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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 - Robert Lazenby
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Hi everyone, and welcome to Beyond the Paycheck, where we bring you candid conversations with CHROs and people leaders who are rethinking how compensation and benefits impact far 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.
This podcast is presented by Aura Finance, a psychology-based financial wellness employee benefit that combines coaching and financial management. Now, let's get started and jump in with our next guest
Kelsey Willock Jones: Welcome, Bob Lazenby, Senior Director of Total Rewards at Hays. We're so excited to have you this week. Thanks for joining us. To kick us off, I'd love for you to introduce yourself to our audience, sharing a bit more about your career and background and current role, as well as where you're calling in from today.
Robert Lazenby: Hi, Kelsey. Thanks [00:01:00] for having me. I'm glad to be here. My career started off in frontline sales, actually, and I was in the telecom industry selling cell phones for a long time, and I got to the point where I didn't wanna work weekends anymore. I didn't wanna work nights anymore. And I went back to school a little later in life than what a lot of people might do, and had a very specific major in mind for accounting and was fortunate enough to work at a great telecom company, and I was able to move into the accounting department.
And I spent a couple of years there, and through networking and some projects that we worked on, I met the leader of our sales compensation team. And having been in frontline sales and been in accounting sales compensation was such a great next step for me. Also one that a lot of people don't realize even exists when you're in college.
There's no major for sales compensation, and so I felt backwards into it. I think a lot of people [00:02:00] that come up in that space do. So I was really excited to spend a good chunk of time there. Then I was able to broaden my scope into total compensation and then eventually total rewards.
And so today I'm the senior director of total rewards at Hays, a global staffing and recruitment firm, and I am based in New Smyrna Beach, Florida.
Kelsey Willock Jones: We're so excited to have you, and I have so many follow-up questions learning more about all of your incredible background. But before we get there, I wanna take a step back and learn a little bit more about you personally. So if you'll indulge me, tell me a little bit about your first job ever and what you spent your first paycheck on.
Robert Lazenby: Yeah. So my first job that I got a paycheck from was at a tree farm and landscaping company. And so we supported landscape installation, ground maintenance. It put a lot of bark on trees and watered a lot of plants. I was probably around 15 years old at the time, and so I was focused on getting a car [00:03:00] and, independence that came with it.
And so my parents made me a pretty cool deal at the time, and so they got me my first car, but I had to pay for the gas and the insurance. So I was saving money to pay for that insurance bill
Kelsey Willock Jones: Quite a mature first expense that a 15-year-old needs to make, but I'm sure that taught you many good values as you grew up. How do you think your money story, whether it's your first job, how you spent that money and beyond, has influenced how you think about pay and benefits and showing up for your people in general?
Robert Lazenby: Yeah. So having worked in frontline sales for a long time, I have a lot of empathy for our sales teams and for those out there on revenue generation teams. And when I got into accounting, I was based in Chicago. I had asked for a salary of forty-five thousand dollars a year. The company actually offered me forty-seven thousand dollars a year.
I thought I was doing really great until I moved from a small Midwestern town into the big city of Chicago, and [00:04:00] I realized that it was hard to afford an apartment on that salary. And I thought I was starting in such a great place. The reality is that it was a higher cost of living area to be in, and that has really shaped how I show up for our employees.
And people experience pay very personally. And so I think the, the philosophy that I use today is starting with a smile. And what that looks like to me is if a candidate says they're looking for seventy-two thousand dollars for a job and the job supports that number, I would prefer to offer the candidate what they asked for.
~I-- ~I've seen a lot of leaders that will wanna offer seventy thousand dollars and they'll say, "Hey, great, we've saved two thousand dollars." And yes, you have on paper, but you've also created some resentment with the candidate before they even start. And so my philosophy is start them with a smile.
Let's all be in a good place on day one and grow from there.
Kelsey Willock Jones: I love that, and it's, it doesn't just take the look at, numerical where, is this person within the bounds of [00:05:00] compensation, a comparison within our industry? It's, do they feel good about the role? And that equally matters as much as the pay transparency of, where that aligns with, the competitive landscape.
