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Rewards NW

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2024 Conference Program Coming Soon



2022 Conference Program

October 6, 2022

5:00-6:30pm

October 7, 2022

Compensation Benefits Total Rewards
8:00-9:00am
9:00-9:15am
9:15-10:00am

This keynote presentation combined with storytelling will encourage you, as a leader in a stressful and demanding role, to pause, reflect, plan, and execute your self care strategies so that you may maintain your own peak performance as well as that of your team. Making sure you "Fill Your Tank", personally and professionally, is integral to being a remarkable leader. You cannot give to others when you are running on empty yourself. Unmitigated stress leads to the depletion of energy and negative behaviors that only serve to sabotage the very thing you want to build. Living In a world of frequent distractions and the unrelenting pressures, self care can easily fall by the wayside. With this in mind, any successful self care strategy must also be simple and straightforward. As a leader, you set the tone for your entire team and can model the importance of maintaining mental and physical health by committing to self care strategies. Great leaders set themselves apart by demonstrating dedication to learning more about themselves and others. Astutely self aware people tend to have more direction, purpose, influence and success in their professional and personal lives. This session will be a great time to learn and be inspired to raise the bar at work and in life. Self care starts from within, and greater transformation takes place internally! LaEisha Howard | Author, Speaker, HR Director, and Personal and Professional Development Coach



10:00-10:30am
10:30-11:45am Pay compression is an ever-worsening challenge for organizations in the wake of legislative changes, the Great Resignation, inflation, and more. Retail, healthcare, manufacturing, and hospitality have been hit especially hard but pay compression is impacting the bottom line for businesses across the U.S. Join Payscale as they enumerate the extraordinary set of challenges at hand, outline the critical questions compensation and total reward professionals are facing, and provide stories and solutions from the field.
Jennifer Ferris | Principal Solutions Consultant, Payscale
Jenni Marquez | Director of Compensation, Accolade
Ryan Fowler | Compensation Manager, Symetra
Employees report working harder and looking after themselves less. This session will present information on how the pandemic and other events in the last year have impacted employee mental health.

Employees are asking for a change in wellbeing support provided. This session will focus on best practices innovative organizations are using to help employees feel better and increase engagement. As point-solutions are flooding the market, benefits consultants and decision-makers are faced with questions of evaluating actions to take and what works.

Looking at specific case studies, attendees will come away with actionable insights regarding:
1. Practical wellbeing strategies.
2. Evaluating mental health partners and solutions.
3. How to measure success.
Anna Meiners, MA | VP of Customer Success, Canopy



How much did the pandemic really change what matters to employees and how engaged they are? Attend this session to learn about the latest findings from a study on the needs employees must have met if you want to motivate and keep them.

Attendees will learn:
What employees value most from their organizations
How the needs of remote, deskless and office-based workers vary
Three focus areas critical to enhancing employee engagement and improving retention
Examples of how companies are already putting those focus areas in to practice to improve employee engagement and retention

