The State of Pay Equity with Salary.com’s DEIB Director, Lenna Turner

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Lenna Turner:

The candidate has to understand, now because there's so much information at their fingertips, the internet, they've got to understand a little bit about the market for their job. You can go on many different sites and understand, have a point of view, or just a little information. You can't just ask for $200 for a job that pays $95. You got to be a little aware of that as a candidate, but you also now can ask the question, "What's the range?"

Then based on what you posted, the job description and my qualifications, "Why am I not here?" You're in a better place as a candidate. As an employee, you're going to have to have those ducks in a row to have those conversations. Like we say at Salary.com, this pay transparency, pay equity train has left the station. If you're not on it, it's coming to a town near you soon.

Doug Foresta:

The Will to Change is hosted by Jennifer Brown. Jennifer is an award-winning entrepreneur, dynamic speaker, best-selling author and leadership expert on how organizations must evolve their cultures towards a new, more inclusive workplace reality. She's a passionate inclusion and equity advocate, committed to helping leaders foster healthier and therefore, more productive workplaces, ultimately driving innovation and business results.

Informed by nearly two decades of consulting to Fortune 500 companies, she and her team advise top companies on building cultures of belonging in times of great upheaval and uncertainty. Now, on to the episode. Hello and welcome back to the Will to Change. This is Doug Foresta. Today's episode features a conversation with Lenna Turner, director of Diversity, Equity, Inclusion and Belonging at Salary.com.

Before we go into what you can expect in the episode, I want to mention that you can schedule a free compensation consultation at Salary.com/business/services/consulting. From that page, you can schedule a free consult to talk to one of Salary.com's experts, and learn how they can help you transform compensation at your organization and get pay right.

Again, that is Salary.com/business/services/consulting, and that link is also in the show notes. In today's episode, Lenna talks about compensation and equity, and how it impacted her personally and professionally. She also reveals the impact of salary ban laws and how the war for talent is connected to transparency, pay equity, and creating an inclusive culture.

You'll also hear about the mindset and mental game needed to prepare for a job interview, and the issues that need to be addressed in order to have a healthy conversation about pay equity. All this and more. Now, onto the conversation.

Jennifer Brown:

I'm excited to welcome Lenna from Salary.com today. Welcome, Lenna. We typically start the Will to Change, as my listeners know, with your diversity story and the reason that you feel so awakened to this work of DEIB.

Where that originated, why it really resonates with you, and just a little bit about your career journey. I'll just give you the floor and let you tell us what you'd like to tell us.

Lenna Turner:

I think for me, I am like first-generation college graduate in my family.

Jennifer Brown:

Wow.

Lenna Turner:

I don't know where I got this from, but I always knew the kind of life I wanted. Even from 12th grade on, I always knew that I would be in New York having drinks in a really nice bar with my friends after seeing a Broadway play, because I love music.

Jennifer Brown:

Right. You and your sister.

Lenna Turner:

I absolutely love music. My sister always says, "How do you know that?" I'm like, "That's the life I knew I wanted to live."

Jennifer Brown:

I love that.

Lenna Turner:

I went to school and majored in music my first year of college, and I wanted a really, really diverse college. I went to a predominantly African American high school and I just wanted so much difference in my life, meaning I wanted to know different things, different people, different foods. I went to California and I went to Los Angeles City College as a music major. I don't think you can get more diverse than that.

It was everybody, everything and all music. Then from there, I just started to chart my path in music. But then I figured out, "How am I going to make a living?" I decided to change my major to business. When I got into business, my first foray, my first job, I was one of the few. Once I moved out of an entry-level role, at entry level, I noticed there were just lots of people who looked like me, but out of that there were not.

I started asking, "How do I get that job?" I got some, not so much encouragement. Then I figured that I'd tell my story. Then I just started to get jobs, get promoted. But I looked around and there was not a lot of people like me, as I moved around and I just noticed it. Then I got into compensation and I noticed that there were even fewer people who looked like me, but it was a great feel and I just wanted to navigate.

But it was tough having to be the only one, sometimes a one of two, sometimes the only woman. Things like that just always sparked my interest. When I got in compensation, it's a way to impact people's lives or salaries by doing some good work for this division or this level of operational kinds of jobs, where people are traditionally paid lower. Looking at things like that just always piqued my interest.

