Replay of Katie Augsberger Video Hangout

FULL TRANSCRIPT OF THE MOST RECENT HR LANCERS HANGOUT

Chris Russell:
All right, let's get to Katie. I'll give you a quick intro Katie with your bio here. So Katie Ausburger is one of the founding partners of Future Work Design. She had planned to be a school teacher. She found her way into HR and has been working to some of the most marginalized identities in her HR practice for the last 15 plus years. Katie has a masters in curriculum and instruction, as well as a BS in sociology. She is certified as a senior professional in human resources. She's a certified professional for [inaudible 00:11:18] and a certified compensation professional.

Chris Russell:
So today we're going to talk about her career journey and her upcoming book on the future of work. So Katie, welcome to the show.

Katie Augsberger:
Thanks. It's really very flattering when you list out all of that stuff and I'm like, oh did I ... yeah, I guess those are things I did.

Chris Russell:
Yeah, I've been studying your LinkedIn profile for the last half hour, so I'm going to quiz you on your pastime.

Katie Augsberger:
Yeah.

Chris Russell:
Yeah, so give us a quick history of your HR background and tell us [inaudible 00:11:50]. We'll start there.

Katie Augsberger:
Yeah. So I think ... I can't speak for everyone on this call, but I think for a lot of us in HR, we kind of just happened into HR, did not expect that this would be our journey and here we are. I went to school to be a high school history teacher. I thought that that kind of ... I'm nerdy. I'm a history buff, so I thought that that would be something I'd be really into. Then while I was a receptionist at a manufacturing organization, while I was in grad school, I just kind of got interested in employee experience and was running reports that nobody asked for, and was interested in just kind of what the organization could do to improve, and kind of fell into HR that way.

Katie Augsberger:
Over the course of 10 years at that organization, became the head of HR. Then completely decided I want to do something in a completely different industry and went to a creative agency for manufacturing and was the head of HR there. Then three years ago, left, not by choice. I'm hearing about all these people talk about their COVID layoffs and COVID changes. That was certainly not a pandemic, but I was not like Chadwick. I did not want to do this. I was not interested in being a freelancer. I was not interested in being an entrepreneur. It just kind of happened because there was a layoff and I had to lay myself off. So then I started my own organization.

Chris Russell:
Okay. So take me back to that time. What was going through your mind at that point? Did you start looking for a full-time job at that point or did you just kind of say, okay let me try something on my own?

Katie Augsberger:
Yeah, it was full panic. I always feel like the most honest thing I can do for people who are thinking about this journey is just to be fully transparent about how it was for me, which was I was not excited about it. I was looking for a job. I was trying to figure out could I freelance in the meantime because I had just gotten divorced, I was a single mom, I'm a black woman in an all white state. It was just like this is all stacking up and it's not likely that I'm going to be super successful on my own. So I wanted to find a traditional job.

Katie Augsberger:
But then I started recognizing that what I was uniquely skilled at was something that I couldn't necessarily find in the market as far as a goal. I was really good at systems, figuring out these HR systems and how they were going to help the employees with the most barriers. That wasn't a specific thing people were asking for in job postings, but I knew it was something I was good at. I kind of had this aha moment one day, like we all do in the shower, as you're crying and thinking your deep thoughts of who do I trust more to take care of me and my family? Do I trust me or do I trust some business owner that I don't know?

Katie Augsberger:
That was kind of the aha I had. Yeah, I actually trust my hustle. I actually trust my skillset. So I think I can do this on my own, and that's kind of how I got there. But I was still scared. I'm still scared. I've been doing it for three years and I'm still scared.

Chris Russell:
Okay. By the way, do you have any job owning advice for the crew out there? Give me one tip or two that you can give to them today that can help them.

Katie Augsberger:
Yeah. I think the advice I would give is that, I think especially in a tough job market, I think many of us, if we've been in the career field long enough, we've weathered really tough moments in the economy. I think the instinct is to just take a job, whatever job you can take, and that you're really only happiest when it aligns with your values. That's the only way that role works and it is better to find the right thing than it is to find a thing. I know that can be really hard right now, but those organizations are out there and they are hiring.

Chris Russell:
Take me back to when you got your first client when you went on your own. Do you have a story around that?

