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Beyond the Paycheck brings you candid conversations with CHROs and top people leaders who are rethinking how compensation and benefits impact more than just employee bank accounts. From the first paycheck to financial wellness programs, we explore how money shapes identity, equity, purpose, and power at work, and how forward-thinking companies are using pay and perks to transform lives, not just attract talent.
This podcast is sponsored by Aura Finance, the financial wellness platform designed to help employees feel confident, secure, and in control of their money.
See more at aurafinance.io
Beyond the Paycheck - Lisa Jacobi
Kelsey Willock Jones: Welcome Lisa Jacobi, CHRO at COCC. We're so excited to have you today. To kick us off, I'd love for you to share a little bit about your career and background, your current role, and where you're calling in from today.
Lisa Jacobi: Great, yeah, absolutely. So you said my name. That's what I am, right? I've been working at COCC now north of 22 years. We are a financial technology provider for banks and credit unions, mainly here in the Northeast, but we're growing a larger footprint. We are truly the brain behind a bank when it comes to their technology, their systems, their datacom lines, lots of different products that we support back to those banks and credit unions.
I've been here 22 years. I've actually just had a wonderful benefit of growing this business through our people. When I joined here, we were going through a massive transformation, a revolution from really a processor to a financial technology provider, which was perfect timing for me. I had been working at a software shop before here, where I got my ground roots on HR management, and joined here.
So it's incredible I've been here as long as I have. And I will have all testaments to that. Reasons for staying is just being able to grow a business through people and really being part of this business journey. So I'm up here in Connecticut. I got my undergrad at Ithaca College and got my MBA through UConn. So now I feel like I'm a Connecticut, you know, tried and true. But that's pretty much my story.
Kelsey Willock Jones: Well, really excited to learn a lot more about what you're doing at the company. Can you also tell me a little bit more about the workforce itself? How many people work at the company? What kind of roles exist?
Lisa Jacobi: Yeah, so we have about 700 employees. And our footprint, because we truly support so many different products, different areas of banks and credit unions, we are almost stretched over hundreds of different departments of those 700 people doing different types of support.
We have your standard book of software developers. We have network engineers. We have cybersecurity and cyber defense technicians working. We have product analysts, product management structure, and your host of how a business is run through our corporate services environment, all different types of technical support functions. And we really are a blend between people who know back office and banking, to technologists, to people coming in right out of school, having a different mindset coming into some of our different departments. So there's a lot of different groups that are really supporting different parts of the bank or credit union.
Kelsey Willock Jones: Well, it sounds like a phenomenal place to work, and it is so many different interesting career paths to be taken.
Lisa Jacobi: Most definitely. Yes, most definitely.
Kelsey Willock Jones: Before we dig deeper into the company and those roles and how we support those people, I'd also love to better understand a little bit more about you, Lisa. So if you'll indulge me, can you tell me a little bit about your first job and if you remember what you spent your first paycheck on?
Lisa Jacobi: I do. So my first job was selling sneakers at a sporting goods company that's been long gone for a long time, called Herman's Sporting Goods. And I was 16 years old, first job. I will disclose that I think I was making four dollars and seventy-five cents an hour. So that one I will age myself at this point when it comes to minimum wage.
But I will say that it was an exciting time, because when you get your first job, you're kind of all in and you want to learn what you're doing and all the things that you want to excel in. And it's funny, to this day and age, so that was a long time ago, that was over 30 years ago, and I can still to this day describe cushions in sneakers and the technology that existed back in the early to mid nineties, as pathetic as I've now just outed myself. I do remember some of those early days.
Kelsey Willock Jones: Now I'm very curious what sneaker brands that you would speak highly of these days, given there's so many new ones on the market.
Lisa Jacobi: There are. There are. You know, it obviously all depends if you're a runner. I still would say back then and today, Brooks probably is still a leading edge. I'm a Nike girl, so it just fits my foot. But I think what people have realized is every maker has a different feel. And I'm sure anyone even listening right now would say they only can live by New Balance or certain types of shoes. But for me, and my foot and how my weird foot is, I'm a Nike girl, tried and true, was thirty years ago and still am today.
Kelsey Willock Jones: Love it. How do you think your early experience in your career, and your money story in general, has influenced how you think about showing up for your people, making decisions in terms of pay, benefits, and beyond?
Lisa Jacobi: You know, it's interesting. Being in a retail environment at the age of 16, and spending, I did that by the way all the way through college. I worked at a different sporting goods company when I was in college as well, as a part-time job. And I would say that element of retail and service and getting to know people, working with people, that's what you do in retail.
And to this day, I would say some of my formation, foundation layers of building relationships, I will think back to those jobs. I will think back to those sporting goods jobs. Being able to find connections, I think, is huge. A lot of people choose the human resources field because we love the people side and we love the business side. And I think the people who are most successful are the ones that can blend those two together. And no doubt, if I was to rewrite the script, I think I'd start in retail again, and maybe I'd stay in it a little bit longer, because it did provide such great value.
