Summary
What happens when benefits renewal costs rise 15% to 50% while wages rise 3%? In this episode of Beyond the Paycheck, host Kelsey Willock Jones sits down with Chuck Heaton, Vice President of Human Resources and Chief Compliance Officer at Perma-Pipe, to talk about the "Armageddon year" brokers are warning about and whether it marks the beginning of the end of company-provided benefits. Drawing on more than 30 years in HR across textiles, retail, oil and gas, and manufacturing, Chuck shares why payroll errors are same-day emergencies for people living paycheck to paycheck, why the spouse or partner is often the real benefits decision maker at open enrollment, how a total rewards transparency play won a union over to company benefits, and what fiduciary responsibility really means for employees' retirement money. A candid conversation for HR, benefits, and finance leaders navigating the toughest renewal cycle in decades.

Chapters

00:00 Welcome and Chuck's path through 30 years of HR

03:05 A first paycheck at Shaw Industries and where the money went

05:00 Payroll errors are same day emergencies

06:55 The spouse is often the real benefits decision maker

07:45 Supporting the whole person without wasting benefits spend

09:30 The total rewards play that won over a union

12:05 The benefits Armageddon: renewals up 15 to 50%

15:35 Fully insured, self insured, and the stop loss squeeze

16:55 Financial wellbeing and a company's fiduciary duty

21:10 Staying current with brokers and peer networks

Takeaways

Benefits renewal costs are rising 15% to 50% this year while US wage increases sit around 3 to 3.5%, and the usual fixes of switching carriers and raising deductibles are running out of road.

Payroll errors are same-day emergencies, not next-cycle fixes, because employees living paycheck to paycheck face immediate rent, mortgage, and late-fee consequences.

The spouse or partner is often the real benefits decision maker, so open enrollment communication should reach the household through home mailers and sessions partners can attend.

Total rewards transparency changes behavior: showing employees exactly what the company spends on their benefits won a union over to company coverage.

Companies carry a true fiduciary responsibility for retirement money, from lowering 401(k) fees to educating employees on the real cost of loans and hardship withdrawals.

Connect with the Guest
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/chuckheaton/
Website: https://www.permapipe.com

Sponsor

Aura Finance helps you simplify compensation and benefits planning by bringing everything into one streamlined platform. No more juggling spreadsheets, disconnected tools, or manual calculations—Aura gives you a single place to design, compare, and communicate total rewards packages with confidence.

With AI-powered insights, it takes the guesswork and busywork out of comp decisions, helps you spot pay equity gaps early, and makes it easy to model scenarios that keep your teams engaged and your budgets on track.

See a demo at https://www.aurafinance.com/

Summary

How do you make a case for people programs when the spreadsheet won't back you up? In this episode of Beyond the Paycheck, host Kelsey Willock Jones talks with Kyle Taylor, Head of HR at Revature, about the one word definition of strategy he brings to every compensation conversation, the pendulum effect that quietly teaches employees to stop reading their own bonus plan, and what DHL funded that most companies only talk about. Taylor shares how DHL tied employee survey scores to every people leader's incentive plan, how a culture program did what a 10 percent raise across 100,000 frontline workers could not, and why he plants a flag with a pivot condition instead of asking for an open ended budget. Along the way: the paper route that never paid, the escalation committee for employees with no local advocate, and the AI shift he thinks HR leaders are least prepared for. A conversation for HR and total rewards leaders who have to sell an investment before they can prove it.

Chapters

00:00 Introduction, Revature, and the hire, train, deploy model

02:30 A paper route, a missing paycheck, and a lesson in getting it in writing

03:45 Strategy is tradeoffs, and most comp decisions hide them

05:05 The escalation committee for associates who fall through the cracks

07:15 What DHL got right, employee survey scores in every manager's bonus

09:00 Teaching 100,000 people why the package matters

11:30 Making the case for engagement when the spreadsheet won't

14:25 The bonus pendulum and the seven goal trap

17:55 Financial wellbeing at the individual and population level

20:30 The AI manifesto and the shift HR isn't ready for

Takeaways

-Strategy is just tradeoffs, and the job of HR in a compensation conversation is to make those tradeoffs visible so the decision gets made eyes open rather than by instinct.

