimes they'll say, you have to put the salary. Sometimes they'll say, you have to put the salary and benefits. Colorado's been pretty progressive. Historically, California, New York, Illinois tend to be really progressive states. Colorado's really been leading the pack in some of these more innovative laws. It talks about providing the growth path for employees. And so what's required of organizations in different states can depend because the legislators write different things.

As a lawyer, and as someone, I don't practice anymore, but as someone that practiced for a long time and knows what legal fees are, generally you're better off paying your employees and paying reasonable wages and having, I would say, have pay transparency in every single job posting rather than paying your employment lawyers just to tell you what you have to do in different locations in that language. So pay transparency is really being clear about what you pay. But from the common sense perspective, either you want to chime in in HR? I'm really glad that some states and even some cities here and there are really taking the forward thinking of it and posting them on job postings.

And a lot of times, you know, since a lot of companies are fully remote, that kind of forces them to just do it on all job postings, right? Which is great. But then you see the exact opposite, right? Which is great, but then you see the exact opposite, right? Instead of putting the band, they're putting 55 to 250,000 on it. And that's a huge pet peeve of mine when I do my red flag job postings, because that's not accurate. You do have a salary band for this position. So put the accurate salary band, because if you call me and the top was 250, I'm going to say what I want. Yeah. And I think that the organizations that do that, right? I mean,

they're in a state, a municipality, whatever that requires them to disclose what they pay, and they're being shits about it. Like they are intentionally doing pay secrecy still, right? I mean, you know, they're doing that on purpose. Like they've checked the box, they've put something down, but really they don't, they don't want to disclose. And that is incredible insight to a job seeker when you see that. That's someone not taking that seriously or perhaps does not have an organization that honors transparency and communication within. To your point, Lee, it's like this pay secrecy.

Often people have this mindset and in HR and legal, people are coming to you saying, what do we have to do? And what I like doing to organizations is flip it, especially in HR and saying, okay, because people will say, okay, saying, okay, because people will say, okay, well, okay, if we can't ask them, paid transparency is part of what has gone along with some of these laws is also laws prohibiting employers from asking past salary data to the candidate. And so, you know, they can't ask for your salary history.

And the reason behind that is the history of discrimination. You don't want that to follow. And if someone's been underpaid, just because one employer underpaid them shouldn't cause this path for the rest of their life. That's in its, and a lot based on discrimination. That's why those laws, which are again, really state by state. And so I say this goes hand in hand. So I say, when you think about a candidate applying for a job, and maybe you haven't

applied in a while, but I say, just think about it. So you go to apply for a job, you look at the description, doesn't have as much information, you don't know about what the reality is like to work there. But you go ahead and apply, and your first call with a recruiter, or you go to the application and it says like desired salary. I can tell you, like if I were to make a video today, I think I've made one on social media about that moment. And that's like from a marketing perspective, people will talk about like cart abandonment, meaning when people are checking out your products and something like there's

friction in the sales process, meaning like something is so painful, like you're having to put too many like shipping, shipping or exactly high shipping or too many details, people walk away, they abandon that cart. Well, I call it like application abandonment, because there are people that may be fantastic to come work at your organization. They'd be great. You are making that harder or just feel like, ugh, because when you put that on the candidate of like, what's your desired salary range? I've so many times, friends, family, like, what do I put in that? And so if you can give those realistic ranges and talk in your job application, a top range

would look like this, the lower range would look like this, we will train you to get you to that, to help to get you to that top range. That's our goal. Then have the legal language that you need in there about not promising, blah, blah, blah. But when you change that and you proactively give that information to Lee's point, that is the type of thing that can make you go viral for the right reasons. People see a job posting that talks about your path, paints the picture,

and just gives those basic levels of respect. People will screenshot that. Jamie will put it on her humorous resources and millions of eyeballs will look at it. And all of a sudden people are like, damn, what is that green flag organization? And that's the benefits. And so in HR, that's why I say it's a privilege and it's a responsibility to try to enlighten leaders about that path. Sometimes you'll be successful, sometimes you will not.