Kelsey Willock Jones: It certainly teaches you people skills. People can be challenging, people can be nuanced, all the things. It's something for me, having an early career working in the restaurant industry. I think it's just so instrumental in shaping how we interact with people and how complex they can be.
Lisa Jacobi: Yes, one hundred percent. One hundred percent.
Kelsey Willock Jones: So one of the things I'm really interested in, and especially given you've spanned such a vast career at the company, is there's been this trend of investing in the whole person. We no longer as companies just give people a salary and healthcare. It's often much more than that, whether it has to do with investing in their physical health, their financial health, their mental health, you name it. Can you tell me about a specific example where you invested in the whole person that you're particularly proud of? And what do you think companies are falling short of today in investing in that whole person?
Lisa Jacobi: Yeah, I think the whole person has changed in the dynamics. Well-being is huge. Mental health is a huge component. Companies today, you're sitting here at potentially 20 to 30 percent of your leave management tied to mental health and well-being.
I remember, and I mentioned this stat recently in another type of interview, where we spend the majority, we all know this, right? We spend the majority of our time with the people we work with. Your standard full-time rate, if you're working 40 hours a week, it's telling you you're spending over 2,000 hours with the people that you work with a year. But when we go to the doctor and we have our annual physical, we get about 25 minutes with the doctor.
And so companies, and I think we adopted this in the team that I have around me, and our people success team has done just a phenomenal job realizing that you have to, as an organization, recognize that the whole self is coming to work. When you spend that many hours together, the good days, the bad days, the tough days are always going to come into work. And so from leadership development down to your benefit programs, you have to be looking at that whole self. And that's what builds connection.
People, you hear it time and time again, people rarely will leave a job just because of the money. Typically they're leaving the job because of the relationship, or the lack thereof of relationship, that they may have with their leader and with their manager. And I think building that connection does start with making sure that the whole self comes to work.
One of the statements that we look at in many of our engagement surveys is, I can be myself around here. I think it's probably one of the biggest statements that we will track, and making sure as an organization we are scoring way above the benchmark. We are way into the 90s as far as people's percentile of agreement that they can be themselves at work. And I think that is huge.
So to get back to your question, I think getting our leaders, and our entire leadership team, to understand that that is a huge element. And the more that we can have people feel connected, feel like themselves, and we're taking care of their whole self, we perform better as an organization. So we support about 150 banks and credit unions. We have about 700 employees. And when we work the best is when we're all feeling good. We're all feeling connected. We all have great trust. And I think that whole element does come back to the whole self.
Kelsey Willock Jones: What do you think supports folks feeling as though they can be comfortable being themselves at the company? I'd love to hear an example, because this is such a unique way to answer this question and I'm loving the direction that you're taking.
Lisa Jacobi: You know, there is that element of having a diverse workforce. We've been around for 59 years. We have people who are celebrating 30 years, 35 years of service with us. We've got the barbell look. I'm sure you've heard this, right? So on one end, lots of people who have been here north of multiple decades, north of 10, 15, 20 years. And then lots of people who have been here three, four years, or under three or four years. And so you have multiple generations in the workforce.
And it's beyond just the generations, it's how people are coming together. How are they coming to work? We have 25% of our staff fully remote. And so how are we all working together? I think that whole element of diversity of thought is huge, but having a diverse workforce where people can connect with somebody, and they could be different, they could have a common connection. It could be the connection of taking care of our customers. It could be the connection of building out a new tool that I think is really cool and has built an automation process in our organization. So everyone has those little elements that they can connect with somebody.
And I think for the most part, we have really hired and I would say retained talent that truly cares about our mission. We're cooperatively owned. So taking care of our clients, the banks or credit unions, making sure they're getting that right answer, they're getting the right support, is really pivotal to us, top down, all around. And I think that sometimes also builds a little bit of camaraderie, which I think is really, really important.
And we also have, over the last couple of years I'd say, really moved the needle a lot in our benefit strategies. So a couple of years ago we invested in lifestyle spending accounts. I don't know if you're familiar with LSAs. Probably was one of our best moves, for us to really show our entire workforce that we want to give them something and give them a perk that they all could take advantage of. And that was a really big move for us and has paid off with having such great participation. Probably one of the biggest things that we hear in our comments and our workplace engagement scores, or engagement surveys, is how much our employees love that program, feel like they can use it for what's important to them.
Kelsey Willock Jones: So one thing I want to double click on is how you've brought these types of programs and initiatives to the company. So what you've described, not all of these have always the most clear ROI. If you spend X dollars, there is a cost savings of three, whatever, you name it. So how do you vie for the investment in programs and initiatives when the spreadsheet might not so obviously support it?
