Episodes
Breitling is known for its expertly engineered timepieces. And in the last few years, the renowned watchmaker has also been applying its eye for precision and accuracy to a workforce goal: evaluating and minimizing its gender pay gap. This week, Henrike talks with Nadja Sirotkina, Breitling’s rewards and performance lead, about what she and her colleagues have learned during the company’s pursuit of pay equity.
Published 05/31/24
This year's WorldatWork Total Rewards conference is over, and before flying out, Margrét fills Henrike in on all the exciting insights she gained from the event. These include focusing on job architecture to prepare for upcoming regulations like the European pay transparency directive, shifting from a job evaluation to a skill evaluation approach, and implementing AI in the compensation space. Listen to this extra Coffee Talk episode to get all the details!
Published 05/24/24
The need for workplace gender equality is global—but business environments and local requirements vary tremendously from one country to another. This means that one-size-fits-all approaches and advice can often fall short. And any program that aims to help employers worldwide move towards fair pay must also be able to offer a highly individualized approach. This is exactly the kind of program that the United Nations has set out to create. On this week’s coffee talk, program lead Salma...
Published 05/17/24
Henrike brings a challenging case to the table for this week’s coffee talk. She’s been deeply involved in helping companies prepare for the EU pay transparency directive, and the directive requires companies to establish pay bands. The directive will also allow employees to ask for a comparison between their pay and the pay of their co-workers. This means that employers must be able to explain to each employee exactly why their pay is what it is.
Published 04/19/24
In this coffee talk with Henrike von Platen and Dietmar Knoess of the PUMA group, we hear about both the pleasant surprise and the challenges in PUMA’s journey into fair pay leadership.
Published 04/05/24
It’s intuitive that a gender pay gap would leave women feeling less than satisfied in the workplace. But according to Sana Zafar, our coffee talk guest, the real effect is more nuanced. Pay gaps lead to lower satisfaction among both women and men, but through different mechanisms.
Published 03/22/24
University of Iceland Researcher Thora Christiansen has been looking into why, despite Iceland’s intensive work on pay equity, there are still so few female CEOs. In this coffee talk, Thora joins Margrét to talk about her research into this problem—and a few possible solutions.
Published 03/08/24
The pay gap is a well-known problem—but Margrét and her research collaborators are always looking for better ways to solve it. This week, Margrét tells Henrike about her new article in the Harvard Business Review. Written with PayAnalytics co-founder David Anderson and research partner David Gaddis Ross, the article describes a fresh and more effective approach to closing the pay gap.
Published 02/23/24
The Coffee Talk team is back with renewed energy to discuss the piece of legislation that all European companies are talking about: The EU Pay Transparency Directive. Discover the key takeaways of the Directive and the first steps your company can take to comply.
Published 02/09/24
To achieve and maintain pay equity, you need to ensure that compensation across countries, provinces and states, and cities is fair and equitable. But how do you do that?
Published 12/15/23
Lightning round. In this week’s Coffee Talk, Henrike von Platen and Margrét Bjarnadóttir talk about the Reykjavik Global Forum – Women Leaders,  which was held in Reykjavík on November 13-14, 2023. At the Forum, each session was short—and Henrike moderated an 18-minute session with four panelists on a particularly urgent topic: The rising cost of living.
Published 12/01/23
In our latest installment of Coffee Talks with Planet Fair, Margrét has just returned from a visit to the Conference Board’s Executive Compensation conference in New York City with many lessons to share with listeners about bonuses, incentives, and base pay.
Published 11/17/23
This week, Henrike caught up with Marcus Priest, Head of U.S. and R&D Rewards at Novartis, to learn about Novartis’ public pledge with the Equal Pay International Coalition (EPIC). Many companies have taken this pledge in their own way, committing to reducing inequalities through targeted goals that fit their organizational culture.
Published 11/03/23
Join Margrét and Henrike on an insightful conversation about pay equity statements and discover what to include in those reports when communicating, both internally and externally, your organization’s pay equity philosophy.
Published 10/20/23
In this week’s Coffee Talk, Henrike von Platen of Fair Pay Innovation Lab speaks with Marcus Priest, Head of Global RD Awards at Novartis, about communicating the pledge to become a fair pay organization. Listen to Novartis’ success story in this episode of the Coffee Talk with Planet Fair to learn more about how to build an internal communications strategy to support pay transparency—even across countries, continents, cultures—and to integrate a pay equity mindset into your organizational...
Published 10/06/23
In this episode, Margrét and Henrike talk about certifications and their benefits. Tune in for an insightful conversation!
Published 09/22/23
In this Coffee Talk, Margrét and Henrike answer your pressing questions about which pay equity KPIs to report on and how to communicate your journey. Tune in!
Published 09/08/23
Pay Transparency: Employer Compliance Statistics Vary State-by-State. Why? For our first Coffee Talk after a summer respite in the sun, PayAnalytics co-founder Dr. David Ryberg Anderson joins Margrét to discuss his recent research into the efficacy of pay transparency laws in the U.S. During the talk, the two focus on salary range posting in California, Colorado, and New York using data from Monster.com.
Published 08/25/23
In this week's coffee talk, Henrike and Margrét followup on questions raised in Episode 46 about the applications of AI in HR. AI can make us faster and more efficient in some ways—speeding manual, tedious tasks, for example—but, if we aren't careful, biases can slip in and catch us off guard. Watch this coffee talk to learn about proactively monitoring AI tools in HR.
Published 07/14/23
In this week’s coffee talk, Margrét and Henrike chat ChatGPT and its applications for HR. They coach us in best practices for posing questions to the chatbot to yield the most valuable answers for HR practitioners, and point out where (and why) to use caution. And did we mention there’s a side-by-side demo of ChatGPT3.5 and 4?
Published 06/30/23
This week, Margrét speaks to Henrike von Platen from San Diego, where World at Work’s Total Rewards ‘23 conference has just wrapped up. So the topic of the day? Major takeaways, of course, at the meeting point of people analytics, great data infrastructure, and DEI goals.
Published 06/16/23
Diversity will drop into place if your system is objective and stereotype-free. But what if it isn’t?
Published 06/02/23
In ensuring pay equity, global companies contend with the need to account for cultural values across countries. Read on to find out how to address cultural differences in compensation decisions.
Published 05/19/23
​​Among the practices that helped earn BMW its gold medal for universal fair pay leadership, the company allows joint leadership for some leadership positions. In this coffee talk, Margrét and Henrike discuss this practice: when can it be helpful to allow one full-time position to be filled by two part-time workers instead?
Published 04/21/23