I think what really stuck with me when this conversation was starting, I don't know, a decade ago, I mean, you know, back in the day, right, we've been talking about this for a while in HR, but I think it was the, I should have pulled it up, but the Tel Aviv Uni like 2010 study talking about how employees that do not have access to the pay ranges of their colleagues' jobs are just really pay information, right? To kind of sum it up, they perform worse in an organization, right? I mean, so it definitely, this lack of information, especially on pay, has a huge effect on performance. And it makes sense. And as someone that has, I mean, just logically, it makes sense. And as someone that has worked in a pay transparent

organization, incredibly transparent, like full websites, I mean, you know, just for the employee to just figure everything out and where they want to go and how much what pays and this, that and the other. And to, you know, an organization where you knew nothing. You only know what you got paid. I mean, oh my gosh. And just no access to anything. You know, what is the next job pay?

Or what's the range, anything. You can see just a difference in motivation. When people know what to aspire to or reach for, just have more information or data points to determine whether reaching for that is even worth it or what they even want. I mean, all of that information really helps drive and motivate.

So it just sparks something else. And then in the absence of information, people, they make it up. And in this case, lack of salary information or data or transparency, confidence in numbers, you name it, people don't really have a line of sight. They don't have anything to shoot for. They may just not be as driven or motivated to achieve or perform, right? And that's what the science says here, that there's a lot of goodness to communicating

and being transparent with data. And I think it pay transparency really helps with the gender pay gap, right? For instance, women make 78 cents to a dollar of the men make and African American women make 64 cents compared to a dollar that the men make. And so when you're setting those pay transparencies and you're putting accurate salary bands in your job descriptions and you have a culture where it's discussed, you're supporting that equity piece, right? You're supporting the gender. You're not, well, I guess you're not supporting the gender pay cap. You know what I mean? You're doing what's right by the employees and you're being consistent

across the board. That's where I think I've felt the strongest about it, obviously being a woman. But I've even seen it at a company where they had to, actually it was Colorado. It was when they newly announced that they had to put in the salary bands and the job description. And people that were current employees within that market rose up and said, hey, I'm not making that. And the fact that no one talked about that prior to that,

that blows my mind. That no one thought, hey, when we put out these bans, let's make sure everyone else in this role is aligned. And so then having to go back and do quote unquote market adjustments for those people, because a law passed when really you should have been paying them this the whole time. So it's super frustrating. That's why I love pay transparency because it's just, it's, we need it. And especially women, because we don't make as much as men. And not just markets, but the equity adjustments internally.

So many organizations, they don't do that type of adjustment. But I believe like what pay transparency, who it really benefits and who can take most advantage of it really is the leader, is the manager. Because the managers are determining merits and bonuses and all of this. And gosh, time after time, I've had leaders turn to me and be like, I don't, we don't share anything with the, I don't know what the rate or range or is this person paid well or not. Then as the HR person, since your organization doesn't provide it or have it or whatever,

you're turning around trying to figure it out. But there are a lot of managers out there that want to close those gaps. They just have no information. The organization doesn't even share with the managers. I mean, it's wild, you know, that might be an extreme case, I hope. But I've had that time and time again where the managers are lost. HR is lost. Like, what? Like a lot of things people will say, well, yeah, well, what could we do if,

you know, if we had to do this? Like, how would we do this? Well, a lot of times in employment laws, often legally, but you can look at other organizations that are already doing things and they can give you that example. So like we've talked about for non-competes. California. California is one of the states that has not had non-competes and the companies there have had to figure that out. Well, the government has salary transparency with the federal and state and I'm sure local governments. You can generally look and see what people make. So colleagues can look across the organization and see what people make. And in governments, people generally aren't going into government to make, that's not

where you're going to get the highest salary. You're just not. And so I say, and sometimes I'll work with nonprofits or organizations that have really low margins, meaning they're not making much profit. It's not like your tech companies or whatever. And I say, then be candid about that and say the salary isn't, but these are the benefits. And people will make that choice because if you can provide like a true 40 or 35 hour work week, have that flexibility, have a pension, like one of the few employers that tends to