Lisa Jacobi: Well, it takes, you have to focus on the long game. So lifestyle spending accounts, for example, we started talking about a strategy like this probably four years before we rolled it out. And it started with, how can we give everybody the same pot of money to use how they want to use it, beyond just the medical plan? And we struggled to find the right answer. And then, this is before lifestyle spending accounts kind of got their name.
But what we did is, we also had realized that we had a fitness reimbursement program. So we had this program, we'd give $40 a month for somebody's gym membership. And we had about an 18% adoption rate in the company in that program. And when we dug deeper into it, we realized that a huge part of the people that were using that were single, were on the younger side, probably more heavily male. Over-indexed, male dominated, taking that advantage more than women.
And we realized, we said, okay, well, how can we open this up? Can we open this up to yoga classes? Can we open it up to the Peloton? Your weekly Peloton membership? Can we open it up to Weight Watchers? How much more can we expand it? And then we realized, well, we're going to need help if we're really expanding it in all these different places. And we wanted to expand this in a way that we could allow that $40 a month for really everybody. What, how it mattered to you. Maybe it was sneakers, right? Maybe it was your gym membership, maybe it was a yoga mat at home, things like that.
So that's where we entered lifestyle spending accounts. And we really coined it as, yes, we had to overinvest in this, but the way that the lifestyle spending accounts work, we can give everybody $100. We could say, we're gonna give you all $100 right now. But that expense for us as an organization, we're only actually taking that expense when someone uses it.
So now we have about 95% of our employees that are actively using their lifestyle spending accounts, but everybody does it a little bit differently. Some people will use their money right away, right? It's like my kids. I give my daughter her allowance and she's a saver and she waits. I give my son his allowance and he's like, how fast can you put this on Roblox for me, Mom? So everybody in that same type of saving, I'm going to wait, I'm gonna use my money sparingly in places, that's also what we see.
So as an organization, we're not taking that whole expense investment up front, we're taking it as people use it for their wellness dollars. And it's been huge. It's been a great thing. We've gone from 18% all the way to 95% of our staff using it. And we obviously have this broken down, we work with a great vendor and we have this broken down by merchant codes. So it's things like you're going to your sporting goods stores, you're going to your wellness clubs. But it really has opened the pathway up for people who maybe don't have the ability to be going to the gym but would rather do something at home.
Kelsey Willock Jones: I think a major lesson I'm hearing though, too, from this is, when building the case for investment in a program, it doesn't need to be perfect at first. There's this opportunity to make the case for, let's evolve this, let's learn from it, and then let's get it right by making sure it impacts the largest amount of people. So I think it's such a great example. Can you tell me about an initiation of a benefit strategy that didn't go the way you expected?
Lisa Jacobi: Probably a fair amount of them. I will pivot a little bit, and the thing that always pops in my head is thinking about when your organization is ready. And I know when I started here, probably one of the biggest mistakes I made coming in was like, well, we have no training. We have no management development training. How horrible. We have to get leadership development going right now. And 20 years ago we rolled out a great, at the time of course I thought it was a perfect program.
But what I realized was, the organization was not ready. And so, so many times it's like you have to be ready for these things, right? And it was a big lesson learned, that as much as we knew we needed to start to shape our culture differently, pushing something in when the rest of the workforce didn't understand why, that was a great lesson learned.
And I'd say we've gone in a similar boat about benefits. I think about when we as an organization have done, we've been very profitable. And there's usually, when we have a decent profit, because we're cooperatively owned, that profit goes back to two places. Well, three places. But it will go back to our owners, so we will sometimes give them a dividend or a credit back if there's a good profit. We will put a percentage into our employees' profit sharing account, like an additional percentage, like a 401(k). And then we obviously are investing a good chunk of that money for our future R&D into the subsequent years.
And I remember, when we were an organization that had employees a little bit more towards older generation, when we'd say we're going to put in 4% of your profit sharing this year versus three, everyone's like, that's great. But I remember this one year that we went to our employees and we're like, hey, by the way, we had a great year, we're gonna put in four percent of your base salary into the profit sharing account. And at the time our town hall meeting, we had about 200 people sitting there and it was like crickets. Because the majority of them at the time didn't really care about that. It's kind of like, well, that's great, but I want the money, like I need that right now. I'd rather you give me that right now.
And it was a really good lesson for us to say, okay, we need to start looking at how we reward in a short term, medium term, and long term. We can't just put all that there. And so that was really the impetus for us to start building up more of a formalized corporate discretionary bonus pool for our employees. And so nowadays we have three different buckets. We have money that we'll put in the lifestyle spending account, which we consider is a midterm, like you can choose to use it when you want. We still have money going into the profit sharing accounts, because we think getting our employees having a retirement readiness score is really important. And then we have our bonus program, which is, you're going to get that once a year and it's yours to take right now.