Even though I wasn't in diversity, I was just in compensation and observing how people get paid, the jobs they have and understanding job worth. But also looking at where people get concentrated and how that impacts their trajectory of the career ladder. It's just been interesting to observe from that perspective. Then when the opportunity came up and diversity became so prevalent in terms of a lot of companies, it just became interesting to me, and then I got an opportunity.

Jennifer Brown:

Wow, that's so amazing. That's amazing. Can I ask, had compensation inequity impacted you personally also during that time when you reflected on your own trajectory?

Lenna Turner:

Yeah.

Jennifer Brown:

Yeah.

Lenna Turner:

How do you make that? Basically, I knew early on, you had to figure out how to talk about pay. I didn't know early on, I knew I wasn't making a lot. I have a really good friend who always tells me, he's one of my personal board of director people. He always, "If they gave you what you want, you didn't ask for enough." I was like, "I thought I did really good." But sometimes just understanding, I don't know why.

I've always just been keyed into that maybe because my first job was in banking, and so it was around money and understanding, but I just knew that. Then I started to ask about the jobs associated with different pay, and what do you have to do to do that work? Because that's what it ultimately is about. If you get the opportunity to do the job that's worth more, then you get paid more.

But if you stay in a certain type of job that's not valued much and you're already not getting paid much, then that double stacks against you.

Jennifer Brown:

That's right.

Lenna Turner:

Yes, I've been impacted personally.

Jennifer Brown:

Yeah. Yeah. I think I knew the answer to that because otherwise you would be an anomaly, but it certainly probably fuels you personally. Then I'm assuming you're also a numbers' person. Is that fair to say that you've always been analytical?

Lenna Turner:

Well, I didn't always think I was and maybe I fought it. Most people who love music are a little bit [inaudible 00:07:29].

Jennifer Brown:

Yeah, actually that's true. That's true.

Lenna Turner:

... Analytical and numerical in some ways. My life has been all about numbers for 20 years since I became a part of compensation because that's what it is. People think you throw darts around comp. It really is very analytical and scientific.

There is a lot of art to it, of course, but yes, it's about numbers. Every time you see a job that says must be comfortable with large data sets, that's the compensation job. Yeah.

Jennifer Brown:

Cool. I don't know if it gets a great rap, in terms of something to go into as a field, but you're making me very intrigued about it. I wish there were probably more people who thought of it as an arena to specialize in, because it really is so important, so dynamic, so ground zero for so many DEI conversations. One that I'll highlight that I would love you to give us an overview on is when we think about the pay gap amongst identities, where are we on understanding that and also tracking, making progress or not?

What's so important is to look at the pay gap through the intersectional lens, of course, which people on the Will to Change hear me talk about all the time, which is white women pay gap, Black women pay gap, Hispanic women, Indigenous women, et cetera, et cetera. So important to delineate those things and those dates actually equal pay days happen at certain intervals during the year, which really brings it to life in this extremely disturbing way of, "Wait, which women are we talking about?"

It's just such an illustration of I think everything. It encapsulates the problem and the starkness of the problem, but also the need to always look at things in as most specific a way as possible, because solving an issue for gender overall is not really solving the problem.

Lenna Turner:

Because you have, like you say, delineate that you have white women who make a certain amount compared to white non-Hispanic males. Then you have Black women in general, are about 83 cents to the dollar of the white male. Then you have African American or Black women, that are 63 sometimes you might see 67 cents to the dollar, so that gets a little further away. Then you have Hispanic women who are even further away, but Asian women tend to do much better against the dollar.

There's probably some studies out there, I don't know all of the why's and how's behind that, but they tend to do a lot better to the dollar for white men. I've even seen something recently like 90 plus cents to the dollar for Asian women. You have to be very careful to not just say, "Oh, 83 cents for every woman to the male." We're making progress from 78 or whatever, but that's just one sector to look at.

You have to be very careful because those women in those different pockets, are impacted so differently from historical perspectives. Been impacted by systemic systems that have caused their salary to be much lower. If you're not addressing those, then they're never even going to catch up with the white women to that. You have to be very careful to look at all the things that impact those different groups and identities.

Then when you talk about being female and Black, you're double stacked against you. All the bias that now Black women are saying... I was reading some survey where 80% of the women in that survey, African American women, say they experience discrimination or harassment or bias in forms of promotional opportunities, and professional development, and things like that. You have to be holistic when you look at those numbers, for sure.