have pension, like that's what you do with pay transparency. You think about how do we actually attract and retain people. And you should always assume people are going to find out what other people make. People can talk about it. People now more and more are talking about it. But someone's going to leave it out on the printer. Someone's going to file a lawsuit. It's going to get published in federal court. So there's a lot of ways. And so I agree with so much with what both Janey and Lee have said of really thinking proactively about, okay, and I say that, assume your whole organization's, you know, pays were on the printer, who would point to things and say

that's such bullshit? And people sometimes are going to be like, I should make more. In the answer to that is is this is actually the accurate place. So like how then how do you think about and have those conversations? But doing that proactively, I do, I think you are going to be a much better organization for it rather than trying to have the secrets seen constantly. What do we have to do? Like begrudgingly giving out these, you know, big ass ranges. If you are in a place of authority at all, I mean, definitely invest in comp studies, invest in systems here, because that's what it takes. Invest in a vendor that can do that for you. I mean, something. Support those HR teams and those managers that

are doing all they can, but definitely get your arms around this space because it's, I mean, it's already a hot topic. It's going to continue to be, right? Got some thought leadership, Lee. Oh, there you go. So what's it like to buy your first cryptocurrency on Kraken? Well, let's say I'm at a food truck I've never tried before. Am I gonna go all in on the loaded taco? No, sir. I'm keeping it simple.

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for info on Kraken's undertaking to register in Canada. I'm not going back to university to be your friend. I'm going so I can get Uber One for students. It saves you on Uber and Uber Eats. I'm there for zero dollar delivery fee on cheeseburgers, up to five percent off smoothies, and five percent Uber cash back on rides. Just to be clear, I'm

there for savings, not whatever you think university is for. Get Uber One for Students, a membership to save on Uber and Uber Eats. With deals this good, everyone wants to be a student. Join for just $4.99 a month. Savings may vary. Eligibility and member terms apply. I've been in HR Department One before, many times, and one of them being in a nonprofit. And so we did not have access to a third party to help us with comp. So one thing that I did on a pretty regular basis, dare I say quarterly, when I had the time, is I would go out and search for comp information.

And I wouldn't just look at one place. I would go to several places and I would participate in a lot of nonprofits, sometimes within the state or even within nationally, will complete comp surveys that you are able to get for free. Are you urban? Are you country or what have you? But they're really helpful and they're really powerful because, especially in healthcare, it changes so quickly with the pandemic. They were paying nurses so much because of what they were having to go through, nurses and doctors.

So yeah, just use that thought leader. That thought leadership-ness. Do your research. There is things available out there. There is. There is. But yeah, carving out the time to do it. That's a big one. But as an organization, definitely commit to that. Because the advantages are, I mean, there's so many.

You can chat GPT that. Morale, collaboration, you name it. Pay chat, GPT. What are the benefits of pay transfer? How do I describe that to a leaner that wants pay opacity? Right? That wants all that extreme pay secrecy. Oh my gosh. Leaders, damn, gotta love them. Are we chat GPT in that? Are we answering that? What are the advantages? No, I'll let people do that. I'll let people do that. That'll be my next LinkedIn learning course on how to look up that question.

Oh, there you go. There you go. I love it. All right, people. Questions and comments. Do we have any questions and comments? Ashley? Yep. Yep. Okay. I know. I know you're... Yeah. Hand up. I know you're chomping at the bit. Well, I bet this is so many people think that HR is the ultimate enemy in the organization. But if HR could have a yes day, where they could have

for one day actually make the decisions that so many people think they have, all the assholes would be gone. People would make more money, the benefits would be better. So many things would truly be improved in an organization if we just got our yes day. Totally agree. Yeah, I would like a yes day. Because we can see the ROI. Yeah. That's why I feel like we get the no's a lot.