-Bonus plans swing on a pendulum, from revenue to gross profit to contribution and back, and from two big KPIs to seven small ones, until the plan stops moving the needle entirely.

-The real cost of an annually shifting bonus plan is not plan design, it is that employees learn to tune out, and compensation feels personal in a way that other policy does not.

-DHL made employee survey scores part of the incentive plan for every leader with direct reports, which turned engagement results from an unread report into something leaders competed over.

-Ask for a bounded bet instead of a belief system: set provable assumptions, plant a flag on what improvement looks like, and commit to pivoting if it does not land.

Connect with the Guest

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/kyletaylor-1/

Website: https://www.revature.com

Sponsor

Aura Finance helps you simplify compensation and benefits planning by bringing everything into one streamlined platform. No more juggling spreadsheets, disconnected tools, or manual calculations—Aura gives you a single place to design, compare, and communicate total rewards packages with confidence.

With AI-powered insights, it takes the guesswork and busywork out of comp decisions, helps you spot pay equity gaps early, and makes it easy to model scenarios that keep your teams engaged and your budgets on track.

See a demo at https://www.aurafinance.com/

Summary

Jeremy Stick, CHRO at DaBella, joins host Kelsey Willock Jones on Beyond the Paycheck to trace a line from his first paycheck, $2.35 an hour washing dishes in a junior high cafeteria, to the way he builds benefits education and development strategy for twenty six hundred employees across twenty eight states. The conversation covers why he trains people so they can leave and then treats them well enough to stay, how he uses regrettable turnover to make the financial case for people programs when the spreadsheet does not obviously support it, and why the moment someone gets a raise is the single best moment to talk to them about money. Along the way he unpacks how he takes the fear out of high deductible plans and HSAs with a simple Excel breakdown, a wellness program that went sideways, and why he thinks the return to office shift is going to trigger a talent war most HR leaders are underestimating. Built for CHROs, HR leaders, and total rewards teams who want practical language for defending people investments and teaching financial wellness in a workforce focused on right now.

Chapters

00:00 Introduction

00:42 Meet Jeremy Stick, CHRO at DaBella

01:52 The first paycheck and the first Game Boy

02:53 Why delayed gratification drives benefits education

04:11 Stumbling into HR from educational psychology

06:02 Train them so they can leave

07:02 Measuring regrettable turnover

09:14 A wellness program that spiraled

11:10 Taking the fear out of HSAs and 401(k)s

13:56 Lifestyle creep and the raise conversation

16:20 The return to office shift

19:12 My name is Jeremy, not HR

Takeaways

-Train and develop people so they could leave, then treat them well enough that they stay, and call it a graduation when the next step genuinely is not available internally.

-Track regrettable turnover as its own line, then price the six month lag of three months to backfill plus three months to ramp, including the load it shifts onto remaining employees.

-Take the emotion out of benefits by showing the math, breaking down premiums, a worst case out of pocket cost, HSA contributions, and tax deferment in a simple spreadsheet.

-Catch employees at the raise, because the highest leverage financial advice is to keep spending where it was rather than scaling it to the new salary.

-A 401(k) is a time horizon problem before it is a knowledge problem, so frame it as the Game Boy later instead of the candy now.

Connect with the Guest

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jeremystick/

Website: https://www.dabella.us

Sponsor

Aura Finance helps you simplify compensation and benefits planning by bringing everything into one streamlined platform. No more juggling spreadsheets, disconnected tools, or manual calculations—Aura gives you a single place to design, compare, and communicate total rewards packages with confidence.

With AI-powered insights, it takes the guesswork and busywork out of comp decisions, helps you spot pay equity gaps early, and makes it easy to model scenarios that keep your teams engaged and your budgets on track.

See a demo at https://www.aurafinance.com/