Jennifer Brown:

That's right. Even breaking down Asian, what did that ever mean anyway? It's one of the, I think, problematic things about the way even we handle affinity groups. There are huge differences in different nationalities, I would say, amongst that group too. Anyway, so we don't need to necessarily go into that, but I just want our listeners to make sure we're aware of when equal pay days are.

We should know the gaps, we should know the numbers. We should also divide as deeply as we can, and be as specific as we can about which we mean. Also, to me, this is a call to action to really get much more specific about our strategies, and I'll reflect on we're just almost at Pride Month here. We're recording late May.

Within LGBTQ+ community, there are the intersectionalities within that community are so important to look at. You just take pay gap for one thing.

Lenna Turner:

Just imagine if you're a Latino woman, Hispanic woman, LGBTQ, that's three things stacked against you right there.

Jennifer Brown:

There you go, there you go. Then one thing within LGBTQ, each one of those letters carries with it a completely different pay gap history and reality. Because you've got gender at play, you've got gender identity at play.

You have all the isms that impact that community just like every other community. No community is off the hook, in terms of the work that they need to do on inclusiveness.

I hold us accountable, us meaning I'm in that community. But I benefit from certain privileges in society at large, that mean my LGBTQ experiences is it plays out differently in the world.

Lenna Turner:

Right. That's why it's so important to talk about pay equity in the scheme or the arc of looking at a total diversity, equity, inclusion strategy and belonging strategy. It's really hard to have a credible DEIB strategy and not talk about pay equity, because then you understand from a diverse, equitable, inclusive and belonging perspective, how all of this intersectionality works and how pay plays into that.

I love to talk to people who are pay equity experts, not myself, but I have some colleagues who are. We all talk about pay equity, but we also talk about how that intersects with DEIB. None of us believe that you can have a credible DEIB strategy, and not understand how pay fits into that or the part that pay fits into that.

Jennifer Brown:

That's right, absolutely. How is the state-by-state landscape impacting and laws impacting the whole question of compensation equity? I'm always captured by this progress that's being made around salary history. Banning that conversation and that information from entering the hiring process, and the government getting involved at that level with private employers. I'm hoping also picking up the mantle and saying, "We aren't going to put the onus on the candidate to be a better negotiator."

Because that is going to unfairly penalize those of us who were not exposed to or do not for whatever reason, socialization, cultural norms, lack of role models, check all of the above for whatever reason. And because of previous salary inequities that we've experienced that we're carrying forward. It's completely inequitable to anchor the conversation and salary history for so many of us, and just continues to perpetuate the inequity.

Anyway, I just scoped the problem, but I guess I would love to know from you, how are we shifting the onus from the individual? How do we need to shift the onus from the individual to the institution and make this a question of the systems changing, so that the individual has a fairer shot and the onus is not on the individual's shoulders to show up differently and somehow create magic against what is a bias system?

Lenna Turner:

There are 21 states or maybe a little over 21 states that actually have salary ban laws in place right now that says you can't ask a candidate for their previous salary history. That is so good because like you said, you just perpetuate previous salary inequities that a candidate or even a person that's at the company now, may have had and didn't have the benefit of not having that count against them when they interviewed or when they were hired.

Because in the past, you had all those things that you mentioned. You had people who didn't have an opportunity to grow in a particular way because of lack of development, because maybe discrimination, maybe racism played into it, I don't know, but those kinds of things. Then you have the whole issue of women not negotiating the same way men do, so their salaries tend to lag for that reason. That's a big reason women don't negotiate the same way men do.

I'm a firm believer you get what you negotiate. That stacks against women as well, along with all the other traditionally low paying jobs that women get into or low valued and low paying. Hospitality industry type of jobs, operations. I, in my career, I didn't start in operations. Yes, I did. I had a job in trust operations when I first moved to Atlanta at the bank before I went into HR and went into compensation.

I just looked around and noticed mostly women, all women, a few men, like really I can say on one hand. I noticed women get concentrated in jobs and they're traditionally low paying jobs, that doesn't help you when you're trying to move up. I just said, "Okay. I'm doing this." Because I had a conversation with an HR person earlier in my career and I said, "How do I get to move from non-exempt to exempt?" He said, "That's very hard."

I'm like, "It can't be that hard. Too many people are exempt." That alone, that career coaching and guidance that women get, it just stacks the deck against them. Bringing a salary that's been perpetually low and been impacted by all those things we just talked about, it's a bias that it's hard to work against so the salary ban helps that a lot. Employers are going to have to now have their job descriptions in order.