You’ll also participate in an interactive activity that crowdsources ideas for how others are tapping into best practices uncovered through the research to improve their own employee experiences.
Christina Zurek | Insights & Strategy Leader, ITA Group
11:45am-12:45pm
12:45-2:00pm We know sales compensation is a powerful sales management tool. We also know that sales compensation challenges plague these pay programs. Learn the seven most common sales compensation mistakes; what they are, how they arrived in your pay program and how to fix them. Well-run sales compensation programs share several important traits. Test your pay program against these best-in-class practices to ensure your sales compensation plan is operating effectively.
David Cichelli | Revenue Growth Advisor, Alexander Group
With new family leave laws arriving in the NW, employers are challenged to adapt their policies and practice. Whether your organization creates an internal policy or decides to utilize your state policy, there are considerations beyond policy compliance to ensure your benefit meets your employees needs and expectations while enhancing your brand reputation, increasing retention and attraction, and supporting DEI goals. Learn the ten critical touchpoints that employers and employees need to navigate well as they prepare for leave, during leave, and return to work in an engaged and sustainable way. The presentation showcases the first evidence-based parental leave coaching model and support framework to exist. It was developed by leading workplace psychologists to harness parental leave as a leadership development and personal growth opportunity, while also supporting the workplace. This ensures that parental leave is a transformative experience for all involved, in order to retain talent and build an inclusive environment for all working-parents. The process supports new parents emotionally, socially, and practically - at work and home, while also giving managers the tools they need to do their job well.
Amy Beacom, Ed.D | Founder and CEO, Center for Parental Leave Leadership
Even prior to COVID, there were tremendous changes taking place in the workplace - from digitalization to the emergence of the gig economy to an increase in virtual work. The pandemic accelerated a number of these changes and introduced more (inflation) -- the only thing certain in the future is more change. This change has fundamentally altered how workers view their rewards and caused organizations to think about what changes they may need to make in their reward programs. This session will focus on how world changes are influencing the way organizations and their workers view total rewards and provide a new framework for assessing and measuring the effectiveness of their total reward programs. In the session, we will explore how these changes are impacting the way workers think about their rewards (e.g., changing value preferences) and how organizations are beginning to rethink their approach to reward programs. The webinar will look at the approaches some organizations are taking to address these challenges. These approaches include structural approaches such as changes to job architectures as well as changes in how rewards are structured and delivered to provide more flexibility to meet the needs of an agile organization. Finally, the session will consider the use of metrics for evaluating the effectiveness of your reward programs and how to measure change.
Dave Kompare| Executive Vice President, People Advisory, Aon
2:00-2:30pm
2:30-3:45pm Perhaps it's time for you to revise your annual or sales incentive plan. Or your organization doesn't have an annual or sales incentive plan and you've been asked to develop a plan. Where do you begin and what do you need to consider? This session will answer those questions and many more! Join in for an overview of incentive plans and a step-by-step guide of the design process. You'll learn about: the differences between bonuses and incentives; choosing the right type of incentive plan; information you'll need before you start the design process; a step-by-step design process for various types of incentive plans; key considerations for modeling the plan design; critical components of a plan document; and best practices for a successful implementation. With evolving demographics, technological advances and an uncertain economic future, organizations are reevaluating the ways they access and deliver rewards, including both financial and non-financial benefits. Research shows that a strong employee experience is directly tied to organizational performance. In this presentation, we will explore how leading organizations are building a sustainable Total Rewards value proposition to attract and retain talent. We will also share best practices and trends related to employee engagement and other total rewards programs as well as cover high-level methods to navigate the current economic uncertainty and support agility in Total Rewards management.
Ruben Alexander Sandoval | Senior Associate, Talent & Rewards, Willis Towers Watson
Following the COVID-19 pandemic companies and workers across the globe are trying to navigate a changing labor market. Companies are trying to find talent in a tight labor market, while workers concerns are evolving to encompass more than just compensation. In addition, the location, nature, and definition of work are all rapidly shifting. However, this period of uncertainty also presents an opportunity for reassessment and reinvention of the employee experience. Mercer recently completed their 2022 Global Talent Trends survey, which included responses from 11,000 participants from over 16 countries. This presentation will go over the results of the Global Talents Trend report and provide insight into the question: how are employers and employees reacting to a new world of work. The session will examine global trends on issues such as remote work policies, employee compensation and workforce needs. In addition, this workshop will highlight the key factors that Mercer’s Global Talent Trends study identified in companies who are successfully navigating the post-pandemic landscape. Other Mercer research will also be discussed such as recent market compensation changes, remote work and compensation, inflation and its impact on pay, and pay transparency.
Tracy Bean | Partner, Mercer
3:45-4:00pm
4:00-4:45pm Scott Cawood | President & CEO, WorldatWork
4:45pm
5:00pm-6:00pm

Schedule subject to change.

Attend Rewards NW and Get HCRI Credits

Rewards NW Conference attendance qualifies you for re-certification credit for the Certified Compensation Professional® (CCP®), Certified Benefits Professional® (CBP), Global Remuneration Professional (GRP®), Work-Life Certified Professional® (WLCP®), Certified Sales Compensation Professional (CSCP)®, Certified Executive Compensation Professional (CECP)® and Advanced Certified Compensation Professional (ACCP)™ designations granted by WorldatWork. For more information on rec-certification, visit the WorldatWork recertification webpage.