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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 - Morgan Pattison
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INTRO: [00:00:00] 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 Morgan Pattison, Senior Director of HR Operational Excellence at Kraton Corporation. We're so excited to have you today. To kick us off, I'd love for you to share a little bit about yourself, your background, where you're calling in from today, and your current role.
Morgan Pattison: Great. Thank you, [00:01:00] Kelsey. Thank you for having me. So as you said, my name's Morgan Pattison. I work at Kraton, which is a chemical manufacturing company. I sit in Jacksonville, Florida which is where one of our corporate headquarters is located. But we have about 1,700 employees across 16 countries across the US, Europe, APAC .
And my responsibilities at Kraton right now are for basically our HR operations functions. So I have accountability for ensuring strategic direction and effective management of our global compensation benefits, global mobility, HR systems, and payroll functions. As well, I'm also actually serving currently as our interim CHRO while we are searching for a new leader for our HR team.
So I'm wearing many hats at the moment.
Kelsey Willock Jones: Well, excited to dig into all the amazing work and learning more about the company. But before we get there, I have my favorite question for you, which is can you tell me a little [00:02:00] bit about your first job and if you remember what you spent your first paycheck on?
Morgan Pattison: Yeah. So I started working really as early as I could. So my first job was actually as a hostess at an Italian restaurant in my hometown. This was before I had a license and was able to drive, so my parents had to pick me up and drop me off at work back then. And I still certainly recall those days where I would get dropped off at work and maybe it was a little bit slow and they'd send me home early and just thinking, "Oh, I've worked," calculating in my head, "I've worked X hours, and so I'm only gonna make this much."
And I think tying that back to, getting my first paycheck as you asked, I can't recall exactly what I spent it on, but I do recall having that check in my hand, Which was back when paper checks were much more common than they are now. And I remember looking at the gross pay and the taxes that were deducted, and in my mind [00:03:00] weighing what am I gonna use this money on?
How am I gonna divvy it up? How am I gonna budget for what I wanna spend it on? So I think as you alluded to, my first paycheck, I was already trying to figure out how I'm gonna cover the costs that I have to ensure that I cover for myself.
Kelsey Willock Jones: I think we can all recall that first memory that whatever you are paid is not what you receive in your paycheck post taxes.
Morgan Pattison: Yes, it's a quick reminder that we all get
Kelsey Willock Jones: It's an eye-opening moment for us all. What's Social Security? What's this? What's that? How do you think, though, that early experience has influenced how you show up for your people, make decisions in terms of paying and supporting them beyond?
Morgan Pattison: Yeah, I think it goes back to what I said about just having to weigh how you're gonna budget for and manage that spend. So again, from that first paycheck I had to how I make decisions today, there's always a balance that [00:04:00] we have to figure out how to strike. Certainly the financial component of that is a big one and weighs heavily on all of us the world that we're in where it seems like everything is driven, financially motivated and driven by bottom line and results.
But certainly in the comp and benefits world, I think there has to be that balance of outside of the financial components, the pieces that are a little bit harder to measure of what you're actually doing for your employees, the decisions you're making, how it's going to impact them, both in the short and the long term, and impact their families.
And that's really a, an eye I try to take with every decision I make is not just the financial component, but what is this gonna tell our employees about what we value and how it's going to impact them and their families on a day-to-day basis?
Kelsey Willock Jones: So double-clicking into that we're certainly in an interesting time right now where we're seeing some cost pressure as it pertains to benefits and [00:05:00] beyond, particularly driven by rising healthcare costs. How do you make the case for investing in programs, maybe new benefits themselves, et cetera, when the spreadsheet doesn't so obviously support them, especially when getting buy-in from additional leadership teams?
Morgan Pattison: Yeah, as you said, it's something we're all dealing with, and it's a case that we all have to figure out how to make. Obviously the financial results of whatever proposal you're making speak for themselves. But at the end of the day, especially on the HR side, we have to be able to communicate what the weight of those non-qualitative measures are.
And that is critically important in how we as HR leaders show up in whether it's at the executive table with our executive team or with our peer leaders. We have to be able to communicate what is not financially obvious, and I think, to that point, a really good example of that is, during COVID, I [00:06:00] think we all had to from an HR perspective, we all had to manage through that, manage our employees through it, and mental health was a, became a really difficult situation to manage.
