Subscribe
Share
Share
Embed
Work and family aren’t two separate lives—they’re one reality. Welcome to Parenting at Work, the podcast exploring the human side of business. Join us for a warm conversation with leaders redefining employee support. Each episode offers stories and strategies for building workplaces that care. This is serious coverage with serious heart.
This podcast is brought to you by Juno, the modern safety net for working families.
Learn more at junokids.com
lindseytoppingschuetz-2026-6-12__13-6-46-CFR
===
Ken GUEST: [00:00:00] We change the world one person at a time." One interaction, one help, particularly in a role in HR. That's how we leave a, positive imprint. You mentioned about teaching at World at Work. I had somebody bump into me, recently, and oh my gosh I'm, I don't know, director, maybe even VP of Total Rewards, whatever. Just, "I took a class from you so many years ago," and I started thinking about it, and I probably taught for 1,000 different students over the years, and it's great to know that they're all over the place doing whatever they've done, and I'm hoping I had a very small, impact on their growth.
Lindsey HOST: Hello, everyone, and welcome to Parenting at Work. I am excited today to bring you Ken Wechsler. Ken is the VP of Global Total Rewards at Akamai Technologies, where he oversees compensation, benefits, and rewards strategy for a global workforce of nearly 10,000 employees. Before Akamai, he built the first integrated total rewards function at DraftKings, and before that, spent [00:01:00] some years as a partner at Aon Radford, advising boards and compensation committees on executive pay.
Ken is also one of the longer-tenured faculty members at World at Work, where he has been teaching compensation and HR professionals since 1997. So when he talks about what companies owe their employees, he is speaking from every side of the table. Ken, welcome to Parenting at Work. I'm really glad to have you here.
Ken GUEST: Lindsey, thank you. It's great to be here. I'm enjoying I'm looking forward to our conversation. It's a nice way to spend a Friday afternoon, frankly, talking an important topic as parenting
Lindsey HOST: Yeah, I couldn't agree with you more. So we will jump right in. I want to learn more about your philosophy and approach to total rewards and employee value. So you have spent your career designing compensation and benefits from inside at the companies as a consultant, in the classroom. When you sit down to build total reward strategy, where does [00:02:00] supporting families actually land on the priority list?
And is it a core strategic assumption, or is it still something you have to fight for?
Ken GUEST: That is a great question, and I guess it depends on the company. I would say with the background you gave and my experience, we have evolved a lot to where you used to have to fight for it now. And for better or worse, I think the pandemic helped us not have to fight for it near as much. If I may give me like a minute's background about Akamai and part of the reason this comes into play. We're a company that many of you may not have heard of. We help run the internet. You use us on TikTok, banking apps, et cetera, et cetera. We help move content like the big guys like Amazon and others. When we all went remote, the companies decided to not come back to the office. Running the internet, you can do it from any laptop anywhere in the world, and we have a great distributed network. And bringing it back to the topic of total rewards, one of the things we've learned as a result of the pandemic is it makes it easier to integrate life. We've always heard [00:03:00] work-life balance, and we're really into integration. And it's one of the things, Lindsey, that I think has given us a really big competitive difference, and particularly for those who have young families, older families or dealing with parents.
We have a lot of folks in India where the parents live in the house and being able to maybe step away for a half an hour, we think is a huge competitive difference
Lindsey HOST: Yeah, absolutely. There's so many good things that have come, I think, from the other side of COVID and really just shaking up the workforce, how we value, how we view things. And, younger generations, they want different things. So I think all that became very obvious in the last few years post-COVID
Ken GUEST: I have a 29 and a 26-year-old daughter, and I'm hearing it right from the, the young workforce generation, how can we, what can we, why? It's good they're questioning, and they have the ability to ask good questions now, and so we are reshaping the workforce. Indeed, again, focusing on families, and that's one of our core values
Lindsey HOST: That is wonderful. [00:04:00] So you have said publicly that you're in a constant battle with finance when it comes to rewards budgets. What is the argument you make for family-focused benefits when you get pushback from a CFO?
Ken GUEST: I'm more than happy because, running a publicly traded company, whether it's our size to the big ones, to small ones or private companies you're trying to blend meeting the bottom line for shareholders if you're public. Of course, if you're private, you still have some shareholders in your own, which may be your own employees. But yeah we really try to blend everything and understanding like, for example, we recently added Carrot a couple years ago. Our finance folks there always look at one simple metric, but people aren't leaving.