Katie Augsberger:
Yeah, actually I took my first client through someone else. So the first thing I did was to subcontract, and that was actually a really hopeful experience for me. Somebody else who had a business and had a model, and had a system, and knew how to be with clients. I was under their wing. I did that a lot when I first started. I don't do that now because I have my own client base, but at the beginning that was something I didn't even know you could do. But I didn't know how to be a consultant.

Katie Augsberger:
I really knew how to be an HR lady. I had no idea how to be a consultant, which is two very different things. It is a very different skillset to be a consultant than it is to be an internal HR source.

Chris Russell:
Describe that for me if you could. What's the difference?

Katie Augsberger:
Yeah. When you are internal HR resource, I think your role is to always think of the longest term solution, to always make sure that everybody is in alignment because you have to move that system forward. You're going to be there. You have to negotiate those relationships really carefully because you are inside the organization.

Katie Augsberger:
So you just have more politicizing that you have to do and you have a lot ... you're looking at things in a much longer span of work. When you're consulting, you're really being paid to just give people the business. You're paid to just tell people what's what and to be declarative, and you're being paid to come in with some expertise. Often it's very okay for you to shake things up and to not be political, and to think of it in project terms. You want your work to outlive the project, but to recognize that you are not going to be there for five years. Your role is to be there in the short term, and what impact can you make in that short term.

Katie Augsberger:
So having to renegotiate my brain to think like a consultant and not like an internal HR took some time and learning from somebody else how to do that, and just how to show up in the room was really helpful for me.

Chris Russell:
Nice. Okay. So getting back to ... so your first client you subcontracted from another company. How about the first client you got on your own? Do you remember that?

Katie Augsberger:
Yeah, I remember it and I would do everything differently now, but I did get ... My first client was an HR retainer where they just needed somebody to kind of be their HR support, their back phone to call when some HR things happen. I think that that is a really great business model for some folks. It was a terrible business model for me because what I recognized is, again, I'm good at systematic work. I'm good at projects. I can create a really great compensation system.

Katie Augsberger:
But these longterm little engagements where I was just there to answer a question, I didn't have enough context to answer things for people. I didn't have enough information to really do my best work, so I was just so eager to sell something and sell something successfully that I did it. I actually had that client for a long time and all the way up until COVID when their business actually ended.

Katie Augsberger:
But it would probably not be a project I'd take now because now I have a better sense of what I am doing in my offering, but at the time it was just great to have something.

Chris Russell:
Were they using you too much or it just wasn't the right fit for you?

Katie Augsberger:
Yeah, it was just so sporadic. So I would have ... there'd be this big hot employee issue and then nothing, and then a big hot system that they were trying to implement and then nothing. What I recognized that's so critical about being an internal expert is that you have the through thread to connect all the dots from one incident to another, but as a consultant in such a small retainer you don't have that through thread. So you either have to make a bigger retainer so you can ask more questions, or you have to just recognize that you're not going to have the whole story.

Chris Russell:
How did you price something like that? I'm curious how you come up with pricing. Did you just flat monthly fee? Was that pricing, did it turn out to be enough? Was it the right price?

Katie Augsberger:
Yeah, I priced it as a flat monthly fee. It was at first I was not getting paid enough because they were utilizing me more than I did. I got more confident as time got on to renegotiate price and to be more clear about how long things took me, because what I didn't do ... I only billed for the hours that I ... I only projected I'll do 10 hours of work. So then I billed based on that amount of time, not thinking that there's so much other stuff that happens that I'm not getting paid for, that I needed to actually account for in my billing.

Katie Augsberger:
So now it's gotten much more sophisticated at the sales cycle, the project management. All of that stuff is stuff I still have to do and I still would like to get paid for it.

Chris Russell:
Yeah. So now that you've been on your own for a while now, what three years or so, three or four years?

Katie Augsberger:
Mm-hmm (affirmative). Yep.

Chris Russell:
What would you say you learned about working for yourself that you wish you knew beforehand? What comes to mind?

Katie Augsberger:
I think probably there's a few things. One, take your time to learn how to use QuickBooks, just as a tactical thing. You don't learn the systems of how to be an entrepreneur in HR naturally, so learn the systems of doing business just like you're learning how to do your practice of being a freelancer. Also, to recognize that ... this is part of how I think of my own worldview is that so much of what we've been taught about how a consultant looks, how a freelancer looks, is so tied up into our own ideas of patriarchy or diplomacy, how people should show up.