A lot of people were really struggling, and mental health support is one where there's not always a very clear ROI. It's really hard to measure what positive mental health will ultimately do long term for your employees. So that's, I think, a really good example where you have to be able to lean on the less financially clear aspect of that and understand that at the end of the day, sometimes it's not about ROI, and it's about just doing the right thing for employees and again, being able to communicate that.
And the communication of that ultimately comes back to the trust that you've built as a leader with your peers, with your executive team, with your leaders, and you've got to be able to build that trust to be able to say, "Hey, I know this ROI isn't necessarily [00:07:00] there, but it's the right thing to do, and here's how it will actually benefit us in the long run.
Maybe not financially, but in, in other ways."
Kelsey Willock Jones: You bring up a really important point, which is mental health. And we're seeing a lot of trends right now where companies aren't just investing in mental health post-COVID, it's physical health, it is financial health and beyond. Along the vein of supporting the whole person, can you tell me a little bit about a program or initiative that you're particularly proud of that showcases investing in the whole person?
Morgan Pattison: Yeah, I think you mentioned financial health as well, and, the whole person, it's part of, I think what we need to remember as leaders, again, what we talked about, where so much is driven and so much is focused on the return on that investment or how much money it's gonna cost us and in the end, and are we gonna get a return on that?
But thinking about the whole [00:08:00] person is also just meeting employees where they are in their life. And certainly at Kraton, we have a lot of employees that have very long tenure, which is actually pretty unique for a manufacturing organization. But a lot of the focus that our employees have is on their retirement and am I going to be prepared for retirement?
And I think even more so now with all of the noise that's in the world people are really concerned about that and rightly there's so much noise about increasing healthcare costs and how much that's gonna cost in five, 10 years from now. And just inflation is high and continues to rem-remain high, and interest rates are high, and there's all this talk about the financial aspect of things.
But when it comes down to feeling like employees are prepared for retirement, I think that's something that we do a really good job of, and I'm really proud of. So we have a really, I'd say, rich and substantial retirement plan for our US [00:09:00] employees and those outside the US as well.
But our US 401(k) plan is really rich. And we also have... We offer HSA, health savings accounts, where we offer a company contribution. And with both of those, we do a lot of education for employees around the, the impact saving early and not touching those funds can really have on them in the long term.
And we have, Fidelity is our partner, and we meet with them on a quarterly basis, and that again is something I'm really proud of and makes me feel really good at the end of the day that ultimately the reason we all work is to be able to get to retirement, and that we've set people up well for that makes me feel really good and really proud.
Kelsey Willock Jones: So financial wellbeing, I'd argue, is almost in a similar place as mental health was in the post, COVID era. Better understanding why the company has chosen to focus so much on financial health and making sure retirement is, really sufficient for [00:10:00] people and they're participating at high rates.
Why is financial health so important to you and the company? Are you seeing it show up in ways such as people staying with the company longer, seeing higher productivity? What's the correlation going on?
Morgan Pattison: Yeah. So I think ultimately this started from our history as a company. So we were way back when sort of a spinoff from Shell which I think everybody knows the name Shell. And historically organizations like Shell, retirement has been a very important component of their value proposition.
So that sort of fed over with us as we spun off, but the fact that we've maintained the focus on that is also unique, I would say. And I think the reason that we've held onto that and kept that as a really a cornerstone of our benefits program is because we genuinely do... We know the value of it, we know the benefit that it's going to provide to people, and we ultimately [00:11:00] wanna leave our people better than, than they joined us.
And and again, I think that's where the focus on retirement and ensuring we set people up for retirement has really been and that continues to be even in a world where everyone's cutting costs and everyone's trying to find ways to reduce spend, that's one that I'm really proud to say that we've held onto.
Kelsey Willock Jones: Can you tell me about a benefits experiment or even strategy experiment that you run that didn't actually go the way you expected and what you learned from it?
