(Part 2) Compensation technology isn't always the first consideration for employers seeking to improve their employee attraction, acquisition, and retention -- but they definitely should be.
Modernizing these systems can empower employers to provide clarity to their organizations, ensure equity, and save money while attracting and retaining top talent.
Join us as we invite Dan Kopp (co-founder of Dinamico Systems) to discuss.
Questions? Comments? Continue the discussion by requesting access to our exclusive WVF Facebook Group.
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Wisconsin Veterans Forward is brought to you by the Wisconsin Veterans Chamber of Commerce, a nonprofit organization that serves veterans and military families by supporting veteran owned and veteran-friendly businesses throughout the state.
On behalf of our members, we serve as an advocate for Wisconsin’s veteran business community and promote economic opportunity for military veterans, military families, and veteran-friendly businesses.
Follow us on all platforms: https://linktr.ee/Wivetschamber
Intro & Outro Themes:
Barry Dallas - I’m Gone (https://uppbeat.io/t/barry-dallas/im-gone)
Noise Cake - Light It Up (https://uppbeat.io/t/noise-cake/light-it-up)
(Part 2) Compensation technology isn't always the first consideration for employers seeking to improve their employee attraction, acquisition, and retention -- but they definitely should be.
Modernizing these systems can empower employers to provide clarity to their organizations, ensure equity, and save money while attracting and retaining top talent.
Join us as we invite Dan Kopp (co-founder of Dinamico Systems) to discuss.
Questions? Comments? Continue the discussion by requesting access to our exclusive WVF Facebook Group.
⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐
Wisconsin Veterans Forward is brought to you by the Wisconsin Veterans Chamber of Commerce, a nonprofit organization that serves veterans and military families by supporting veteran owned and veteran-friendly businesses throughout the state.
On behalf of our members, we serve as an advocate for Wisconsin’s veteran business community and promote economic opportunity for military veterans, military families, and veteran-friendly businesses.
Follow us on all platforms: https://linktr.ee/Wivetschamber
Intro & Outro Themes:
Barry Dallas - I’m Gone (https://uppbeat.io/t/barry-dallas/im-gone)
Noise Cake - Light It Up (https://uppbeat.io/t/noise-cake/light-it-up)
Today on Wisconsin veterans forward. We continue our dialogue with Dan cop of Dynamico systems. We are talking about leveraging tech to revolutionize employee compensation systems. We are long overdue for an overhaul of how we are taking care of people, the extent to which we're taking care of employees and how we are rewarding, the value that they bring and how we're rewarding when they go above and beyond or how we are compensating them. If they choose not to do that, this is really interesting conversation. I hope you listen to part one and if you did well, okay, here we go. You are listening to Wisconsin veterans forward. Wisconsin's premier audio resource for veterans, military families, veteran owned and veteran friendly businesses. Wisconsin veterans forward is brought to you by the Wisconsin veterans chamber of commerce@iveteranschamber.org .
