Project Management Lessons from Camping Posted on June 25, 2026 (June 24, 2026) by Alex Morgan Estimated reading time: 9 minutes A compensation cycle can fall apart the same way a camping trip does. You think you packed the right gear. Everyone seems to know the plan. Then the weather changes, one key tool fails, and someone looks around, wondering who had the flashlight. That is why camping offers such practical project […] Read More… from Project Management Lessons from Camping
The Peanut Butter Problem: Why Equal Merit Increases Undermine Performance Pay Posted on June 24, 2026 by Michelle Henderson The Peanut Butter Problem: Why Merit Budget Differentiation Is Your Most Important Retention Tool in 2026 8 min read Most organizations say they want to reward performance. Their merit budgets often tell a different story. More than 80% of employers plan to distribute salary increase budgets relatively evenly across the workforce, limiting the distinction between […] Read More… from The Peanut Butter Problem: Why Equal Merit Increases Undermine Performance Pay
What Did Your Summer Job Teach You? Posted on June 5, 2026 by Laura Morgan Before we had polished resumes, career paths, leadership programs, or LinkedIn profiles, many of us had summer jobs. We scooped ice cream. Watched kids at camp. Folded clothes. Made coffee. Cleaned tables. Answered phones. Sat in lifeguard chairs. Worked retail. Bagged groceries. Babysat. Mowed lawns. Took tickets. Filed papers. Delivered food. At the time, those […] Read More… from What Did Your Summer Job Teach You?
Data Slinging in Compensation: Why AI Cannot Rescue Untested Pay Analysis Posted on May 27, 2026 (June 24, 2026) by Laura Morgan Estimated reading time: 15 minutes A friend of mine recently used AI to help her board’s compensation committee appreciate the data she had collected on the nonprofit’s executive pay package. The deck looked sharp. Her talking points landed. Members of the committee felt informed. What she did not bring into that room was IRS Section […] Read More… from Data Slinging in Compensation: Why AI Cannot Rescue Untested Pay Analysis
Your Employees Are Already Using AI Salary Research Tools — Are You Ready? Posted on May 22, 2026 (June 25, 2026) by Alex Morgan Estimated Reading Time: ~7 minutes Every performance review cycle, more employees walk in prepared. They bring compensation ranges pulled from ChatGPT, benchmarks from Glassdoor, and job-level comparisons from LinkedIn — all gathered using AI salary research tools that cost nothing and take minutes to use. The question for HR directors is no longer whether employees […] Read More… from Your Employees Are Already Using AI Salary Research Tools — Are You Ready?
What 27 AI-Tagged Tasks Revealed About AI Productivity Measurement Posted on May 18, 2026 (June 9, 2026) by Laura Morgan Estimated reading time: 6 minutes In this article, we explore AI productivity measurement and its impact in today’s workplace. I pulled the AI productivity measurement data from our Wrike system last week, expecting a clean win story. Twenty-seven AI-tagged tasks across our most recent compensation consulting projects. Planned hours: 150. Actual hours: 183. We ran […] Read More… from What 27 AI-Tagged Tasks Revealed About AI Productivity Measurement
AI at Work: Read the Label Before You Panic Posted on May 5, 2026 (June 24, 2026) by Stacy Fenner Do We Need a Warning Label for Working with AI? A few weeks ago, I listened to a panel discussion and heard someone say, “There’s research on the side effects of AI. It can take away your personality and creativity.” Honestly, that line stuck with me. Not because I fully agreed. It stuck because it […] Read More… from AI at Work: Read the Label Before You Panic
The HR AI Turning Point: It’s Showing Up in the Questions Posted on April 29, 2026 (June 24, 2026) by Stacy Fenner AI dominates HR conversations right now, and this feels like a genuine HR AI turning point. The questions are getting sharper. Opinions are starting to form. You can feel the shift happening, from “we’re talking about it” to “we probably need to do something about it.” That shift is what HR leaders need to act […] Read More… from The HR AI Turning Point: It’s Showing Up in the Questions
Your Total Rewards Team Is at WorldatWork This Week. Will They Come Back with the Right Kind of Thinking? Posted on April 19, 2026 (April 19, 2026) by Laura Morgan There are a few thousand total rewards leaders gathered in San Antonio this week for WorldatWork Total Rewards ’26. Your people are probably among them. They’re sitting through sessions on pay transparency, equity strategy, market pricing methodology, benefits optimization, and a growing number of sessions on AI. Here’s the question I’d be asking if I […] Read More… from Your Total Rewards Team Is at WorldatWork This Week. Will They Come Back with the Right Kind of Thinking?
AI in Executive Compensation: What Proxy Filings Reveal About Leadership Behaviors Posted on April 14, 2026 (May 18, 2026) by Laura Morgan The proxy filings are coming in. Boards are paying executives for AI. The 2025-2026 DEF 14A season surfaced at least 14 S&P-listed companies that formally embedded AI-specific objectives into executive incentive programs. Those companies include Microsoft, Salesforce, IBM, Textron, and Ralph Lauren. Equilar’s analysis on the Harvard Corporate Governance Blog documents the trend in detail. […] Read More… from AI in Executive Compensation: What Proxy Filings Reveal About Leadership Behaviors