Be able to articulate what they're offering as a part of the transparency conversation, which I'm sure we'll get into pay transparency. Then you're going to have to have some ducks in a row as an employer to have that conversation. Because now you can't ask them for that but they can ask you, "Show me the range." Then there's going to be a conversation about where they fit in that range.

Once you give them an offer and they see a range out there, they're going to want to, "Why am I not there?" You've got to be prepared to talk about it. But there is something that the candidate has to understand now, because there's so much information at their fingertips, the internet, they've got to understand a little bit about the market for their job. You can go on many different sites and understand, have a point of view or just a little information.

You can't just ask for $200 for a job that pays $95. You got to be a little aware of that as a candidate, but you also now can ask the question, "What's the range?" Then based on what you posted, the job description and my qualifications, "Why am I not here?" You're in a better place as a candidate. As an employee, you're going to have to have those ducks in a row to have those conversations. Now that more information is just out there, it's just open.

Like we say at Salary.com, this pay transparency, pay equity train's left the station. If you're not on it's coming to a town near you soon. Really it is.

Jennifer Brown:

Yeah. Thank goodness. What led those particular 21 states to implement this? Is it a political issue that you see? I don't know, is it a red-blue state thing? Is it random? I'm just so curious how that came to be.

Lenna Turner:

I don't know if it's political. I do know from the many surveys that we've seen or information, it's like society after the George Floyd murder and the Racial Reckoning and things like that, a lot of things just got stirred up. I think with the workforce being made up of millennials and the next generation, they just expect so much more in terms of transparency and understanding about their pay.

Some statistics about how so many employees would actually leave or take a pay cut to go to a company that's more transparent about how they treat people and pay people fairly. Employees are reading these things and in a job market as strange as the one we're in, the war for talent is going to be one on transparency, pay equity and having a really good, inclusive culture, I think.

Because I'm in DEI, of course I think that, but yes, it's 58% said they would consider switching jobs for more pay transparency. That was a bank loan survey and culture report. 51% said their company implemented a new DEI plan this year, yet less than half said it included an equal compensation strategy. It's like candidates are really looking for this, and then society is driving it and some legislation is driving it.

Jennifer Brown:

It's coming from all sides and the pressure is building.

Lenna Turner:

Yeah. There's a pay transparency bill that's on the dockets in Massachusetts. That's up for June vote I think, so it's growing, it's growing. It's interesting, if you have listeners out there, they might just go onto the internet and pull up pay transparency map. You'll get an idea of all the states that have pay transparency laws. You can click on the map and it'll tell you what the law is, so it's really interesting.

If you're a company that has employees in different states, you probably already are aware. If you're not, this is the time to become aware and as a company, you can't put your head in the sand on this one. Do you remember the big deal around exempt versus non-exempt when President Obama first came into office? It was all over the landscape. As a compensation person, a year out of my life, all we did was look at [inaudible 00:22:22].

Jennifer Brown:

Can you take us back and describe it a little bit?

Lenna Turner:

There was this whole business about non-exempt employees not being compensated for overtime work. If you were an employer who had your employees logging on after work, or calling in on Saturday or you ask them questions, the law was coming after you. President Obama had hired all these deputies just to look into this exempt versus non-exempt landscape. Every company was doing a deep dive and, I think, the minimum salary for exemption changed around that time again.

Every company, not every company, lots of companies were going through a whole study of determining who was, because back pay was the issue and that was the rub and the cost. If you were on the wrong side of the V and it was found that you had all these non-exempt employees that you had not paid them overtime for, then it could be double, it could be two and a half times. There were big lawsuits that were settled because of the non-exempt versus exempt.

Lots of companies were just hiring outside counsel, outside consultants to help them go through an exemption status review. Looking at all the jobs to determine based on the Department of Labor exemption status and all of that, what jobs were. That was a really big deal, and this is a big deal, pay equity and pay transparency like that. Lots of engagement. There was lots of talk from senior leaders around how you get your hands around that exempt versus non-exempt.

Now, pay equity is the same way. If you really want to have a really great DEI strategy, understand the landscape, understand how it impacts talent acquisition, then you've got to talk about pay equity.

Jennifer Brown:

We have a lot of listeners who may not be in such large organizations. Do you think this is resource intensive to embark on an effort like this?

Maybe for those of us who are in smaller orgs, what is possible to do when you don't have that level of resourcing and scale?

Lenna Turner:

From a pay equity study perspective?

Jennifer Brown:

Mm-hmm.