That move for us, of realizing that everyone wants different things at different times, was a really good lesson. But it took us a little while. It took us where we realized, why isn't anybody caring that we're gonna drop all this additional dollars into the retirement program? Because at the time, and for the makeup of our employees, people wanted a different outcome.
Kelsey Willock Jones: Super important. Because it goes back to even the theme of our conversation today, which is we've got to give ourselves the opportunity to not get it right on the first swing, and to really listen to the feedback that we're hearing in order to get something right.
My last question for you is, obviously there's a lot of changes going on right now in the world of HR, whether it's healthcare related, whether it is related to the explosion of AI and innovation. What's a shift in compensation and benefits that you see coming that most HR leaders are not ready for?
Lisa Jacobi: Very much. You know, I will tell you, and I'm gonna answer it, and I will tell you I don't even know if I'm ready for it. I think we've been all watching the entrance of Walmart started, now Amazon, of these large organizations getting into the healthcare side. So pharmacy, to things like, hey, you can pick up this benefit plan for 10, 15 bucks a month and it's all telehealth. And then if you need to see someone, then you're gonna go to these hubs, this place.
And I think what is interesting is, I think over these next five, 10 years, we're gonna start to see this shift. And we're gonna start to see the shift of employees coming in saying, I'm fine with just having my health care through the screen. And then I'm fine with just picking that one hospital that's within 30 miles of me for the procedure that I need. And that is really going to shift how benefits and compensation look today.
I'm not sure if I'm ready for it, but I know it's coming. And that doesn't mean everyone's gonna want it, but it goes back to a little bit of that short, medium, and long-term compensation strategies between bonus and profit share and our lifestyle spending account investment. I think the benefit structure is also going to change. There are going to be people who want traditional plans, and there are going to be people who have a desire to say, I'm okay having that plan that I can get on the phone through Teladoc, have a conversation, if I'm sent somewhere for follow-ups, I'm okay with that. And it's a completely different shift than many of us have been in for a very long time. And I think that that is coming, and I think it's coming really, really quickly.
Kelsey Willock Jones: I think I could certainly shift the theme of my podcast just to simply ask companies questions about the changes that are coming in healthcare, and it would be a very fruitful conversation, because there's just so much change happening there. But I think you've hit the nail on the head there.
But I will be cognizant of your time. I actually promised last question is, do you have any things that you'd like to leave our audience with? I know that in the beginning, before we had kicked off our conversation, we were talking a lot about the human. So I wanted to give you an opportunity to share a bit more about that.
Lisa Jacobi: Yes. You know, you can't go a couple of days and not see an article about an organization changing their business footprint from automation and AI, to companies taking a completely different direction on their business and what they're investing in, which I think is awesome. I think we're going through a really unique phase. We've been here before in history. This one certainly, from a speed, is at an entirely different direction.
But I think what's funny, not funny, but almost ironic, is the tools, the skills today that you continue to hear that people believe are the skills of the future, come down to the human, right? So take one second to do a search on what does the future of work look like in 2030? What are the top skills somebody needs? And it's curiosity, it's natural curiosity, it's critical thinking skills, it's the ability to think outside the box, its ability to try something new and be okay at failing at it.
And I think about those statements, and I think about what our business needs over these next few years ahead, and that's exactly what we need. And so a couple of years ago, I might have said, well, for this particular department, or for this particular executive running this department, they need these types of experience. But it's shifted, and I think that's where skills-based hiring is coming in at. It's not so much need to have five years of experience. It's more like, do you have the ability to learn the skill, or do you have the skill, which is different than experience?
And I think that human element is really big. Some of the work that we're trying to do here, especially with AI coming into our business, is not only people will say, the human's always in the loop, and really reframing that to being, the human will be in the lead. And it's a small change, but I think a powerful one. In our business, anybody could get the technology anywhere. It's the people behind that tech that really is supporting our banks and credit unions.
And I think the beautiful thing is, from our CEO down, our whole leadership team here and our board understands that, that it's really important to have that human connection. And so when you really think about some of these changes with AI, with automation, the critical skills of the future really do come back to the human, which is really a powerful thing.
Kelsey Willock Jones: Well, Lisa, thank you so much for all of the knowledge that you've shared and the conversation today. I've learned so much from you and I wish that we could continue this conversation for far longer. It's been a joy speaking with you. Where can our listeners connect with you beyond this conversation?
Lisa Jacobi: Well, probably through LinkedIn is probably the best way. But I think that would be it.
Kelsey Willock Jones: Great. Well, I hope you have a wonderful rest of your week and thank you so much again for joining us.
Lisa Jacobi: Thank you, Kelsey. Talk to you soon.
Kelsey Willock Jones: Talk to you soon.