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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 - Ann Meyers Piccirillo
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Ann Meyers Piccirillo: [00:00:00] for anybody who's in HR, you get to see ~some--~ You have insights into people's lives that other people in the business don't. You know who is on social support. You know who is going through a divorce.
INTRO: 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, Anne Meyers Picariello, CHRO at [00:01:00] JDATSG. We're so excited to have you this week and joining us this summer afternoon. To kick us off, I'd love for you to introduce yourself to our audience, sharing a bit more about your career, your background, your current role, as well as where you're calling in from today.
Ann Meyers Piccirillo: Sure. It's wonderful to be here. Thank you so much, Kelsey, for having me. Again, my name is Anne Meyers Piccirillo. I'm based in New York City. I am the CHRO for a professional services company, JDA TSG, and I am currently responsible for a global staff that will, within the next few months, reach over 13,000 employees.
So very proud to say that when I first started here five years ago, we were hovering around the 100 mark. And so being able to grow a company to the size of this company and all that implies, which we'll get into, has been such fun and really a great privilege.
Kelsey Willock Jones: In such incredible growth. So I imagine you have many [00:02:00] learnings to share about growing pains of building personnel as well as the company, but really exciting and excited to dig deeper into that. Before we get there, though, I wanna learn a little bit more about your background. So tell me about your first job ever, and if you remember, what you did with your first paycheck.
Ann Meyers Piccirillo: Oh my gosh, yes. My first job ever was being forced to take over my brother's paper route. There was such a thing called newspapers that had to be delivered so I'm dating myself. And a part of delivering newspapers was collecting money from people who paid for their subscription, which was when I realized at the tender age of 10, sales was not for me, because people went to great lengths not to pay their~ their~ newspaper delivery girl the $2 a week, and they got ~cr-~ very creative with avoiding me.
But I do remember what I did with my first paycheck. I went and I bought [00:03:00] as much candy as I could afford with the money in my pocket. So that was what I did with my first paycheck. No regrets
Kelsey Willock Jones: And it brought you to a path of figuring out, what you don't like as well as I imagine what you do like about that kind of a role.
How do you- I would agree with that
How do you think this, beginning of your money story has impacted how you think about showing up for your people as, as well as thinking about paying and supporting them beyond?
Ann Meyers Piccirillo: Yeah. What I learned from that very first job experience was I liked money and I knew that I had to work for it. Depending on how I showed up to collect that paper route money was how people really ended up paying me. If I was creative and nice and, was able to schmooze them, they would open the door and pay me.
For those people who knew I was coming to collect and didn't want to, I had to work harder, and I learned how hard it was to work to get your money, and that if the door didn't open, you weren't getting [00:04:00] paid. And that translates now because throughout my HR career, and particularly now, I have so many people on staff who if you don't open ~f-~ a door for them, they don't get paid.
We hire lots of seasonal people. We have a very robust financial services line really around tax services, and so we hire a lot of people seasonally from January through April, as you can imagine. And not everybody's has their own accounting firm or CPA business and just picking up some side work.
Many of them, this is the only time of year that they can get work, and it's a lot of single moms, single dads, people who are struggling. And the paycheck to them is so important. And going back to that early experience, it's important for me to help open that door and make sure that they're paid and they're valued.
That's really how I approach money and people based on my own lived experience.
Kelsey Willock Jones: Jumping around on some of the questions on you, so apologies in advance, but how [00:05:00] important is financial health for employees to the company? It sounds providing accountants is quite going above and beyond the traditional just retirement plan. So again, how important is that to you and why is it so important to the company?
Ann Meyers Piccirillo: We provide these services for clients, right? But because they're seasonal hourly roles, it's important that, I know that this is a lifeline for many people, that this role is one that they want to return to year after year, and we want to encourage that, and we want to put programs in place to encourage it.
But I do get a chance to talk with so many people, and I know their life story. And for anybody who's in HR, you get to see ~some--~ You have insights into people's lives that other people in the business don't. You know who is on social support. You know who is going through a divorce.
You know who has healthcare issues. You're privy to very sensitive, highly confidential information. But I can't help but bring ~that, ~that [00:06:00] emotion and wanting to take care of people into everything I do and every person we serve. And so I really do think about the financial health our, of our employees and that's why when I think of benefits, right?
And benefits is a hot topic these days, healthcare particularly. It's quite expensive. It's expensive for employee contributions, and it's expensive for employers, and it just seems that those costs are increasing. But for people who work hourly, there's not opportunities to get healthcare, right?