It brings a higher level of that empathy that we've been talking about into the conversation. One of the things that we're seeing in a lot of companies right now is supporting the whole person, whether that is their physical wellbeing, their mental, their financial. Can you tell me a little bit about the work that you're doing specifically at Hays to support the whole person, and where maybe you see companies falling short of this?
Robert Lazenby: Yeah, this is one that I'm gonna go a little different direction than a lot of big corporations do. And so I think when you hear about supporting the whole employee, we often think about compensation, healthcare, retirement plans. I think about flexibility. I think that's become one of the most valuable benefits an organization can offer.
Hybrid and remote work options give [00:06:00] employees something that ~we can't-- we--~ more money won't solve it, which is more capacity in their lives. The other thing that's powerful about flexibility, it creates value without adding additional cost. And so if I can work remote or hybrid and be home three days a week, maybe I can take kids to the bus stop, or maybe I can make a doctor's appointment that I might have had to use PTO for, but now it's only a lunch break.
And there's no cost to ~the benef- to~ the business, so I think that's really important. The other thing is it also opens up a bigger talent pool. So I no longer am looking for the best talent in my city. I can now look for the best talent across the country, across the region, across the time zone, wherever we're looking to fill that role.
And so I think to me, supporting the whole employee means recognizing that wellbeing can be financial, professional, and personal, and having flexibility sits right at the intersection of all of those.
Kelsey Willock Jones: And how do you think about measuring the impact of, giving folks [00:07:00] flexibility? And not only how do you think about measuring impact, but how do you communicate that impact story up?
Robert Lazenby: Yeah, that can get a little tricky. We can be in the gray with some of that. I lead a professional team, and so we're all professionals here. ~We--~ we're on salary. We don't punch clocks, but we're project and deadline-oriented. And so that looks like to me, is a presentation or is an analysis file complete and ready to go, or am I having to rework it?
I once had a leader tell me that you wouldn't show up to the boardroom in your sweatshirt. And you can think about that same analogy across the quality of work that people are putting out. Are we still hitting deadlines? Is stuff coming in early with time to review it? Or are we scrambling at the last minute and ~we're, ~we're making adjustments like in the meeting live?
Kelsey Willock Jones: And how do you make the case for something when the spreadsheet might not obviously support it? This is a little bit different of a question given, when you were talking about flexibility, there [00:08:00] might not be a line item associated with it, but this question is directly associated with when that line item is involved.
Robert Lazenby: Yeah, there's a couple of things. The level of engagement, we can get more out of people. You're losing maybe a- an hour commute on each side of your day, and so maybe somebody's willing to work an extra hour of that time for you. The other big one on a line item can be real estate.
Offices and real estate are really expensive and at our organization, we've just gotten some different offices. My whole team is now remote, and so we were able to go from a really large office to a smaller office, and the organization was actually able to measure that on a line item
Kelsey Willock Jones: I love how you're thinking about a lot of these questions also beyond some of the obvious. I think that a lot of the time when I ask this question, it might be a specific vendor or a wellbeing program, but it's a great challenge to think about, what people get value out of might be beyond the obvious, such as, removing [00:09:00] their commute time, giving them time back with their families. Especially in a post-COVID world, we certainly know how valuable those things can be.
Robert Lazenby: Yes. There's just never enough time in the day to do all the things you want, and getting rid of... I used to commute an hour each way to work when I lived in Chicago, and when you think about that over the course of a week that's a whole extra day. That's 10 hours I spend in the car, which is, one extra day of working that I'm not having to do that.
And so that just adds value to my life, and then it becomes a personal choice, how do I wanna spend that time? What's important to me? And I think our employees and the individuals are the best ones to make that decision for themselves.
Kelsey Willock Jones: Can you tell me about an experiment that you ran in your benefits strategy that didn't necessarily go the way you expected and what you learned from it?
Robert Lazenby: ~This would be ~We launched a new program a benefit, and it was around wellbeing, and it was around breaks. And the intent was for employees to log off, take a seven-minute break [00:10:00] and recharge, maybe stretch, maybe do some breathwork. There were different courses you could follow. And we were excited, and we were reporting on it.