Lenna Turner:

It's possible to do, for sure. Because if you have a good framework, and we can talk later about the Plunkett Pay Equity Framework. That talks about really if you can get that senior leadership buy-in to even do a pay equity, because senior leadership owns pay equity. If they own it and buy into it, they're going to give you some resources, whether it's external counsel or it's a consultant. Because it could be a temporary help to get the study going.

But as a small organization, you can do it in-house with maybe just the oversight of counsel. If you don't have in-house counsel, you can have external counsel. Generally, that work is led by HR and comp and you get legal involved or finance involved. But HR, comp and legal, those are the people. A lot of people don't have in-house counsel, but a lot of small firms do utilize external counsel and this would be one of those things.

If you're small, you don't have a lot of people, but you can still get the work done. It is intensive from the perspective of some other steps you have to do, in terms of making sure you are getting job descriptions in order. So that when you compare work, you are comparing similar situated employees so that then you can have a basis for doing the pay equity study. Then just some market pricing, but there's so much help out there to get market pricing, that it doesn't have to be labor-intensive.

But when you're a small firm or an HR department of one, everything can become labor-intensive and I understand that, but there are some firms out there that can help you with it, for sure.

Jennifer Brown:

Yeah. Yeah. What are you seeing companies of any size struggle with the most from a change management perspective on this topic? If there is resistance or barriers to moving through the steps that you just referenced? Which by the way, we'll share in the show notes, there's a Salary.com white paper. Actually, the Plunkett Pay Equity Framework, which we could go into a little bit more too, which I found really interesting to read.

But what are some of the resistances that we will encounter as we endeavor to begin this process, and really is one of hygiene, which is repeated and becomes part of the DNA of how we do business? It's not just a one and done because things will continue to appear. But I just wonder where, and you all are advising, I'm sure your clients, your stakeholders at Salary.com about this too. It's like internal, but it's also looking at the external landscape of what they're struggling with.

Lenna Turner:

I think one of the things that people struggle with is getting started. I think how we shape the framework is if you're an HR person, do some analytics, get some data lined up. Build the case that says, "This is what we look like. This is the landscape of pay equity around us," and go to senior management with a plan. I think when you have a plan together, that gets you buy-in quicker. What the Plunkett Pay Equity Framework does, is talk about how one of the first steps is getting leadership buy-in.

One of the substeps of that is getting data analytics together and building a case to take to them so that you have that buy-in. Then once you do, then you start to do the work. Some of that work gets to be maybe what you might call getting your house in order. That's where you feel like you're taking a step back after you've gotten the buy-in to do the work. But you have to because you have to look at the jobs, you have to look at the people in the jobs, but you have to have that solid data.

Your data has to be really in order. Then that sometimes makes people feel like we're taking a step back, but you got to look at those JDs. If you don't have them, you got to write them. You got to figure out if I'm going to compare people, what am I comparing? So that you can have a legal leg to stand on, as to why there might be some differences in pay. That's sometimes where people, they get stuck or that's a big barrier to move through it.

But once you get there and the data gets clean and then you start to do the analysis, you can feel good about the results or if you don't find something, whatever you find. Then the mitigation part, and of course, that's where the cost is. People are afraid. Sometimes we hear people say, "I don't think they want to tackle it because they don't want to deal with the cost." That's a head in the sand kind of approach really.

It might cost you something, especially if you haven't done a pay equity study in a long, long while or ever at all, but is it better to know? We think so. That's one of the bigger barriers as well, management [inaudible 00:29:43].

Jennifer Brown:

Can I ask, Lenna, the costs are they where we would expect them to be in terms of remediation? I would expect it's not just time, hours spent with the process, but it's really grossing up the gaps that you would discover and the cost of that. I know I talked about Mark Benioff at Salesforce in my original book.

I just love that story about how he did the pay audit, horrified to realize pay gap at Salesforce. Remediated it with a big check initially to address it and create the fairness, only to then of course have to go through this process as your business changes, as you acquire new companies and they have their own pay gaps, and that's something you take on board.

Literally, it's this ongoing process, but I'm sure there's so many companies who discover and then they need to come up with, commit that funding to address the gaps. Is that the cost you're talking about?

Lenna Turner:

Yes.

Jennifer Brown:

I don't know, you could look at that as how can you not do this? Yet it is a barrier because of cost.

Lenna Turner:

Yeah, I hear you.

Jennifer Brown:

I'm with you.