Because they're only with the company for a certain amount of time. For our staff, seasonal, four months out of the year. But I really like to get creative and see what I can offer them. So that's what I'm working on now. What healthcare, what affordable healthcare is out there in the market that maybe is new or not fully explored that we can start offering people?
That's very important to me because I feel that's the one gap. We talk about paying people, but we also have to care for their health. I [00:07:00] think that's, for me that's an obligation. That's a social obligation that I strongly believe in, and so I'm constantly looking in that area to be able to provide support to all of our employees, regardless of their status as full-time or seasonal part-time.
Kelsey Willock Jones: Can you
share a bit more about what you're seeing working or what you're exploring? Because I think the topic that you're hitting on is certainly one that is affecting many of our listeners,
given the~ rising~ cost of healthcare or seasonal workers that might not be able to access it, but are, banging down doors demanding, given higher costs of things like COBRA.
So have you seen anything work?
Ann Meyers Piccirillo: Yeah~ I see-- I feel,~ I personally feel that telehealth hasn't been tapped enough, right? Because when I think of when people go to the doctor, they don't feel well, right? And often people go to the emergency room, and that's at a cost because they don't have a doctor or healthcare, right? But there are plans that are very affordable that includes a major [00:08:00] component is telehealth, so they can see a doctor virtually.
The doctor, to the best of their ability, can prescribe if they're ill. We'll use bronchitis or something that they can prescribe. It is an opportunity to talk to a healthcare provider and get, I'm gonna say relief or, just assistance and it's more than they would get without any opportunity to otherwise see a healthcare provider.
But then you have people who have, chronic healthcare issues and ongoing issues. So I think of it as a cafeteria plan, right? So ~i- so ~if I can build a plan, right? And working with a broker to say, "I wanna build a cafeteria plan," and this is early stages, but it is something I'm working on, and telehealth is an anchor of that plan.
What about people who have more chronic illnesses? Is there anything on market that we could see that might be something we can add to a plan and piece it together? So constantly looking, because I feel like there's so much [00:09:00] innovation going on. Innovation, automation, what about healthcare?
I feel like it's still very much modeled on an old system that perhaps doesn't exist in today's world, right? And you have your premium payment, your contributions. What if we could cherry-pick what we need and we want? And I can't not believe that we can't do that today. And so I'm working very hard with my team to see can we do that?
Can we effectuate that for those people who don't have ~ac-access~ to healthcare because they're not a full-time employee and not eligible for full-time benefits?
Kelsey Willock Jones: I'm curious if some of the solutions like the Sword Healths of the world, the Omadas, ones
that are focused on maybe chronic pain, MSK, et cetera, is that the kind of angle that you're looking toward or is it something else?
Ann Meyers Piccirillo: No, that's a big part of it. It is really looking at what's available and what there is what's out there that has been somehow tested, right? That there is some feedback about the [00:10:00] product. It's very early stages, but I think that ~there are so many things being, ~there's so many things that are ~on market that are new,~ in market that are new. And it's just finding which ones would be best for our employee base and which ones are, I'll use the word validated, but which ones have been around enough length of time to be able to provide some measure of success in what they're offering.
So again, some of it is risk-taking, right? And who has an appetite for risk in some of the new products or the new offerings that are coming out there. So we're just really in our due diligence stage right now because my focus had been on our general healthcare plan, our medical plan. What does that package look like, and how can we keep adding to that to offer employees more than just a standard plan, right?
What's important to employees? Pet insurance is very important to employees building a plan around that. Life insurance, outside of what companies generally offer, but a bigger, better, more ~robo- ~[00:11:00] robust life insurance plan is very important to many people. And this is, ~fr- ~based on feedback that I've received from employees when we've cast our net of questions to say, "What would you like to see offered that we don't currently have?"
Grandparent leave was a very... I got that feedback because our demographics we're not heavily, We don't have big entry-level population. Our population is very tenured, so maybe maternity leave and parental leave isn't something that would be used or utilized within our organization as much as grandparent leave.
So we just offered that, and that has been wildly successful. Adoption leave, but even when it comes, we celebrate people who adopt pets, so just finding, meeting people where they are and what's important to them. When we think of benefits, yes, healthcare is always central to that, but what else in our employees' lives can we support through something we can offer that's affordable and something that they'll utilize?