People aren't leaving. Employer brand of the fact that we do this may attract another group of people, another, a different group of people. Reputation is so important. And to what you said, Lindsey, I think there's a lot of folks in the younger generation that like knowing the company is thinking about things, whether they're doing it or not, whether it's their own need. The fact that [00:05:00] if we offered a better adoption program, as an example, that helps some people, and 99% of your employees never touch it, but it makes them feel good that their employer does those things. So yeah, we've we have a great relationship, us and finance, because we never get everything we want, but they also give and take with us to make sure we keep slowly enhancing our, our total rewards programs.
Lindsey HOST: It sounds like a dance that you get to keep practicing.
Ken GUEST: I get a new pair of shoes every year
Lindsey HOST: There you go. Absolutely. Absolutely. So you have built total rewards functions at very different companies. A Boston-based tech infrastructure giant and a high-growth sports betting startup.
Did the appetite for family-focused benefits look different at DraftKings versus Okami?
What does company culture actually have to do with what ends up in the benefits package?
Ken GUEST: So while, and I'm just guessing, the difference in average age probably between us at Akamai versus DraftKings, eight to 10 years, [00:06:00] probably we're a lot older on the average. The appetite was still pretty similar, and I think that's because the culture of so many companies now, we have ERGs, employee resource groups, DraftKings did, that are promoting a variety of lifestyles, and helping promote the good of all employees, and what we use here at Dra- or excuse me, Akamai, we talk about emplo- meeting employees where they are. Whether they are, where I have grown adults children, and actually a couple stepsons, but we're also dealing with elder care issues now and help, so we have care.com help-helping us with issues like that. So I when I talk to most of my colleagues, I think the appetite is pretty similar now.
It's become, I don't know if I'd say table stakes, but taking care of your families. If people are worried about their families, that distracts them from their work. You want them to be able to... we all work to live, right? And so if I can take care of my family, plan for college, on and on then I'm probably more productive in my work hours
Lindsey HOST: Yeah, absolutely. People are balancing [00:07:00] so many things, and I feel like with the way technology works, it's really hard to just turn it off. So the, that the whole idea of parenting at work is that we are doing all of the things all of the time. And so to your point, if people feel that they can take care of their families in such a variety of ways, it really allows for folks to just focus for a moment on, where they're at and be present.
And, I think that can't be understated enough, the importance of that.
Ken GUEST: Yep, agreed
Lindsey HOST: you have also taught World at Work courses for nearly 30 years. When you're teaching compensation professionals, what's the gap you most often see between what companies offer and what employees actually need?
Ken GUEST: Ooh, that is actually a really good question. The gap between what is offered and what they need. Now you're gonna get me starting to go to chapter one of Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs and, yeah, I that's a good one, Lindsey, 'cause in... depends on the country, [00:08:00] right?
In the US a lot of things, we are paid better overall. I know in other countries, we have folks in India, we have folks in Poland, Costa Rica, Israel. Israel, it's a whole different issue now with, like we've double, tripled down on mental health because bringing it, again, back to families, when you're raising kids having to go to bomb shelters, and by the way, just for your knowledge, I actually have had a daughter who's lived there the last three years, so I personally understand the concern about, you're worried about your kids. Just, is something gonna happen? And, so we focus on that. So I guess getting back to your question about gap probably I think as we've evolved from everybody offers healthcare, dental, I think the gap still might be in the need for mental health, maybe not recognizing, and I'm gonna bring it back to what you and I started talking about, the families, the kids. Even hearing things now about ketamine therapies, which is a new term to me. I hadn't even heard about it until recently. It's like this will help the kids relax and get off the stigma of mental health is bad. Let them relax [00:09:00] so they can get it out and address it. So probably I'd have to say the more higher, newer, innovative things like that are probably some of the gaps. I will, say that I, some of the things even my predecessors and my team have done, my benefit leaders have been here longer than me, we started introducing other things that now put us a little ahead. We have a whole bunch of mental health first aiders. We have 100 people across the world who, if I'm in Poland and I'm eh, I'll, I can call that person who will be a resource to say, "Here's where you can get it."