Some of the things are hard to measure, like the cost of attrition and things like this, you know, so. You can just bibbity-bobbity-boo, guy, this person, this person, like, no, no more, no more. He, she, no, no, no, we'll move them on. Yes, day. Just transform the organization like Cinderella. Just don't make it go back at midnight.

I know in my previous orgs, about 30% of the leadership team would be gone at least. Yeah. I was going to say it would be like. Babbity, babbity, bye, bitch. You are gone. HR, yes, day, bye. Me over here daydreaming like, oh. Totally.

I started to daydream during our initial thing and just wrote, yes, day. All raggedy. So beautiful. Jamie, any questions or comments? Yeah, well, while we were talking, I started to think, oh my God, are we thought leaders? Because we have this podcast, we talk a lot about HR, people might call us experts in

our field. I see. I'm looking up to see if anyone calls us thought leaders. No one calls you a thought leader. You call yourself a thought leader and then you are a thought leader. So Jamie, yes, you are a thought leader. No, I don't want to be a thought leader. You call yourself a thought leader and then you are a thought leader. So Jamie, yes, you are a thought leader. No, I don't want to be a thought leader. That's true.

Oh, gosh. It's cringy. Ain't that the truth though? Ashley's doing a Google search here. I know. I was looking at, no, I didn't see. I don't see anybody. All you have to do, here's the secret, is just put it in your LinkedIn profile headline, whatever.

And then there you go, you're a thought leader. Going to change my LinkedIn now. Bye. I know, HR thought leaders. With a little rocket ship. Right. Y'all know I hate that damn rocket ship. That's the telltale.

That's the chat GBT telltale. You got it. I see that now. I'm like, mm-hmm. Exactly. Exactly. Exactly. They did the old copy paste. Oh gosh.

Well, let's see. Not a question, but a quick comment from me. In this discussion, we're talking about, of course, pay and adjustments and whatnot. I said equity adjustment. It reminded me about a time I was working for an organization and they actually did equity adjustments and they would routinely do them like every other year, which wow, you really have your shit together if you can actually do those, right? You're already doing markets and you do, of course, merits and now you're doing equity? Wow. Well, I sat down for my performance

review with my boss at the time. It was a new job and I was middle, whatever the middle one is on the Likert, right? A successful contributor, whatever it was there, I can't remember. I was disappointed because, of course, I worked my ass off cleaning up the mess from the previous person, but that's okay. Then she says, okay, so your merits, I don't know, it was 3%, let's say, I can't remember. But then she's like, but then we're doing equity adjustments this year and yours is

20%. Hello. But when she delivered that news, she was like, pissed off to deliver it because I, you know, so that to me, you know, like she was like, she didn't want to give me this money. And she too, she telling. And she was, she had that, that was was like, she didn't want to give me this money. And she too, she telling. And she was, she had that, that was the vibe, right? You can read people, but, and then this, you know, like, okay, I'd be like, yay,

this, right? I mean, come on, deliberate. And so I was excited about that. But then of course you reflect to be like, shit, from an equity perspective, look how far off I was from everybody else. And I think that's why organizations prep. They don't want to have these hard conversations. They know their leaders can't handle it. They're not equipped, whatever. Everyone's going to be pissed off.

For a second, I was like, damn, I was really not being paid equitably. But for the rest of time, I'm like, wow, I really trust my organization to make that right. And wow, look at how they respected me to treat me with equity. And wow, that makes a huge difference and this is a place I want to continue to work. So it has the exact opposite effect. It's a hard conversation in the moment. And when someone reflects, it hurts for a second, but then it's like, no, look, I'm

worth a damn. And thanks for recognizing that. So there's a lot to be said about equity in the workplace there and some pay transparency. Oh gosh. Shall we close it ladies? Y'all have a hard stop? I mean, Lee, we could be here all day, but Jamie's running. There she is. She's scooting out the door.

Bye, Jamie. Bye. Jamie's got places to go. Bye, Jamie. Bye. Jamie's got places to go. Bye, Jamie. Bye. Bye, besties.