Lenna Turner:

Some people approach it in terms of a plan to mitigate the cost. If they don't do it all at once, there's a plan to do this, six months, do this. But you have to have a plan once you discover an issue. I'm not a lawyer, so I don't want to talk about what happens if you discover something and you do nothing about it.

But a lot of the rub and a lot of the things clients are asking us about is, "How do you communicate what you're going to dom if you don't have a communications group?" But that's it, develop a plan of what you're going to do. If you don't have a Jeff Bezos' check or something like that, then figure out what your check looks like.

That's why you have finance involved as a part of the team, along with HR, comp, legal, so you're understanding where the road you're on and then what the outcome might be. Then there is some discussion, planning and understanding around that.

Jennifer Brown:

Got it, got it. I'm curious, going beyond focusing on the pay gap for women, which gets so much of the press, and different identities of women, what about the pay gap for men and men of different ethnicities, et cetera? Do these audits reveal the prevalence of bias across all identities? Is that a really important, bigger conversation to be having?

I just wonder because I remember one process I was involved in. It hit me that of course, of course these pay gaps exist. It's not just a gender thing. I wonder if your experience bears that out, and how you can describe that? What the call to action is for us to have a larger, wider aperture?

Lenna Turner:

I will say, not for me, but I know one of my colleagues and we were talking. You can do a pay equity audit on gender for women, controlling for women, and then create some inequity for men. I don't remember who this was, but we talked about there was a case where some company did a study. They made some concessions for pay gaps for women, and something with the men and the men sued them and won, so I don't know.

I have not had a lot of clients with that or maybe one of my colleagues might be better to go into that with you. But I do know that if you look for one thing and correct it, you could possibly create another one. That's what the pay equity tool that Salary.com has. It allows you to do a pay equity study, but it also red flags things that might be created because of what we found if you correct that.

So you're right, it is a holistic conversation. Or look, when you're doing a pay equity audit it can be controlling for certain things. But you have to have some tools or analysis that allows you to understand by doing this, controlling for this and mitigating for this, you could create another inequity. You have to pay attention to that too. It may be men or it may be age, or it may be veterans, it may be something else.

But yes, if you're doing one, know that you have to take a holistic look. If you control over one thing, you may create some gap in another way.

Jennifer Brown:

Got it. What are some other key findings from the pay equity framework paper that you all just released from Salary.com, some other highlights that we need to know? Or perhaps maybe surprises to you as you continue to do this work?

Things that you're reminded of or that are popping up now, particularly after the pandemic, after the workforce has shuffled, and gone hybrid and all of that. I would imagine there are some new things popping up or is it same old, same old? I'm curious how the landscape has changed.

Lenna Turner:

As far as what we are hearing that are the issues, they're the same issues and they're based in a lot of systemic things. We hear and see HR things and DEI things. You need to look at your pay processes, you need to look at your pay policies. You need to look at your developmental opportunities, training opportunities. Especially in a remote and hybrid environment, understanding how those things play into salary increases, salary opportunities.

Then pay equity as a whole, so that's one thing. But things inside the Plunkett Pay Equity Framework that we think are key and very important, that's cleaning your data, making sure that's in order. Communications, building communication plans so that you train managers to have comfortable pay conversations with employees. That you also train employees how to have healthy often pay conversation.

That's a huge part of getting to the pay transparency piece, is that people don't talk about pay because A, the house is not in order. B, they haven't shared salary ranges. Now that we're advocating doing that and the law is telling us we need to do that, then you are better equipped to have a healthy conversation around pay. Communicate that you have a transparency philosophy, that you have a pay equity philosophy that fits into your larger DEIB framework.

Communicate often. We are seeing that candidates want to hear that, want to know what companies are doing around that. They want to see it on your website, they want to know that. A lot of people now before they even check you out, they're going to your website to see where you are on certain issues. How you deal with equity, pay equity, ERGs, DEIB strategy, green focus, whatever it is, it's all out there now. You have to pay attention to the things that attract talent.

Having that culture and that brand, we are finding it's a big deal in attracting talent. Attraction, recruitment and retention strategies, not only attracting but retaining employees as well.

Jennifer Brown:

Let me stay on that for a moment. How would you then recommend broaching that, excuse me, question in interviews? What is the right way? And do you take into account back to the states, the 21 states that have laws on the books about this, and the ones that will probably in the next year or two as this goes, do you have to be mindful of that? Do you do homework on the company beforehand to see, as you were just saying, if there's anything publicly shared about that commitment?