Speaker 2:I was actually talking to a client a couple weeks ago, and they've got 400, 400 different employee groups within one organization. And exactly now to manage each one individually, probably pretty easy if they're doing spreadsheets or in our system. But when you collectively think about 400 , like, alright , oh my that's a lot of moving parts. So our system could, can accommodate that. And what we've found is , uh , let's assume you've got line workers. You've got administrative assistants and you've got custodians. Those are general categories. I play in a lot of people resonate with a lot of people. So you're going to probably have what some of our clients have called the skeleton of a model that says we're gonna reward every three years of local experience. Great. So three years, six years, nine years, et cetera . And we want these types of stances on our evaluation. So evaluation component, number one, satisfactory, number one, exemplary, et cetera . So then if you do that through 30 years and for, and you've got three or four different components that might be 15 different variables, you've just introduced that every single employee or any employee and every employee group's going to have. And then you look at all right outside of the general stuff for custodians, what else do they do for us that we think makes an ideal custodian? What does the custodian thinks makes ideal? What do the people in the building think, whatever the case may be, you look at those things and then say, all right , let's add to our skeleton for custodians. You might add another 10 or so now let's talk about administrative assistant . Now let's talk about a business official. Let's talk about , um, your COO let's talk about your director or your president and develop assistant for him or her. We've got the skeleton. Everybody's gonna get it rewarded every three years. We've got the evaluation components and how we're gonna do that. And then what what's specific to them now, conceptually, that sounds pretty easy. But when you part start doing that and trying to manage that on a spreadsheet, we've all used spreadsheets enough and I'm, I'm terrible at it because, oh , I broke these , that cell again, the , the algorithm no longer works, right ? Oops . Who created this one that can fix this for me? Or where's the original, we've got eight people working on it. So our system takes that all away. Going back to your stance, that it saves time and money. There's the time factor right there, right? The money factor is because our employers are making connections with their employees. Their retention rates are going back up pre COVID rates. So they're saving money and time because they're not constantly going to market trying to find people who fit them .
Speaker 1:So if we , I think we all understand that traditional methods of compensation are antiquated and haven't cut the mustard for a long time. Uh , but just now I think we're starting to see people reject the , uh, you know, hourly compensation model that, you know, non-performance based or the, the salary model non-performance based , you know, base pay, which in many cases is just an opportunity , uh , for an employer to take advantage of and overwork a labor wage employee. Um, and there's no incentive for, you know, for real growth there for the employee or the employer. Everybody just kind of spins their wheels. Uh, that said, I , I think we are seeing this change, this shift in a mindset, and it'll be very important for processes and tech to support people's transition from old to new, but people hate change. They're resistant to change. So, so my question is, is when you are pitching this to , uh, business owners who may be stuck in these antiquated processes and you see opportunities for them to improve or reimagine or rethink how they do this in ways that could help them and their employees, what resistance do you typically face ? Do you typically hear from those people?
Speaker 2:Everybody wants process improvement, right? Mm-hmm <affirmative> provided they don't have to change anything.
Speaker 1:<laugh>
Speaker 2:I mean, that's exactly what we run into all the time is mm-hmm , <affirmative> , it's the para the paradigm shift that is required to get off of what we all know, and we've all grown up with and we've all used or been in the system of a longevity based system. It's a comfort level. And the comfort level outweighs the need to change is what we're encountering. I literally filled out a , uh , something for a different thing. Like who are your competitors? My competitors is , is the fear of change. The that's one of my competitors right now, because we're in like PE people understand, but then it's like, oh yeah, but I just don't think, oh, that just makes 'em uncomfortable. So it's ,
Speaker 1:But they understand it. And they also understand that their potential future employees are craving modernized compensation systems that reward their efforts.
Speaker 2:Absolutely. I just read this the other day about , um , again, the under 40 crowded generalization of the, of the , uh, generations, but they don't wanna trade their time for money. They want to trade their value. They need to be paid based on their value.
Speaker 1:Absolutely.
Speaker 2:And , and that's exactly what we bring to the table. I was actually work . I also am a leadership coach and I was working with a client the other day. And the person had an opportunity to sort of quasi interview with an , uh , an employer. And I said, you can lead this discussion, focus on the things that you are going to accomplish. And you know, whether it's monthly, weekly, fiscal year wise , whatever, focus on the tasks that you said , I will accomplish these when you need them. And they will be done correctly , et cetera. Versus how many days do you want me in the office during the week ? And how many days can I work at home? And how many days, you know , how many hours per week get here's the tasks I need done. If you can accomplish them in 10 hours and it takes the other person 27, great get 'em done. I just want them done and done well, mm-hmm <affirmative> . So it is about the value that employees bring to the table. And that's exactly what we help employers recognize
Speaker 1:That helps everybody avoid wasting time. I mean, if, if , if you own a business and you wanna launch a weekly podcast slash live stream , and it's worth $50,000 a year for you to have that done, and you acquire me and it takes me 10 hours a week to do that, the , for me, I don't wanna have to work in extra 30 hours during that same period of time, just to make it worth their while to on , on my end, you want a podcast it's worth $50,000 to you to have a weekly high quality thing put together. Okay. I can do that for $50,000, if you want more that's and if it's worth more to you, you can pay me more . On the flip side, if down the road, a podcast doesn't have the same ROI for the business owner. They can say like, it's no longer worth that to me. Now it's worth X. So there's, there's a little more onus that is on the employee, but I think our generation and younger we're, we're up to the tent . That's what we're looking for. We wanna provide value, trade value for compensation and take all the other extra extraneous BS that wastes everybody else's time and money and throw it out.