And unfortunately, what it turned into was, so and so took seven breaks last week, but now we don't think they're working as hard as they should be. And so it was great because we needed our employees to disconnect a little bit so that they could be more engaged. But we also couldn't just report on it because you think you wanna run a contest, you wanna give a gift card, you wanna recognize the person that took the most number of breaks.
But the perception then becomes that, Bob took 12 breaks, that's 75 minutes of time that he wasn't working, so we don't wanna reward Bob for taking time off. And it was unfortunate. It was just an unintended consequence of what was really a good program.
Kelsey Willock Jones: And good to know that, sometimes if you try something, it doesn't necessarily pan out the way you expected. At least ~y-~ you learned that lesson from it How are you staying current on what's working and new [00:11:00] innovation these days? There's certainly so much change happening in the world of human resources. Even, human and non-human resources you could say and argue these days. Are there specific conferences, peer groups, newsletters that, you're digesting that you're keeping pace and learning about all the new innovations going on?
Robert Lazenby: Yeah it's really hard to keep up. There are so many things coming at once, and, compliance is the one that I probably pay the most attention to because there's real world issues if we don't keep up with that. And with compliance, we have a great partnership with our legal team. We have a great partnership with our payroll team.
We have some different briefs that we have daily subscriptions to that help keep you up to date. Some of our vendors, like the Secure 2.0 when that came out are-- We use UKG as our HRIS system, and they were great to help us implement the Secure 2.0. We, Fidelity is our partner [00:12:00] for the retirement program for our 401, and so they were great, making sure that we were compliant with all of that.
So it takes a partnership across different stakeholders in the organization to really keep up. More broadly than that working with some of my peers. I've got ~some,~ some friends and some colleagues that I stay in touch with. We talk about best practices. The vendors as well, our benefits broker and our health insurance provider keep us up to date on other ones.
And then my favorite is many of the organizations, they so many contacts I get from different groups wanting to tell us all about their great new products. And on some of those things, the, the work will just come to you.
Kelsey Willock Jones: So one thing we were talking about before the co- podcast started was a little bit of a financial wellbeing. Can you tell me how important financial wellbeing for employees is to the company and to yourself?
Robert Lazenby: Yeah, I think it's much more important a lot of people might realize particularly [00:13:00] financial stress, because that's ultimately a business issue disguised as a personal issue. It affects engagement, it affects productivity, it affects retention, it affects wellbeing. If we have employees that are worried about paying their bills or managing debt, that stress doesn't stay at home with them.
Kelsey Willock Jones: Right
Robert Lazenby: And so ~what, ~what we see is employees who feel more financially secure are better able to focus on their work, plan for their future, and engage in their careers. And I've actually got a story of one individual that had a healthcare bill that was stuck up on the refrigerator, and every day when they came home from work, they looked at that bill, and it created so much stress.
And it finally got to us, and we were able to work with the carrier and get that bill paid for him. And so my best feel-good stories always come out of benefits and where we can really help people the most. And so maybe it was a bill that, that the carrier initially [00:14:00] denied, but we were able to say, "Hey, this should have been covered."
Maybe it was a, a surgery that was miskeyed in and it was denied, but once we went back to the provider and they said, "Oh, we made a mistake," and they were able to update the code and get that surgery approved for somebody. And those are the parts of the job that really feel good and really help you know that you're making a difference.
Kelsey Willock Jones: I think it's such a great story too, 'cause it shows how connected healthcare and financial health are these days. One stat that, has always stuck out to me, ~my,~ my dad actually works in cancer care, and they have found that folks are more afraid to pass on debt to families than they are to die. And so there's so much pain that can come from stressing about something that's also impacting, your whole health, such as healthcare. And turning to your company to be able to help alleviate some of that stress, I imagine is just so impactful, even from the sense of, wow, my company actually does care about me. It's beyond just they give me healthcare [00:15:00] benefits. It's help- they help me navigate them. They help me get the most use out of them and answer the major questions that I have when things arise. Can you tell me a little bit about what the company offers in terms of, financial wellbeing beyond obviously the ease of access to those that work in human resources that can help them with things like healthcare bills?