So apologies, I think I talked a little long but that's a question I can go on with for a long time,
Lindsey HOST: That's what I'm hoping you do. We want to hear from you. This is wonderful. You mentioned a bit about your daughter and that this is a real-life thing that you are walking through right now, and that ties me to my next question that I have for you. I think as parenting at work, right?
We are all doing that, whether our children are in their 20s or 30s or, we're talking about my nine-year-old [00:10:00] son. And I think for most of us, there's a moment where things these different worlds collide. So my question for you is I would like for you to share one of those moments, those stories, whether it's something recent where it could be involving what you just shared with your daughter or you mentioned you not only have daughters but stepsons.
You've navigated what a lot of working parents are navigating. Was there a moment in your career where these things couldn't coexist so easily, and how you thought about this professionally?
Ken GUEST: Yeah. I, so this will go back probably 25 years to my first corporate job. The general theme was an employee and his spouse were trying to have a child. Something had gone wrong. One-- I don't remember all the details. What I do remember is they were approved for in vitro or, one of those, whichever procedure it was.
By the way, my first daughter was an in vitro kid, so I'm happy to share all this. This is very close to my heart. Long story short, something happened with the insurance, and everything was ready to go [00:11:00] like the next day, and something was put on pause. And they were so ready, and they'd planned. Fortunately, I was lucky. Just some paperwork had gotten messed up. The insurance provider was in the town I lived in. I went there. We got it cleared up. 25 years ago, it wasn't as easy on the machines, right? So zipped over, got it cleared up, procedure went, everything went well, got pregnant, had a child, and about a year later, I saw the gentleman from our office, and he hugged me at a meeting and just started crying. And that was probably the first moment where I realized... Now, I'm a c- I'm more of a compensation guy. I grew up in the world of comp. How important the benefits. It really reminded me that all of this is so important to everybody. And I actually tell people I f- you'd forgotten, I'd forgotten about that story, Lindsey, but it reminded me how really, truly genuine, we're about our families, and again, I said I got the pleasure of going to India a few years ago and meeting our colleagues and meeting. They're all so proud to talk about this or that or this about their family. That's what we work for, what we live for. And then they told me about the traffic and how bad it was and, but anyway. [00:12:00] Yeah that probably is one of the big moments that still resonates with me 'cause when you asked it, I, it, that's what popped up first thing.
Lindsey HOST: So after experiencing these moments, you were able, it sounds like in that particular situation, to pretty quickly find a resolution. It just it worked out. And not for lack of your effort, of course, but it worked out. Are there moments like that you've had, through the perspective of other employees that have come to you or in your own personal parenting journey where you have changed, policy, you have changed the way you're doing things in your company because of the experience that you have had, either again, through a parenting moment you got to share with an em- an employee or for your own family?
Ken GUEST: Gosh I can very quickly think of three things. I, literally at DraftKings, there were some folks in an ERG who were talking about women wanting to do, embryo freezing. We hadn't had that. We figured out how to get that added, that [00:13:00] we thought was real important, and there was enough of an interest. Adoption, I mentioned, I think, adoption earlier. I think adoption is one of the benefits where it's always un- so underutilized, and I forget the amount. Most companies do something like a $10,000 stipend to help. I think we went to 25. I was like, "We have one or two people a year." And to be able to sit there and say, "We're thinking about even folks who they're gonna adopt." And this actually goes back to an experience where someone was from Brazil who said, "We're not gonna have kids. I've seen too much poverty in Brazil. I'm adopting. I'm bringing a kid over from Brazil." Kids come over from India, in other words. So that- that's number two, and now I forgot about number three.
Lindsey HOST: If it comes back to you, you have to tell me so we can loop back
Ken GUEST: Yeah. Yeah. I think it might have just been the whole thing with Carrot here. Knowing a few folks. I am lucky that I have a group of 20 in my rewards team, for which I think in the last two years we've had five children. It just, a lot of folks enjoying, and one at least for sure has gone through the Carrot [00:14:00] program.
That, that's the joy. Or one of the joys I should say. Yeah.
Lindsey HOST: Yeah. How do you stay ahead of what it is that people want? Like some of these things, you're sharing what's already in place. How do you and your team connect with those that are all over the world, that are in, faraway spaces from where you all are at behind their computer screens?