Kelsey Willock Jones: You hit on a really important [00:12:00] topic, which is nothing is going to be for everyone. how do you think about solutions such as, perhaps a family that doesn't choose to have children, but, deeply cares about their fur babies and making sure that they feel equally as special those that get access to, to childcare, for instance? One of the things you also brought up was this kind of, , battle between focus on innovation, but also making sure that there's proof in the pudding, ROI. How do you think about making the case for investment in certain things when the spreadsheet doesn't necessarily obviously support it?
Ann Meyers Piccirillo: I think people look at ROI very narrowly, right? There is, for me, quantitative ROI, which is what the CFO and the CEO are always going to look at, and I always look at, and it is a critical metric. But then there's also the strategic ROI, right? And that's something that maybe you can measure it in dollars, maybe.
You can also measure it in time saved, but you can also measure it in how people feel. And we use the word engagement, and that can mean so many [00:13:00] things. But if people are really happy to be here, if we're gonna implement something that may not, we're not gonna see a savings, but we're gonna see people who are happy, right?
And I'm gonna use grandparent leave as an example, right? We give three days for grandparent leave just as a basic offering, right? That costs us money. You're giving people above and beyond three paid days to be with and bond with their grandchild. But I can't even measure the return on that investment.
~The,~ the feelings that people have and the thank yous that this is amazing, for me, that's strategic ROI because we've just made people feel so connected and so seen and so celebrated for being a grandparent, which, when you have a workforce as large as we do, and all the talk is you have five generations in one workforce, it's really important that all feel seen and all feel taken care of.
So I go to that strategic ROI, and I will fight when I truly believe in the [00:14:00] strategic return if I don't see the financial return yet, because then that does translate into financial return, right? If you have people who are really excited to work here, their productivity is just gonna shoot up, right? And they're gonna tell their friends, and then you get referrals.
Like I've seen the domino effect of it, and it's fantastic. So I hope that answers your question.
Kelsey Willock Jones: perfect. And I it really just is an important reminder that ROI is broad. Doesn't necessarily need to be, you're gonna spend $3 and have a cost savings of four.
Ann Meyers Piccirillo: Right
Kelsey Willock Jones: For example, in, in insurance, that's not as easy to prove. Giving people access to life insurance doesn't necessarily lead to a ~s- a,~ a direct cost savings associated.
But if people are happier, we know inherently that, it leads to things like productivity. so I think it makes absolute sense and is important to think about these things when we are having the conversations with the BFO and more. Can you tell me about a benefits experiment that you ran? It sounds like [00:15:00] you, you invest quite a bit of time in innovation and testing different resources.
The grandparent leave, for example, I've actually never heard a company doing. It's really fabulous. Can you tell me about an experiment that didn't go the way you expected?
Ann Meyers Piccirillo: With benefits. Experiment that... yeah, I can. One of the first things I tried to offer our seasonal employees was an opportunity to have... and it was packaged. There are a lot of companies that offer benefits that don't really include healthcare, but it includes, discounted visits to dentists, to doctors, to in your area.
They'll find doctors who will give a discounted rate because you don't have health insurance, and dentists, and eye doctors, and pharmacists, all, you know, all you had to... And it's very concierge. If you reached out to this platform, this program, they would do a lot of the legwork for you, and they would even take the bills you'd get from doctors, and they'd help negotiate better prices.
And it was remarkable. It was [00:16:00] so underutilized. Utilization wasn't even measurable over the course of two years. And I realized through feedback and talking to people, that's great, but couple of things. One, it's not a structure they were comfortable with. It seemed like a new product, and they felt like they were being charged with being almost their own benefits broker, right?
'Cause they have to talk to somebody who advocates on their part. And it was just, it seemed like a heavy lift for some people. ~Wasn't worth...~ The lift wasn't worth the reward in ~s- in~ most cases, was basically the feedback I was getting. And what I found out is people want more of a traditional healthcare model.
"I want to have access to a doctor. I don't wanna be given the names of discounted doctors," right? "I'd rather have a network to choose from that are, I could get some feedback on within that healthcare community that I know these doctors, how they're rated," right? They wanted just a more traditional model, and so it was a [00:17:00] great...
I thought it would be warmly received, and it was not utilized. But you live and you learn. I think if I had a different group of employees, perhaps it would've, again, we trend towards more tenured employees. Perhaps if I was more in the Gen Z millennial space, that might have been a big hit
Kelsey Willock Jones: Yeah, ~it's ~it's not picking furniture ~to,~ to, one versus another going for the 20% off. It's healthcare and for people that
Ann Meyers Piccirillo: Right.