Robert Lazenby: Yeah. The biggest thing that I'm trying to do now, so all your standard, your 401, your HSA your FSA. I think your HSA might be ~m-~ one of the most underutilized and least understood financial vehicles that exist particularly for younger workers. But what I'm working with on Fidelity right now is financial wellbeing and education.
And so we're contacting our colleagues. We've got different classes that they can go to. We've got different webinars that they can go to talk about, financial wellbeing driving people into saving more for retirement. There's auto-enrollment, there's easy [00:16:00] enrollment.
There's so many different ways that we can get people quickly and easily set up into saving for the future. And you've heard this before, but so much of it comes down to communication. Because so many times we think about benefits in November, we pick a plan, we adjust our savings amount, and then we don't think about it again until it becomes a real need.
And so it's like, "Oh, I don't remember what healthcare plan I have," until I get a bill or until I'm trying to figure out what my deductible is. It just goes to the back of your mind. And so we're trying to engage more with our colleagues, and part of what that looks like is having the vendors do it. Part of what that looks like is us, we have every period, we have a, a newsletter that goes out, and we have a benefits corner that's in there.
And May might be vision month, and November might be men's health month, or we have different months every year or every month. But we try to put ~a,~ a spotlight on it just to remind people, "Hey, this is out there." And the next evolution in [00:17:00] that for us will be to have an aggregated benefits hub where you can go and everything's all together in one spot.
Kelsey Willock Jones: Awesome. And my last question for you, Bob, is, tell me about a change or a shift that is happening in the world of benefits and compensation that you think most HR leaders aren't ready for.
Robert Lazenby: Yeah. I'm probably gonna come back to HSAs on that one because ~I,~ I think the shift that many leaders are underestimating is the growing importance of consumer-directed healthcare particularly the high deductible health plans paired with HSAs. And so as I think about the next five to 10 years, I think we're gonna see a greater emphasis on helping employees become ~health sa- ~healthcare savers and not just healthcare consumers.
So for years, the conversation has been focused on richer medical plans, lower out-of-pocket cost but at the same time, healthcare costs continue to rise for both employees and employers. And so that model is going to become increasingly difficult [00:18:00] to sustain. And so I'm not saying that the traditional healthcare plans are going to disappear, but I do think that they're gonna face increasing pressure as both employees and employers look to manage costs down the road.
So one of the benefits of those high deductible plans is that you can set up an HSA, and that can create long-term value when employees contribute early, invest, and let those balances compound
Kelsey Willock Jones: Going back to the financial literacy component though, and there's still a gap in, understanding the value of those tools, understanding the the decision-making, high deductible versus, you know, low. But I would be remiss if I didn't say that, healthcare rising isn't probably one of the, at least the top two things that I talk to folks about right now.
So you hit the nail on the head of something that is incredibly topical, unsustainable at what it's currently rising at I would argue. But [00:19:00] I think it's a great way that you had put it. And how do you actually think about folks being, healthcare savers a- and conduits to the savings that can, help support organizations?
Because ~I'm--~ I believe when you look at the breakdown of organizational costs, ~it's~ it's payroll and then it's healthcare, and then maybe it's sales spend and beyond. But that's a pretty large line item, so companies need to think about it differently.
Robert Lazenby: It's one of the biggest line items, yeah. And through education, and it'll be a slow shift, but, go out to the marketplace and look for a traditional plan for a family, y- you're upwards of $25,000 a year
Kelsey Willock Jones: It's crazy. And then last Bob. Is there any last thoughts that you'd like to leave with our listeners?
Robert Lazenby: Yeah, I think I would just remind people that, most of our colleagues and even some of us, we don't wake up thinking about compensation plans or benefit designs. We wake up thinking about paying our bills, taking care of our families, saving for the future, having peace of mind to focus on what matters.
And so if we can help our [00:20:00] employees feel a little more secure and a little more confident about those things, we've done something meaningful, and that's a lot bigger than a paycheck.
Kelsey Willock Jones: Thank you so much, Bob. I think we have our tag item for when we share this conversation, which I'm excited for everyone to tune into. I hope you have a wonderful rest of your week and thanks so much again for joining us.
Robert Lazenby: Great. Thanks, Kelsey