Speaker 2:Absolutely. You , yes. Again, you sound like the expert on this call. Yeah, you're exactly right. I had a prospective client talk to me a couple years ago and , uh , he happened to own 20 convenience stores and, you know, like what could you do for me? I said, do you ha is there more value when an employee , a prospective , uh , employee says to you, yes, I will work second shift, third shift or weekends versus most people just want day shift Monday through Friday. Well, yeah, there's an example of what you could drop in there. So maybe you've got people who are on call , put that in the system. Maybe you've got people say , yes, I'm receptive to second, third shift or weekend shift. Now a lot of employers do that, but they still struggle with the management of that because the , the more parameters you add, especially on the spreadsheet, it , it just gets confusing. So yes, we have 40 hour work , uh , 40 hour work weeks for a lot of people. And you can't get around a convenience store where somebody's working the tail . It's not about the value they bring conceptually it's about the 40 hours. It is the , they have to be there for 40 hours . There
Speaker 1:Is, there are just some right positions that fit that. Yeah.
Speaker 2:Right . But at the end of the day, you, we start talking about the, the evaluation component as well. On top of the differential, I just said for different shifts or weekends, we all know that we've gone to convenience stores or a restaurant or any other place of business where we've had great experience where like, Hey , some , somebody get the manager down here. This young lady needs a raise . She should be run . You know, we've all had that where you just run into superstars. So if you start in incorporating comp or your evaluation components on top of those other things, you're already doing to acknowledge their willingness to work second and third shift, et cetera . And all of a sudden you've got that exemplary play. This is gonna sound stupid. My favorite place to shop for years has been the dunking donuts on highway 50 in the interstate in con in pleasant Prairie. Because the people in there are just absolutely wonderful. It is just a good work environment. And yeah, I, I go in there to get ice coffee, even when I don't need it, because I like interacting with them . So if they've, they I'm sure not everybody there is that great, but by golly , that's the aura they put off. And if they're that great, their evaluation tools should recognize how great they are at compensation. And they shouldn't be there. Oh, you've been here a year. You're at this much . You've been here two years . No, they should reward that greatness because it's just phenomenal.
Speaker 1:It brings that value. Yeah. You don't have to wait for a year. Right. You know, you , you get to a point where you are providing X value. You get compensated appropriately.
Speaker 2:Exactly.
Speaker 1:You know, who the system doesn't work for is the loafers who just coast. And don't really like to do anything and get paid for doing the absolute less than the bare minimum. They can't stand it. So what happens to them?