How are you figuring out where the need is and how to bridge that gap?
Ken GUEST: I think it's a multifaceted I won't say approach, a result of what we have. We've got a great DEI team who does a quarterly pulse survey. They bring results to us. Of course, we've got great HR business partners. Fortunately, we have a culture where employees are not shy about speaking up.
And of course my team, i've got my twenty are India, Costa Rica, Israel, all around the globe in our major centers. So we hear things. So keeping that ear open. I think the hardest part, and [00:15:00] I'm gonna guess all of you listening are gonna start nodding your heads, can't keep up with everything your employees want.
It's... and you have to at a certain point, Lindsey, going back to your comment about financing, where is the best investment that can touch the most? Now, I mentioned adoption. The investment is so small to touch a few people, it's well worth it. And I have, I frankly have to put a big thumbs up and cheer to my team 'cause they do a lot of listening, right?
The last couple months, all of-- everybody on my leadership team has gone to a different conference, whether it's sponsored by one of our brokers or consulting partners, and I purposely do that, talking to peers. My head of wellness, I've been getting her out, so she's speaking and she learns and hears. I've done a couple of speaking engagements and just by listening and we keep a running tab, particularly on the benefits side, we keep a running tab. It's okay, is this more important now in Germany? Is this more important in this... so we keep evolving.
We're never there, per se, but, we get good scores. We're able to track. We get very good engagement scores from our [00:16:00] employees, so that tells us we're doing pretty good
Lindsey HOST: You sound very open and you have been very transparent just even in this brief conversation. So I imagine that your team gets to also feel and experience that. And when I talk to people who are experiencing right now, like the thick of kind of that sandwich generation where they're parenting and maybe they're taking care of other family members as well.
One of the things that I think comes up so frequently is that it's in the conversations that the magic is happening far more than, a lot of the surveys, which are important and have value. But I do, I think that having those opportunities to connect with people and to be able to elevate people's stories, because I do think that while we have to always be mindful of the numbers, I think that the way that we can help push stories and push change is by making it personal.
It's by having that employee or that group of employees or that entire country that [00:17:00] needs the support, whatever it may be. It sounds like you, you're very aware of that and really working hard to make sure that happens.
Ken GUEST: Lindsey, in lots of training over the years from when I was younger in my career, I still remember one particular gentleman who he also had a line that resonated with me. He's "We're not all world leaders of this or this. We change the world one person at a time." One interaction, one help, particularly in a role in HR. That's how we leave a, positive imprint. You mentioned about teaching at World at Work. I had somebody bump into me, recently, and oh my gosh I'm, I don't know, director, maybe even VP of Total Rewards, whatever. Just, "I took a class from you so many years ago," and I started thinking about it, and I probably taught for 1,000 different students over the years, and it's great to know that they're all over the place doing whatever they've done, and I'm hoping I had a very small, impact on their growth. And yeah, one at a time, that is a philosophy, and I remind my team, the impact we have
Lindsey HOST: Yeah, I still remember the person that was in charge of people development at the place I was [00:18:00] working when I had my son. And because of his medical complexity, it was pretty clear I wasn't gonna get to go back to work. And the conversations that they had with me to support me in making those big life choices I will always hold gratitude for those people.
So your point of one at a time and people looking back with gratitude and remembering the lessons that you taught or the way, we say it's the way you make people feel, which may sound sort of cheesy, but it really is the case. And I think, that, that philosophy that you hold of one person at a time, that shared philosophy, I think is-- it's very powerful, and I think it feels more realistic.
Anybody can think of if I have to do it one time, one person right now, it feels like a lighter load. It feels more accessible, and I think that's important. ~When ~
Ken GUEST: ~I would say ~
Lindsey HOST: ~were... Oh, go ahead, sorry.~
Ken GUEST: you, you triggered one more thing, and then I'll let you get
Lindsey HOST: Yes,
Ken GUEST: question. We, It just reminded me, the leadership. Those of us in the world of HR or HR people focus on people, and most of the leaders at the top I've met over the years [00:19:00] now are really people-oriented.