But what would you recommend for the candidate, in terms of preparation and then what to push on, inquire about in the interview? Also, PS, can it hurt the candidate? I guess that speaks volumes about the organization they're interviewing for, that if it can hurt somebody. But I just wanted want to know what do you need to be mindful of and then what does it sound like in the actual conversation?

Lenna Turner:

If I'm a candidate looking to change my role, then I'm going to A, look at the posting that they put out there, and look for language in it that says it's an inclusive culture. They use things like must be a go-getter. Don't know that's usually associated with a gender-specific thing, or just look for things like that A, in the job description. Then look at their website and look at their leadership team, look at the diversity in their leadership team.

Look at if they have a corporate social responsibility initiatives. If they have a DEIB strategy or if they have a DEIB focused resource, meaning that person is on the team, someone who focuses on that completely. Look at whether or not they have community involvement or it could be global initiatives around clean water, anything like that. Because that's what millennials go and look for.

Jennifer Brown:

Right, ESG people.

Lenna Turner:

Yeah. For a lot of people that are older, who just really are keyed into diversity, equity, inclusion, they're going to go look at the team, look at the makeup of the team, look at maybe the board of directors. People are really savvy these days. They actually look at the board and see, "Do you have any women on your board? You have any people of color?" Things like that. As a candidate, go look at those things.

Then for the actual pay, their site, Salary.com has a site you can go in, Glassdoor has a site you can go and look. You have friends that are recruiters who can tell you what the going rate is that they've been recruiting for for that. Have an understanding of what the pay is for the role so that you go in equipped. But one of the bigger things from one of the [inaudible 00:40:07] are you have to be able to articulate what you bring to the table, ties into what they do really clearly.

Those are some of the things for the candidate, I think, that they can do to stack the deck for them, so that when they have a pay conversation in the end and they're in a culture that they know appreciates that and has some affinity for pay equity, then it makes sense and it works out.

Jennifer Brown:

That's right. That's right. That's great advice. In terms of just combating how some of us were socialized and what we're comfortable with, and what we may or may not have skill in. What's like the mindset and the mental game that we need to ensure we prepare ourselves for? I guess that mindset going into conversations from just a personal level, if you could give some advice.

We want to be equipped with the data and the information, but I think too, the showing up as this is, "I'm interviewing you as much as you, are you interviewing me," energy is something perhaps less comfortable for some of us, for all the reasons that we've talked about. What would you give advice on that?

Lenna Turner:

It was for me too for a long while, but if you know what you're worth. Meaning you know you are good at this, you have written down, if it takes that, write down what you're good at. Write down your strengths and how that aligns with the job description and how your cultural values align with the company. If you're solid on those things, then you know that you've done some good research that says, "This job is at least worth this. I have this."

But you have to be very comfortable with that. That's just looking back over the projects you've done. Even if you thought you weren't comfortable with it, when you start writing down all the work you've done, you're like, "Hey, I did that, I did that. I can do that." You are equipped to go in there and have a good conversation about. At the end of the day, when you know these good things you've done, you really are saying, "Okay, that's what I've done. Now what do you have?"

You really do get to a point where you can feel like, "I'm okay if I walk out of this and not like them as much as I thought." Because that's when you can start asking questions about, "What do you have in development for women? Do you have opportunities? Is there one training opportunity a year for women?" Start asking questions like that after you get comfortable with saying, "I know I belong here based on good skillset."

You have to be solid on that. You can't go in and apply for a VP level role if you don't have any of that experience. You just have to be realistic and just ask some questions. But be prepared to articulate what you bring to the table in a clear way that says, "I'm okay with asking for this salary, and if I get it, I get it. If I don't, I'm still okay with having asked for it."

Jennifer Brown:

Yeah. This goes for asking about promotions and internal moves. Is there anything in particular you'd like to give us advice on when it comes to that?

Lenna Turner:

When it comes looking at promotional opportunities, I always say, "If you are wanting to do something different, raise your hand." First of all, raise your hand even before you see an opportunity out there because sometimes opportunities can get created based on you raising your hand, so that's always a good thing. But if you are thinking you reached a climax in this job, just start asking what kinds of work will get me to the next level?

What kinds of projects should I be working on? I always ask my boss, "Should I be doing something more?" Because earlier in my career, one of my mentor people said, "Make sure you're working on things that are important to the company." Because people work hard every day and they work long hours, but you can do a lot of work that doesn't matter to anyone. You want to be careful and conscious that you want the always be working on the hottest products, but just try and remember those kinds of questions.