Kelsey Willock Jones: probably dealt with healthcare more than, a younger population.
So quality,
Ann Meyers Piccirillo: Right
Kelsey Willock Jones: it remains important to them. But it doesn't mean that it wasn't a worthwhile experiment to run,
'cause I-- could have led to a lot of cost savings for the organization.
Ann Meyers Piccirillo: have. Could have. And it was really great in the feedback that I got because people tend to react more when they don't like something than when they do like something, right? People will tell you without hesitation when they don't like something, but not often tell you when they love something.
So we knew loud and clear that probably [00:18:00] wasn't something that we would continue. that's why we're looking at something else to piece together.
Kelsey Willock Jones: It's the Yelp effect. the bad, the bad reviews always shine brighter than the good ones
Ann Meyers Piccirillo: Yep. For sure
Kelsey Willock Jones: What's a benefits trend or compensation trend that is coming that most HR leaders are not ready for?
Ann Meyers Piccirillo: A compensation trend. ~I think... ~I have to really position that a little differently. I think it's not so much a compensation trend. I think HR leaders who really drive compensation efforts need to view themselves as-- view people as revenue generators, even if they're, quote unquote, "back office," right?
So look at your recruiting team. There's a lot of expense that goes into the recruiting team, but they're your revenue engine, right? They're hiring all those client-facing people. So when you start to talk about compensation, typically, [00:19:00] in my experience, there's been a heavy sigh "Ugh, we can't get any revenue from these people because they're all back office."
No, let's think of it differently and let's position them as revenue drivers, and based on the fact that they're driving all this revenue, and if they're charged with hiring 13,000 people and they meet that mark, and our retention was with- is within the margins we made assumptions around, th- that's a big win, strategic and financial.
So when we're talking about compensation, you have to look at people's contribution to the overall revenue. And I think for me, I don't know if it's a trend, but the last two years, that's really how I'm looking at roles and people. What is their contribution to the overall revenue of a company?
And it's there, right? So I think it's not what's the trend, it is are HR leaders positioning themselves as enterprise executives who understand ~how revenue is~ how revenue is [00:20:00] generated by those departments who are generally seen as back office. ~And that's a~ story I try to tell, and that has been really gaining traction in my network and within my company, is just how we're viewing roles that contribute to revenue.
Kelsey Willock Jones: And ones that might tangentially, impact revenue that, not, it's not the, the commission line item. It's a little...
It even comes back to, how do you think about ROI? Not everything needs to be as straightforward. We need to think about things, as more layered
Ann Meyers Piccirillo: And that's, and that is it. I, and I think looking for trends, I've never been one to look for trends. I've been one to look for how are people thinking, and do I align with that thinking? And I'm so passionate about people, and I'm very passionate about business, generally speaking, overall, and it's ~p-~ of course, my business.
And what's the impact that myself and people are having? And I encourage my team always think through a financial lens. And as you said, not [00:21:00] everything is financial, but if you look through that lens, it's not that you're looking for cost savings, you're looking how people are contributing, and that's really the focal point for me.
And it's very important, especially on a senior level and when you're working very closely with the CEO and the CFO to make sure that myself, as the holder of the biggest portfolio, which is people, and ~the most, ~the largest expense, that I'm very smart about how we approach that investment, right?
And so retention, when I think about compensation and how we view people, like for HR, we're... And for operational leaders, what's our retention? Because that adds to revenue, right? What's our turnover? How do we minimize any impact to the business? No, those jobs aren't client-facing or billable, but there's certainly value in looking for those efficiencies and those opportunities to create value
Kelsey Willock Jones: One of the things I've been thinking a lot about [00:22:00] is in this age of AI, where so many tasks are getting automated, what's becoming really hard to ignore is the fact that people are becoming the biggest differentiators at companies. So what you're talking about is also, for lack of better word, I'll use trend. It's the kind of shift of companies needing to recognize how important people are, in so many different units of the organization, and how important senior HR, leaders and HR leaders in general at organizations are becoming. You're actually watching these roles really elevate in conversation right now because we're watching this play out.
If people are your biggest differentiators in how companies are going to attract talent and compete, certainly got to care for them.