We had a situation recently where somebody lost a child at birth, and we went and looked at our bereavement policy. I'm trying to put it in this way. Two days. I'm like, "What?" And I just told my boss, I said, "By the way, this person is not coming back until they're ready, and we're paying them full pay. I don't care if it takes six months." He looked at me, he said, "Of course. Why are you even asking me?" And I went, "'Cause our bereavement policy says two days." He went, "What?" But having leadership support on that and knowing that, something that serious we have to deal with, you do. And, we're lucky we have a founder CEO who is very people-oriented.
He travels the world just to be with people and hear about the stories, and I hope most leaders in the big companies are doing that too. I really do think they, 'Cause I couldn't stay at a company like that. And, that's... Fortunately, I've been lucky enough that everywhere I've been, I've had good leaders who know it's their team. They're people that create whatever they're creating
Lindsey HOST: Yeah, I appreciate that you had the courage to, to speak up and say something. I think something [00:20:00] that sometimes companies maybe don't as quickly see is just because you don't hear about it a lot doesn't mean it's not happening. And so when it does get flagged, taking that moment to decide we're gonna do this different, we're gonna look at it at least, we aren't gonna just let this pass by that really is meaningful.
And I think that's something that builds a culture that thrives and helps employees to feel really seen. I think it's really important. So
Ken GUEST: I appreciate you said, have, had the guts or whatever you said. I knew my
boss was gonna say yes. Thank you. I honestly, because I knew him well enough it was about this much courage. I knew he wasn't even gonna blink. But again,
Lindsey HOST: I'm gonna give you all
the credit.
Ken GUEST: okay I'll
Lindsey HOST: you
get courage points. Yeah, absolutely. So one thing that we found when I was kinda doing a little background on you was that you have talked a bit about AI, and I would love, if you're open to it, maybe sharing with me how you see AI and the role they play, [00:21:00] and how you are looking at benefits, if any, or how that may be changing things.
Could be, again, how you're using it or maybe how you think it's changing the experience for parenting, folks at work. I'll let you decide how you wanna drive that question.
Ken GUEST: Yeah. We are still embryonic in it, but we are really focused. I actually have my team, we're doing a whole initiative. We're starting weekly check-ins on learn from each other who's doing what. I'm hoping that the first thing we're gonna do with our, human capital system, our HRIS, is get an agent in there that just makes it much easier for people to find the information they need. Just as simple as that. I would love to say we've got the most perfect intranet, and it's so easy to find information. It's not. And so if somebody's "I am interested in da, da, da, da, da," related to, you know, family. Oh, they find Carrot. "I need some help with mental health," they find Lyra. "I'm thinking of adopting," they find that.
That's probably the very simplest level, first level, where we [00:22:00] understand we will have agents very soon. So an employee can verbally ask the question, "I'm thinking about having this," or I will tell another thing we did. We realized families are stressed with having kids, planning for college, and they're not putting enough into their 401(k).
So the SECURE 2.0 regulation allows us to match if they're paying... If they personally are still paying off student loans, that we do a match to their 401(k), so they're not worried about their future, and down the road they'll feel that. But back to AI it's gonna be an interesting road. We are not far along on the journey.
Bots are gonna help us at least understand what we have as the first thing. Now you've given me an idea, 'cause we just introduced total reward statements, and I'm now thinking for next year when we do it, we can have the bot talk to you about it. Have the bot, have the agent. Hey Lindsey, here's... Did you notice this? Did you notice this? Do you know we have this?" Thing. Thank you. I'll take that as a takeaway.
Lindsey HOST: Yeah. We are here to help you think of all the good creative ideas. We're not just taking information from you. We want to help.[00:23:00]
Ken GUEST: Thank you.
Lindsey HOST: We're getting to a part in the show that is my favorite, where I get to ask people that have positions such as yourself what is your words of wisdom?
As I've mentioned, you are one of the people who literally decides what goes into benefits packages. What's the one thing you would challenge your peers to do differently when it comes to supporting working parents? Something that does not require a massive budget, just a different way of thinking about it.
Ken GUEST: Ooh, that is a very good question. A different way without the budget, 'cause the budget's the easy one. Make sure they know that whatever you have for them that you're offering, that it is there, make sure they're aware. I think if nothing else, over all my years, I've learned that many employees don't understand the value of what they have 'cause they just don't know they have it. And whether it is, that first six months, I... first year, I kinda call it a pendulum. Things are so happy, and then you're exhausted, and you're happy, and you're [00:24:00] exhausted. Again, knowing if they need just a little mental health just to tell 'em, or if there's a parent support group. Here's...