Speaker 2:That's a great question. I get that all the time. It's sort of coupled with, how do I roll this out to my employees? You know, because it's change what you already hit on, but also because we've got some hangers on and they're not gonna like it because they're gonna have to actually start working. So here's what it looks like. I encourage all employers to say all , get them in your meeting area. If you've got an school district, you've got an auditorium, you've got a large meeting area. Everybody fits have a company meeting an organizational meeting, say, all right , we, as the leaders of this organization, we want to start doing what's right. For all of you, we want to create compensation systems that reward you for the great things you're doing for us. You've got a three year veteran, who's killing it and do like leading this, leading that the best customer service, whatever that person's gonna say. Great. Finally, I'm bringing value and they want to recognize that and reward that great other people who are on some continuing of goodness to greatness, they're gonna welcome that. But you know, darn well , there's gonna be some hangers on, in the back row, the good old boys sitting back there thinking, wow , uhoh yeah . You know , they're not gonna say this, but this is what they're thinking. Hey, boss, Laney , like what , what happens to those of us who don't deliver greatness, what's gonna happen to us? I mean, all right . So employers, do you want to continue to have systems that allow loafers at the top of your salary schedule? And we all have had 'em I've had 'em too. Mm-hmm <affirmative> or do you want to create systems that recognize the greatness that a first year employee or a 35 year veteran could bring to the table and say, yes, that is what we expect and want. So when we get to that point, when, when , when they're not gonna blatantly ask the question that I just sort of sarcastically said, but when you start explaining to 'em , Hey, there's this tool in there called the hold harmless. And even if you don't deliver on the things that we want, you're still gonna get a three, 4% raise or whatever the decision is made at the leadership level to , to implement. And that calms people down. Right. But you also , but in subsequent years, there's no guarantee that whole harmless is gonna keep you whole, we may be having people get, who are delivering, they're getting seven , 8% raise. And those of you who aren't delivering are maybe getting a one or 2% raise. So if you're okay with that,
Speaker 1:Right . Compared to inflation of one , a 1% raise, if, if inflation is normal or crazy, like it is right now, you know, a 1% raise is, is a decrease in salary.
Speaker 2:Yeah. So exactly. But if somebody's okay with that. Okay. But eventually they're not gonna be okay with that. And then it's going to be time for them. You work them out of the system or they work themselves out because they're gonna find an employer who hasn't embraced the inva , embrace the innovation. And I'm gonna go over to the employer down the road where I can coast as a 20 year veteran.
Speaker 1:Yeah . <laugh> yeah. So my, my last question for you here is how does your system take into account non-tangible non numeral subjective things that, that a boss normally used to say, you know, like that outside of KPIs, you treat people with kindness. That's not measurable unless they have a, you know, everybody submit a survey afterwards and based on the number of surveys that are positive versus negative, blah, blah, blah. But there are just some decisions when it comes to rewarding and compensating employees that are not measurable, they are subjective. So are you, is your system cutting those things out? So it is a no joke, yes or no, black or white on or off numbered one through 10, or does it, does it give room for, for a , a leader to, to put in those subjective thoughts?
Speaker 2:Two ways to answer that? Yes , yes and no is basically the answer. So what we've found is when people start talking about those slightly in subjective things, usually we can point right back to an evaluation tool that says, let's assume, you know, we're talking about a customer service person working the counter at a convenient store, somewhere in that compensa, or excuse me, in that evaluation tool probably talks about professionalism, interaction with others , whatever that's where the exemplary piece would come in, this person's above and beyond what we expect that takes care of it. So 99% of the time we've, we've encountered ideas. What you just suggested. That's how it's usually handled. Because if you think about what the evaluation tool is, and it's comprehensive, oh, it's right there in component two, subparagraph three. That's where that comes out. If outside of that, to, in addition to other extraneous weird hiring decisions, people may make, maybe you, your system doesn't acknowledge, you know, maybe you are an engineering firm, or we actually, we've got a new client as a law firm and they've got , um, veteran lawyers coming to them, theoretically. They say, you know, our system's silent on what you've done elsewhere, but you're bringing 10 years of experience that we wanna do. So we've got some non , um, variable paid differential variables, oddly stated, but we call 'em pay differential variables. There's some non-variable ones they're , they're static. You could drop that in there. The only person that has that experience coming from that firm over there for 10 years is going to get that box checked and he, or she's gonna get that nobody else is. Right. So what we've found is in this rang through with a school district leadership team I met with about a month ago, it's very defensible because for equity purposes, with act 10, back in 2011 and like many employers do there, aren't a lot of once systems are gone or they're ambiguous. There's not a lot of justification at times for hiring decisions and where someone starts. So districts who threw their compensation systems away, companies who sort of have an ambiguous, like, all right , where are we gonna part put this person to start five years down the road, HR people, leadership, team members, people who made those decisions, maybe aren't going to be there and have to justify. And this has happened with, with some employers in the state, why is this male here and this female here? And they were hired at the same time. Uh , the people who did that aren't here anymore. We , uh , our system is so objective. You check the box, you pull it out five years later, say it doesn't matter who was in the HR at that time, because the system's gonna reflect when they were hired. We checked these boxes. That's why he or she was here. And he or she was here. That's where the differential comes in and provided people here to our system with fidelity. It is defendable. And not only is treating people in an equitable manner, the right thing to do outside of that system. This ensures equity based approach, moving forward, not only at the point of higher , but in perpetuity.
