Pick up your badge, grab some breakfast, and begin the conversation! The Opening Main Stage will begin promptly at 8:30AM.
Breakfast Menu
Revitalize Buffet
- Seasonal Sliced Fruit and Berries
- Multigrain Bread With Butter & Sweet Preserves
- Build Your Own Parfait:
- Vanilla And Plain Low Fat Yogurt
- Granola
- Flaxseed
- Steel Cut Oats With Accompaniments
- Breakfast Burritos (vegetarian option available)
Beverages
Two Chilled Juices
Coffee & Tea
In this thought-provoking keynote, Dr. Shonna Waters explores the unprecedented challenges and opportunities facing HR professionals in today's rapidly evolving workplace. She examines how fundamental principles of work organization are being questioned, using the movement towards skills-based organizations as a case study. Dr. Waters argues that these shifts reflect a deeper need for organizational agility and adaptability in the face of volatility and uncertainty. Drawing from cutting-edge research, she presents a compelling illustration of fundamentally re-examining our approach to work, highlighting the mutually reinforcing relationship between individual well-being and organizational performance. The keynote introduces the concept of psychological ergonomics as a guiding principle for leveraging AI to create more human-centric work environments. Dr. Waters concludes with practical strategies for Total Rewards professionals to drive meaningful change in their organizations, emphasizing the importance of seizing opportunities presented by environmental jolts.
Pay equity has become a pressing issue for compensation professionals, but it wasn’t always at the forefront. In this compelling session, join Gail Greenfield, EVP of Pay Equity and Total Rewards at Trusaic, as she takes you on a personal and professional journey through the pivotal moments that have shaped today's pay equity landscape. From the groundbreaking Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act to Colorado’s pay transparency law and the EU’s new pay transparency directive, Gail will unpack how two decades of legislative and cultural shifts have transformed pay equity from an afterthought into a critical corporate priority. Drawing from her extensive career as a pay equity consultant, Gail will offer real-world insights on how leading companies have adapted to meet these challenges—and what your organization can learn from their successes.
In a polarizing world of misalignment – from politics to relationships, and from health to business – we learn that great power and lasting impact can be achieved when people come together for a common purpose or goal. In a passionate and life-changing session on the topic of Global Wellbeing, WTW Senior Consultant and Solution Advisor, Josh Ellison, will not only unveil the latest results from their Global Wellbeing Diagnostic survey, but will also identify the potential gaps and pitfalls in current employer programs. Participants will discover the power of a program that is aligned to both business goals and employee needs, leaving everyone inspired to have a meaningful impact both personally and professionally.
Key Takeaways:
- Gain new insights into the latest Global Wellbeing Program strategies and trends
- Understand the current misalignment between employee needs/preferences and employer focus - including potential strategies and tactics to drive better financial outcomes and improved human capital performance
- Leave inspired to have a positive and lasting impact on their organizations, colleagues, families and the people around them
Compensation and Total Rewards professionals must work with stakeholders with varying degrees of compensation literacy every day. From those who see compensation as impossible to decipher to the “knows enough to be dangerous” colleague, how can you meet each person where they are at to drive results? Join this session to develop your own plan for turning your non-comp co-workers, into true allies.
Key Takeaways:
- How you as a compensation expert can explain key concepts to create a more cohesive Total Rewards experience for everyone in your organization.
- Specific language and communication strategies tailored to different levels of compensation literacy.
How can Compensation and Total Rewards practitioners apply behavioral economic principles in compensation plan design? Through interactive polling, explore key concepts in behavioral economics such as time value of money and how human beings respond to economic incentives. This session will draw comparisons between the participants’ responses to market norms and then share implications on how these observations and economic principles affect compensation design.
Key Takeaways:
- Insights into behavioral economics concepts and principles related to compensation design.
- Practical, day-to-day uses of economic principles and how they apply to compensation program design.
Income inequality remains a troubling issue, despite years of progressive and proactive approaches and legislation. All too often, workers of one particular group (usually women or people of color) are systematically underpaid across an organization. The remedy for such pay gaps is often to focus on those workers who are most underpaid. In this talk we will explain why this approach falls short, and point to better ways to correct the pay structure, close pay gaps and address systematic biases.
Key Takeaways:
- A clear understanding of the differences between the unadjusted and adjusted pay gap
- How to understand the root sources of the adjusted pay gap.