Morgan Pattison: Yeah, that's a good question, and certainly all of us in benefits world have had those experiences. And I'll say this is an example that I've unfortunately experienced more than once, and I think we've all experienced, and that's just when it comes to benefits costs, and I'd say specifically around medical costs and the trends there, is hammering down those costs for short-term benefit.
So to get more specific about that, as we all are, it's knee-deep in benefit renewals in the [00:12:00] U.S. right now, as most of us are. We spend a couple of months really negotiating how we're going to cover our medical expenses. And whether you're self-insured or fully insured, that's a process that every benefits person goes through to figure out how we're gonna cover our spend and all the things that we can do to push those costs down so that as an employer, we can continue to support them.
And I'll say certainly I've had my experience where for whatever short-term reason it may be, we really pushed down on those costs in a given year, and ultimately it pushes the responsibility to the next year or the next year, and it really doesn't benefit you in the long term to continue to hammer those costs down for a short-ter-short-term benefit.
And I've certainly seen that play out myself. I've seen it at other companies, and ultimately I think the lesson there is that we really need to make sure we're taking a [00:13:00] balanced approach when we're managing costs. So again, hammering them down and getting costs as low as possible, you're going to pay for it at some point.
And ultimately for your employees, they're they can't swallow as much of a maybe massive increase the next year as maybe the company can. So needing to make sure that we're really making balanced decisions, both to manage the financial responsibility we have as a company to the bottom line, but also the responsibility that we have to employees to make sure that they can continue to provide healthcare to their families at a cost that is reasonable that they can plan for.
Kelsey Willock Jones: I think that the perfect example of this in the news cycle is that, you see all these companies investing or, the opposite of investing, trying to shave costs in investing in different AI tools, and they'll lay off 25% of the workforce, and then two months later, company [00:14:00] hires back all those that were laid off.
And cost cuts, weren't as effective as they had expected. But I love that's just a generic example and not applicable to all that, I know we might be referring to in the benefits world. But it's so important that if we wanna be really effective, we need to think about the long term, not just the next quarter, because it might end us, end up costing us more in the long run.
Morgan Pattison: Absolutely. Yeah, and I think I would say it's also, it's really challenging to do that in the business environment that we're in, right? That so much is short-term driven, and as you mentioned with AI that's pushing things to change even more quickly, and there's that greater emphasis on needing to get as much margin as you can or squeeze as much as you can out of every dollar.
And it is a real challenge to be able to hold that line and balance what is best for our employees and what is gonna meet that bottom line at the end of the day. So [00:15:00] it's certainly a challenge for sure.
Kelsey Willock Jones: So similar but in a somewhat different topic. I'm really curious how you are staying top of mind in all the new innovation that's happening. We're seeing such speed of technology, such changes in strategy. How are you identifying what's working? Are there specific conferences, networks that you've been a part of, even newsletters that have been, particularly helpful?
Morgan Pattison: Yeah, absolutely. So I try to stay as up to speed on both what's happening in the business world from a business perspective, as well as what's happening in HR most specifically, right? And so it will generally align because as HR people, we have to manage what's happening as a business as well and what's happening in the business world.
But I try and stay as on top of what's happening in the news as I can. I'm lucky that we have really strong benefit providers and partners and brokers that really do a good job of keeping us up to date what's [00:16:00] happening. I attend a lot of webinars. I am actually a part of the North Florida Comp and Benefits Association, which is an association here in North Florida where we bring in speakers to talk about what's happening in the benefits and comp world, and that's been a really good avenue for me to stay in touch with what's going on in the world, but also in touch with my comp and benefit peers and what they're struggling with.
And often it's the same things, right? We're struggling with the same things, but sometimes it's a little different and it's nice to be able to gut check with other peers of, "Hey, is this happening for you all? Or is this a challenge that's unique to us, and how have you seen your company through something like this?"
So I find that really beneficial.
Kelsey Willock Jones: And perhaps you're having these conversations already, but I'm super curious. What is a compensation or benefits trend that you see coming that most HR leaders are not ready for?
Morgan Pattison: Yeah. Yeah, that's a good question 'cause there's so many that probably come to mind. I feel like so much [00:17:00] has changed and is changing over the last couple of years, and especially with all the benefit regulations that, that have changed over the last couple of years. But I think really the one that I would point to that I feel like we are the least prepared for is not necessarily specific to comp and benefits, though it relates to comp and how we pay people, is really the shift in emphasis from education and knowledge to adaptability and the need to learn things more quickly.