If you don't have ERGs and you don't have a parent family support group where new parents can get in there and go, "Oh my gosh nobody told me it was gonna be this hard. I love my child, but they're killing me right now." You My second one instantly started sleeping until about two months old. And she went the other way like, "Oh my gosh, up every night." Yeah, probably and as I think that through, Lindsey, an ERG, if you don't have the ability for, I don't wanna call it a support group, but it's a support group of everybody going through the same thing. No different than I was saying we're gonna learn AI together, learn parenting together, so that, that didn't cost anything. Time.
Lindsey HOST: Yeah.
Ken GUEST: Time and a leader, so
Lindsey HOST: Thank you. I think one of my takeaways in having this conversation with you is your authenticity. Again we talk about the ability to storytell, the ability to make every person in the room feel like their voice matters. In [00:25:00] speaking with you, there hasn't been one moment where it felt like you-- this is the leader and there was like some sort of pedestal situation happening.
You are very real, and I think that is something that folks in positions like yours should strive for. I think it makes it so people feel safe in their workplace, knowing that people that are helping to make these decisions that have such a huge impact are going to be there and be human to be real with them.
I think that's a real gift that you have
Ken GUEST: Thank you. It's it's who we should be in these roles, right? We have-- And I literally tell my people, and one of the reasons I'm not at a bigger company, I probably could have if I wanted, but I'm trying to do this in this little screen. We can put our arms around 25,000 people. It's a big group, but between employees, kids, parents, in the cases I mentioned, in some countries where we cover that, i-it's big enough to be re-real, but still small enough to where if somebody calls with an issue we need to be [00:26:00] able to help. We have typical channels. People put in tickets when they have issues with this little, something. But when it gets real and it's like now, we need to step up to that. As I mentioned to our colleagues in Israel who are still working hard but have huge issues to deal with. But that doesn't mean something doesn't happen in a city like New York and something happens in a, i-in any given moment or anywhere else in the world. So yeah, we it's funny, Lindsey, one, one of the other things, you and I were talking previously, and one of my l-leadership philosophies is the only time I'll get mad with somebody is when they don't tell me their honest opinion. I have one of my leaders, and i-if she was gonna hear this, she'd laugh 'cause she told me something. I said, "No, you're wrong. We gotta do it this way." She suggested something again. This was actually in the world of comp. And I said no, we're doing it this way." She came back a third time, and I don't know how she said it differently, and I went, "Huh, you're right.
That makes sense." And as a leader, if, listen to your team. Yes, I can make a decision. Certain things my boss makes the [00:27:00] decision, but you gotta listen to everybody 'cause sometimes people who are closer s- to the situation really understand it better,
Lindsey HOST: yeah, it's that one person at a time, whether it's the person you're listening to or helping to serve, it's that one person at a time. So how can folks connect with you after this if they would like to reach out, stay in touch? Where can they find you?
Ken GUEST: LinkedIn is the easiest place.
I don't know if you're allowed to, put emails. It's literally, it's my name, just K Wexler, but without the R, so you can see it, @akamai.com.
Feel free to drop me a note. There's a handful of us who are on peer groups. We help each other and always happy. I did something recently and somebody from another company said, "You guys did something really different. Can I talk to you?" I'm proud that we did something that was respected by a peer, that a peer thought it was worthy enough to talk to us about.
So yeah happy to have anybody reach out anytime.
Lindsey HOST: Thank you. I appreciate that. It makes the world feel just a little more cozy and small when we can all find ways to connect like this. [00:28:00] So thank you for that. Thank you for your time today and this lovely conversation. Yeah, and
Ken GUEST: Thank you for asking lots of great questions and for leading this group that's so important, right? Par-parenting is one of the many great joys of life, even if it's a little more of a challenge, right? You know.
Lindsey HOST: Builds character. I think we can all agree that it builds some character, so
Ken GUEST: Yeah. Yeah
Lindsey HOST: Ken, thank you so much, and thank you for listening today. Now let's get back to work
Ken GUEST: Let's do it. Thank you, Lindsey
[00:29:00]