- How to address systematic pay biases and close pay gaps
Sales Compensation is probably the clearest thing to “pay for performance” in Total Rewards. Sales Compensation regularly establishes pay programs that incentivize actions that are intimately aligned with organizational objectives. How much of sales compensation effectiveness is based on how the compensation team is structured? The broader and more dispersed the decision-making process is, the lesser the likelihood of unified and coherent performance management and incentive design outcomes, much less, optimal organizational results. Nearly all companies struggle with fragmented processes and incongruent execution with downstream aspects of the sales compensation process. Whether in budget setting, job architecture, target allocation, territory assignment, incentive design, performance tracking, crediting, plan documentation, calculations, and ultimately pay disbursement, it’s rare that all of those pieces are aligned. This session will cover sales compensation best practices, evaluation tools, and guidance for organizational change to deliver heightened alignment.
Key Takeaways:
- Walk away with sales compensation best practices to deliver optimal organizational outcomes
- Gain the tools to appraise and evaluate their sales compensation organization for success
- Understand the key components that impact sales incentive program effectiveness
How can you create a governance model while managing employee hybrid work? Join this interactive Roundtable Discussion to explore successful strategies for doing just that. Participants will have the ability to share how their organization is dealing with challenges and seek feedback from the facilitator and participants on how they can achieve their goals.
Key Takeaways:
• How hybrid work has evolved in the last few years.
• An understanding of the various compliance issues that can arise.
• The different challenges between domestic and international remote working.
Roundtable discussions are intimate and highly participatory. Be prepared to share and build connections with your fellow attendees.
It is not always a "Love Story" between those who design and administer an organization's sales incentive plan. If there aren't clear guidelines, roles and responsibilities, and policies, there can "Bad Blood" between those sales compensation plan owners and sellers/sales managers.
This session will set you and your colleagues to be "Fearless" about administering the sales compensation program with the tips, tools, and templates to create a sales compensation governance guide. Because ultimately, good governance promotes confidence, which is crucial to the ability to operate effectively and accurately.
Creating a clear framework for managing difficult situations will allow your organization to operate more efficiently and treat each employee with consistency and fairness for "Eras" to come.
Key Takeaways:
• A list of critical must-haves in your governance structure.
• How to establish an effective governance model that avoids disruptions and instills trust by outlining clear recourse for unforeseen adverse circumstances.
• A sales comp administration RACI template for your organization to build upon.
This TR Talk is designed to be paired with the session "Where Should Sales Comp Live? Understanding the Relationship Between Optimal Outcomes and Organizational Structure' immediately preceding it in the schedule. We suggest planning to attend both sessions back-to-back.
In 2024 the Supreme Court issued four major administrative-law cases, and while none of them none of them involved an employment or labor agency, all of them could change labor and employment law. How may these decisions affect rules such as the DOL salary-basis rule or the FTC non-compete rule? How will agencies react? What should you be watching out for? Join Alex MacDonald of Littler’s Workplace Policy Institute for answers.
What do you need to do to reset and refresh for the second half of the day? Take time to enjoy lunch, check-in at work, and then (if you're ready) participate in a couple optional activities.
The Gallery of Problem-Solving: Have a challenge you'd like your peers to help you tackle? Grab a piece of chart paper, write your problem, and hang it in the "gallery." Then walk through the gallery and offer any tips or hints to help others solve their challenges.
Walk & Talk: Want to stretch your legs, but keep the conversations going? Meet at 12:15 for a quick walk through downtown Arlington. Don't forget to grab a conversation sticker so others know what you're excited to discuss.
Lunch Menu
Southwest Buffet
- Chicken Baja Enchilada Soup
- Homemade Guacamole & Fried Tortilla Chips
- Southwest Salad | Lola Rosa, Romaine, Frisee, Cherry Tomatoes, Jicama, Cucumbers, Roasted Corn & Amarillo Dressing
- Build Your Own Fajita Bar:
- Flour & Corn Tortillas
- Sautéed Anaheim Chiles
- Peppers
- Grilled Onions
- Mexican Rice
- Refried Beans
- Choice Of Two Fajita Proteins:
- Grilled Chicken
- Seasoned Shrimp
- Corn Bread
Desserts
- Tres Leches Cake
- Sopaipillas With Honey
Syndio's research shows that running more frequent pay equity analysis greatly reduces remediation costs. With increasing and evolving pay transparency legislation shining a spotlight on pay, not correcting pay inequities poses significant risk to your employer brand, monetary risks and compliance risks.