Moving in that direction. They can lead to a promotion and they prepare you for the next move. Always be asking, "What can I do that adds to my skillset or my collaboration skills or whatever?" Just start. All opportunities are not up, some are crossed, so just be mindful of that.

Jennifer Brown:

Yeah, lateral moves are brilliant. Particularly, I think, we always have to be mindful of like it or not, some roles that some of us are steered towards, are the perhaps non P&L roles, for example. Then unfortunately, we hit the ceiling of you haven't managed the right kind of business to get to where you want to go. Yes, do we need to change that? Yes, but in the meantime, I think we have to be really savvy.

This is where the lack of mentoring and sponsoring, I think, really hits people hardest when we don't get that critical advice when we have choices. Maybe we're talented, a lot of things, but we're not steered towards the right path that will equip us with what we would need for that next phase. That's a piece that's so important.

I think each company's different, but looking, paying attention to and asking the question, "What will get me there? What will be looked at as prequalifications for readiness for that?" Then making those choices early and often in the early days, so that we set ourselves up to have the maximum amount of choice and agency and promotability, if you will, in a system that prioritizes this over this.

I hate even saying that because I focus in the area that's typically not the feeder to the C-suite necessarily in large numbers. But we get tracked if we're not careful and it's fine to be tracked if we're happy in that world, we love the work we do. But just being aware of the choices we may have consequences and to make sure if we do have the goal of reaching the C-suite, and we look at what roles are represented there.

Very important to understand the pivots and the choices and the forks in the road, and what we need to make sure we're privy to. Then getting those opportunities through networking, through relationships. Because often, you're right, it is a lot of this happens informally too, and this is where it also becomes problematic when we're not an insider, however that's defined, in a given industry or whatever.

Lenna Turner:

That right there can go all the way back to women, women of color, men of color maybe, or Hispanic or whatever, not being a part of the in crowd or the club, or traditionally referred to maybe as the boys club, something like that. That's what an individual can do. But from an organization perspective in terms of promotions, you need to have some ways that people understand how they move through the organization, whether that's career pathing or whatever it is, but people are looking for that.

I cannot tell you how many surveys I've seen, how much exit interview data I've seen that says, "I left the organization because I didn't understand how I could move through, no career path." Organizations can work on that. Succession planning, development opportunities for learning development. Those are the things they can do that will help answer those questions. Marry up with employees when they start to ask, "How can I move through the organization? What's my next step and how do I get there, and what does it look like?"

Jennifer Brown:

Yeah. We need better answers for that and more transparency.

Lenna Turner:

Yeah. We're back to that word again.

Jennifer Brown:

That's right.

Lenna Turner:

Transparency.

Jennifer Brown:

That's right. It seems to be the theme. Yeah. Lenna, thank you so much for joining me. I learned so much and what wonderful calls to action for us. Whether we're the candidate side or we're the employer side, I'm really it grateful you dug into that for us.

Thank you. Anywhere you'd point folks to, I know Salary.com has a ton of resources. I'm sure folks will probably reach out to you after listening to this to get your advice and mentorship, but any place you direct us to follow up with you or read what you're about?

Lenna Turner:

Yes. You can find me at Salary.com website on the leadership team, or you can reach out to me at Lenna.Turner@Salary.com. Hopefully, if you share with them the Plunkett Pay Equity Framework, there's also a QR code for a free consultation on pay equity, which some of our consultants will be glad to talk to you around that.

I encourage you to just be curious about data and pay equity, pay transparency, the law and the landscape around you. Just start doing your own digging so that it informs you more whenever you make a choice to move to your next job.

Jennifer Brown:

Wonderful. Thank you for that offer. I hope everybody is going to be following up the QR code. We will provide a copy of the new paper. Lenna's name is spelled with two Ns everybody, L-E-N-N-A.Turner.

Lenna Turner:

Yes.

Jennifer Brown:

Thank you for being that generous and offering that as a contact point for folks. What a wonderful offer. I just appreciate you and the work you're doing, and thank you for joining me today.

Lenna Turner:

Thank you for having me. It's been great talking to you, and I've learned something as well. I always do when we talk, so thank you.

Jennifer Brown:

Thank you. Thank you, Lenna.

Lenna Turner:

All right. Bye-bye.

Jennifer Brown:

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