So again, you referenced AI already, and we're-- I feel like what we're seeing, so my generation, I feel like I'm a millennial, but wasn't the last generation where higher education and gaining knowledge was the most critical component for your career. And, higher education was touted as the best thing you can do for your career.
And I [00:18:00] think what we're seeing now is less emphasis on that and more emphasis on, because so much is changing so quickly, the ability to adapt and the ability to learn new things more quickly. And that's something that's really hard to quantify and really hard to measure. It's really hard to be able to say, "Oh, this person can learn really quickly or is really adaptable." So I think that's something that we're just not prepared for in how to pay for those people and compensate those people when they are going to be the most critical people in our organizations going forward.
Kelsey Willock Jones: Are you finding there to be effective ways to see if someone really fits the category of adaptability?
Morgan Pattison: Yeah, it's interesting. I think we're still trying to figure that out. And I go back to there was a trend for a little while certainly in the talent space to use assessments when hiring. And maybe it's going to go back to less is focused on an [00:19:00] interview of employee and more on work product or, assessments or more tangible things that we can look at rather than the behavioral type interviewing that's become, I think, so relevant right now.
Kelsey Willock Jones: So interesting because, what I've been reading, and you're helping me even connect some of these dots, is we're seeing, for example, MBA students struggle to find jobs in this economy. But it makes sense, right? if you wanna prove out adaptability, it's maybe not in someone that went back to learn a new skill over the course of a few years, but it's someone that can prove that they can learn a new skill in a couple months or even shorter.
Morgan Pattison: Yeah
Kelsey Willock Jones: interesting concept, but certainly one to follow closely and see if those assessments or even another analysis comes through
Morgan Pattison: Yeah, and I think that's really interesting what you said as well because I think MBA students, also just people with really solid careers that are really strong professionals in candidate pool having a really difficult time [00:20:00] finding new positions or new roles. I think that's a trend that we're seeing across the board in talent acquisition as well of there's a real gap right now between the number of employees and strength of employees in the market and the roles available to them and how we match the right person for the right role, and I think we're gonna we're gonna have to see something change there for sure.
Kelsey Willock Jones: And Morgan, my last question for you, is there any last words that you'd like to share with our community before we wrap up?
Morgan Pattison: Yeah, sure. I think this is a world that I love, the comp and benefits world, and I could talk about it for hours. But I think one thing that, again, we talked about this and touched on this a little bit, but so much is driven financially by results and how those connect to the bottom line.
But I think something that certainly at Kraton we still hold really true and I think is important across the board is the trust that we build from an employer to with our employees, [00:21:00] and that's manager to employee as well, and peer to peer. And that trust that we build is something that is going to be even more critical, I think, as we move forward and as we talked about as the world changes so quickly, to be able to navigate through these really complex, difficult business decisions, HR decisions.
Without that trust, we really can't make the right decision because we can't have valuable, constructive disagreement and dialogue about what is the right decision to make. And I think that's a piece that certainly I'm still seeing as important and valuable to organizations, but I think that is so critical to the health of an organization and its relationship with its employees.
Kelsey Willock Jones: Morgan, it's been an absolute pleasure speaking with you. Thank you so much for all of your wisdom, all of your candor, and your time. I hope you have a wonderful rest of your week, and thank you so much again for joining us on this Monday afternoon.
Morgan Pattison: Of course. Thank you. I've really enjoyed it, and I appreciate [00:22:00] you having me as well
Kelsey Willock Jones: All right, have a great rest of your week
Morgan Pattison: You too
OUTRO: Thank you for joining us on Beyond the Paycheck, presented by Aura Finance. If you enjoyed this conversation, be sure to follow Beyond the Paycheck wherever you get your podcasts. Beyond the Paycheck is brought to you by Aura Finance, the personal finance platform helping employees build confidence, security, and freedom with their money. See how Aura Finance is redefining financial well-being at aurafinance.io. I'm Kelsey Willock Jones. Thank you for listening, and see you next time.