Speaker 1:I love it. I feel like this is , uh , I feel like this is a groundbreaking moment and I , and I really hope that these, these ideas through your tech and, and similar ones throughout the country, just proliferate and are able to able to change how we, how we operate and how we compensate people. I just think it's the coolest thing, man. Uh , Dan, I appreciate your time and everything that you do. I think Dynamico sounds pretty wicked
Speaker 2:Right on. I appreciate the feedback. This is , is been a good experience. And if we can help any of your audience members, chamber members feel free to reach out.
Speaker 1:You bet. So if somebody wants to get in touch Dynamico systems.com is scrolling across the bottom. D I N a M ICO systems.com . Otherwise they can reach out to you on LinkedIn,
Speaker 2:LinkedIn, add Dan cop Dynamico . I didn't set it up that way, but I think once I did enough content on LinkedIn, all of a sudden the Dynamico was thrown into my handle. I don't know. Um , also email addresses, Dan Dynamico systems.com . And again, dynamical systems is along the bottom of the screen. So simple as Dan dynamical systems.com . Um, if you mentioned this, so I , I offhand mention, I do leadership coaching as well. If you , um, if you contact me after watching or viewing this , um, this broadcast, I've got a , an offer for those of you who do that, I I'm offering up five free 30 minute , um , coaching calls to see if it's a good fit moving forward for coaching purposes. Nice , nice . And we've got a licensing fee for dynamic comp, which is our , uh , trademarked compensation system will take a percent off of the licensing fee as well. If you mention the vets chamber, when you , um , contact me
Speaker 1:Outstanding, good stuff. And I'll be sure to put that , uh, uh , in the information when, when this episode is released , uh , as a podcast, I'll put it in the show notes for sure. Uh , Dan, appreciate your time, sir. Uh , I'll ask you to hang on the line for just a minute so I can chat with you afterwards, if that works for you.
Speaker 2:Absolutely.
Speaker 1:Excellent, cool, good stuff. You know what just popped into my head at the end there while Dan was talking about equity is I'm a big fan of pay transparency. And I know a lot of people are and becoming increasingly fan of , uh , uh , increasingly bigger fans. It's becoming more widespread pay transparency. I think this system is great and , and this school of thought is great because from the front end, you can say, here's what I want. And here's what I value it at. We're do like gone should be the days where we are interviewing people who don't know what the salary range for a position is . It is a waste of time. And a lot of times it's an insult when somebody's going in expecting they're guessing 80 to a hundred, and then they get offered 60, gimme a break. It's it's just a waste of everybody's time. It's disrespectful for everybody's time. And also I think everybody should know what everybody gets paid in the workplace. Couldn't have said it better, myself, other Adam, good stuff, friends. Appreciate you joining us. We'll see you. Same time, same place next week on Wisconsin. Veterans forward. Thank you for listening to Wisconsin veterans forward brought to you by the Wisconsin veterans chamber of commerce. Please visit us@wwiveteranschamber.org . Don't forget to subscribe to this podcast, leave a rating and review in whatever platform you're listening through.