Ann Meyers Piccirillo: Not only care for them, but encourage them, right? And you hit on something that is it, it consumes ~my,~ my days and nights because what you can never replace is critical thinking, right? And we need people who can [00:23:00] really dissect a problem. That's not easy to do, right? And it's not easy to do if you don't help people understand what that means in training, right?
So thinking, helping people to think about how you take a problem apart and try to solve it, right? How to get people to feel comfortable with if you have three bad decisions, what's the best of the bad decisions? 'Cause you're not always gonna have a good decision, right? And accountability, because whether it's...
Look, whether it's AI or what's to come, who knows what's after AI, right? Because we know there's gonna be something. We had the internet, we have automation, we have AI, there's something next. Whatever that is, it's always gonna be people that are going to have to be responsible for it and accountable for it.
And when you look at certain industries, certainly the regulated industries, banking, insurance, healthcare, legal, they're taking a very cautious approach to how and when [00:24:00] and why and where they're using AI. Because the information is so really sacred that they're holding, and people care very much about that information, that they always wanna make sure, my feeling is, and what I'm seeing in friends who are in those industries, and tangentially how I'm through our clients in these industries, you always wanna make sure that there's a person responsible for how those decisions are made and who's gonna defend those decisions.
So I fully believe that People are going to be so much more important. And then that could feed into the compensation, right? Now you're elevating people and it's becoming ~everybody needs to be a leader, right?~ Everybody needs to be a leader. And looking at A- AI as a coworker more than somebody who's taking over your work is something that, it's how I've been positioning it with our employees and my team. They're not taking your place, but they're a helpful coworker. But at the end of the day, you make the decision. You decide how you're gonna use the information that you're [00:25:00] getting whether that information is valid
Kelsey Willock Jones: Key point being the discernment over whether it's valid or whether I want to take it or not. I could certainly spend a lot more time on this specific
topic, Jen, but I'll be cognizant of time. So I have one last question for you. If you have a final ~le- ~message that you want to leave our audience with, what would it be?
Ann Meyers Piccirillo: You always go to leadership, and I love to share a leadership lesson I learned quite a few years ago that changed my world. And it is I was sitting in a room at a conference everybody who was becoming a manager at my company. It's about 300 people. And the moderator, facilitator, we were coming back from lunch and sitting at our round tables, and we sit down and as, we sit down, she had a headset on and she said, "Okay, here's the exercise.
Everybody close their eyes. Put your hands on the table. If I tap you on the hand, you can open your eyes and sit there. If I tap you on your shoulder, you can stand up, don't move. If I tap you on the head, you can do what [00:26:00] you want. Go around the room, be free." And she said this ~mon-~ mantra, repeated it.
And I got tapped on the head and I was like, "Awesome." I go to the back room, get coffee, very happy. Exercise ends. Really interesting to see people sitting there, people standing. She asked people who were sitting there, "How did you feel?" "I felt paralyzed. I couldn't move. I could open my eyes, but I couldn't get up, stand up, couldn't do anything."
People who were standing, "How did you feel?" "We felt paralyzed, too. Although we could stand, we felt stuck. We felt we were stuck, and we couldn't do anything." "And okay, you people who are all standing in the back who got tapped and you're all by the coffee bar, how did you feel?" And there was silence. And we're all looking at each other until the gentleman standing next to me said I have to tell you the truth."
And he pointed to me. He goes, "I tapped her on the head." And I was like, "You what? She's supposed to tap. You tap?" And he said, "Yeah, you-- we came in together from lunch and you, I don't know if you realize, you said you could, really wanted a cup of coffee, but you didn't have time. So I tapped myself on the head and I tapped you [00:27:00] on the head."
And then somebody else said I tapped her on the..." And it turned out that the moderator never tapped anybody who got up out of their seats to walk around. They tapped themselves. And the lesson is, don't wait for somebody to recognize you. An opportunity, take it yourself. Sometimes you have to tap yourself.
And that has been a driving influence. That little exercise in leadership has really defined how I've progressed in my career. And I always love telling that story because it is one of those unforgettable stories. And really, just tap yourself.
Kelsey Willock Jones: Don't wait for permission,
Ann Meyers Piccirillo: Don't wait for permission
Kelsey Willock Jones: spearhead. I love that. Thank you so much, Anne. It's been a delight speaking with you. I sincerely appreciate the time today, and look forward to all of our listeners tuning in, and I hope you have a wonderful rest of your afternoon
Ann Meyers Piccirillo: Thank you. You too, and thank you everybody. I appreciate it. Have a great day.
[00:28:00]