What if we lived in a world where you didn't have to run pay equity analysis and make pay corrections? Where your Total Rewards programs worked as you intended? Join us as we talk about how companies are solving pay equity by using solutions to correct pay inequities and then change the way rewards and talent management decisions are made so inequities don't happen again! We will share the latest challenges for employers - laws like Colorado's and the EU Pay Transparency Directive that include both pay equity and opportunity equity, the dynamism around DEI in this election year - the strategies companies are building, and share a company's journey toward Total Rewards for The Transparency Era.
Key Takeaway: Case studies of solutions for Total Rewards in The Transparency Era
We will explore the complex issue of pay equity, clarifying common misconceptions and presenting the facts emanating from a recent study in the US and the UK. Combining data, expert insights, and case studies, it challenges false narratives and highlights solutions for fostering workplace fairness, making it essential for policymakers, business leaders, and anyone interested in wage equality.
Does your organization’s pay philosophy effectively translate to your managers, who make critical compensation decisions in each merit cycle? Today, balancing equity and fairness while maximizing employee retention in merit planning remains a top challenge and goes beyond simply understanding market rates. In the absence of effective compensation planning, how confident are you that compensation dollars are being optimized equitably to attract and retain the best talent?
Join us for this jam session where we will discuss and debate insights and best practices from compensation research that will allow you to implement data-driven strategies to empower your managers to make unbiased merit pay decisions aligned to your pay philosophy.
Session topics Include:
- The latest compensation planning trends and insights
- Our largest challenges in compensation management today, and how we might begin tackling them
- Any questions you bring to the session
Ever wonder why, despite offering fantastic benefits, employees seem to forget about them after open enrollment? Join us for an enlightening session where we’ll unravel the mystery behind sustaining engagement with your benefit plan. We’ll focus on the mindset shift, effective communication tactics, and continuous wellness programs crucial for ensuring your workforce not only remembers and appreciates their benefits, but uses them throughout the year.
Key Takeaways:
- Recognize the post-enrollment mind shift and challenges in sustaining benefit awareness.
- Improve year-round communication and maximize impact using compelling messaging and diverse channels.
- Implement ongoing health initiatives to prioritize wellness, link healthy habits with benefits, and highlight lesser known perks within your benefit plan.
Join Gail Greenfield, Executive Vice President of Pay Equity and Total Rewards Strategy and Solutions at Trusaic, and Muir Macpherson, Global People Analytics Leader at Aon, for an insightful session that demystifies the interconnectedness of pay equity, pay transparency, and job architecture. This session will equip you with a comprehensive understanding of these critical concepts, providing actionable strategies to drive fair and transparent compensation practices within your organization. Walk away with the knowledge and tools you need to align these elements effectively and take the next steps toward creating a truly equitable workplace.
Key Takeaways
- Understand the relationship between pay equity, transparency, and job architecture.
- Learn actionable strategies to align compensation practices with equity goals.
- Develop a clear action plan for advancing pay equity and transparency in your organization.
Why You Should Attend This session is essential for HR leaders, compensation experts, and total rewards professionals who are committed to fostering equity within their organizations. Gain expert insights and practical guidance to connect the dots between pay equity, transparency, and job architecture, and leave with a plan to take meaningful action.
Walk through building a Compensation Function from the Ground Up!
Congratulations! You’ve just landed the role as the first Compensation Director ever at an organization. As you get started you will need to evaluate the current situation and stand-up the compensation function. What tools will you use? What recommendations will you make? Who will you need to help you build the function from scratch?
In this highly interactive simulation session we will give you the particulars of your new (did we say congrats!) organization and from there you will work with a group of 8-10 other participants to answer the questions above, make recommendations, and even deal with a few curveballs along the way.
This session is perfect for novice and experienced comp experts alike who want to think through putting today's best practices and technology in place along with learning from fellow participants.
You began the morning thinking expansively about the future of work. You dove into sessions on everything from pay equity to the impact of employment law landscape. Now it's time to put it all together. What are you taking away, and what will you do differently?