Katie Augsberger:
Should show up with a suit and tie, you should be very declarative, you should have all the answers. That's not an authentic way to work for me, so once I got more clear about what was authentic to me, the better I was as a consultant. So to get clear about who you are in this work, it'll help you be a better consultant.

Chris Russell:
Yep.

Katie Augsberger:
So QuickBooks and know yourself.

Chris Russell:
Right. Fair enough. So you're writing a book.

Katie Augsberger:
Yeah, sort of.

Chris Russell:
Sort of, okay. Well, what's it about first, and tell me where you are in the process.

Katie Augsberger:
So I think deeply about ... again, I'm a real history nerd, and how most of how we work and how systems of what is traditional success were set up to kind of center one type of worker, mostly affluent, male, white, highly educated. That was kind of who all our systems were designed around. That's who we consider a top performer, that's what professionalism looks like when we think about professionalism.

Katie Augsberger:
I often think of Don Draper from Mad Men. That's kind of who we center design of work for. Everybody else is just trying to fit into that system and it was a system that wasn't really built for us. What would work look like if each of us could be our authentic self at work? How would we normalize things like childcare and pregnancy leave, and very different types of professionalism. If we allowed ourselves to think broadly about what this looks like, then how would work look and in what ways could we actually change and shift instead of just leaving it to the system, change and shift work to be more for everybody.

Katie Augsberger:
I use a little story to kind of help people understand why this book can be helpful if you have a moment.

Chris Russell:
Yeah, sure.

Katie Augsberger:
So I went on a building tour with a company that I worked at before I started freelancing. We looked at all of these gorgeous modern buildings that were redone. We looked at this one building that was built in the 1910s in Portland and it had been converted to this ultra modern artsy creative space. When I went into the bathroom, because I went to leave and went to the bathroom, there were these urinals in the women's restroom. So I was like, oh did I go into the wrong bathroom or what's the deal here? Is this a way to be trans inclusive? What is happening in this bathroom?

Katie Augsberger:
So I asked the builder and the builder said, oh no, actually in this building all the women's restrooms were on the 12th floor and all the other restrooms were for men, which baffled my mind. I was like what do you mean? Didn't women need to go to the bathroom in 1910? But what he had said was that actually, when the building was built, all the women worked on the 12th floor. That was the secretaries floor and all the other floors were for me.

Katie Augsberger:
It occurred to me in that moment that that's the physical systems of work that were just built for men, and women were just supposed to fit in there. But there's a whole bunch of implicit systems in work, how we talk about compensation, how we talk about meetings, who gets invited, who doesn't get invited, that were built for men but not for women. How do we actually make those shifts and change that so that women and people of color, trans folks, all folks feel inside of the organization. The writing process is going slow because work is busy, which is good, but it is going.

Chris Russell:
Yeah. It's called the Future of Work? Is that what it's called?

Katie Augsberger:
I haven't settled on a title. It changes all the time.

Chris Russell:
Okay.

Katie Augsberger:
Yeah, I think it's about the future of work.

Chris Russell:
Are we talking about next year it's going to be out?

Katie Augsberger:
I think next year, which feels bonkers. I thought I would have all the time in the world once COVID hit, and that just hasn't yet been the case.

Chris Russell:
Yeah, did you ... A lot of freelancer took a hit over COVID. Did it affect you at all?

Katie Augsberger:
It did in a temporary sense. Once COVID hit, a lot of my client work got pushed or prolonged or slowed down. But because of the type of work I do, actually following George Floyd's murder, my work is probably as busy as its ever been because so much of my work is helping out organization rethink their policies and practices and really explicitly centering black and brown folks in the center of the design. So as organizations are pushing to get public statements out, a lot of black and brown employees were like, actually your internal practices look nothing like your external statement, so we need to do some work. So my work has been pretty busy since then.

Chris Russell:
Gotcha. Give me an example of something you'd be doing around that. I'm curious how you help companies shape that message and change.

Katie Augsberger:
Yeah, so my work often looks like firsts coming into internal organization and doing listening sessions. I first have listening sessions with black employees, then all people of color, and then all staff to see what is happening to the organization that you need help with, what support do you need, where do you need interventions, and then creating systems. A lot of ... Funny enough, a lot of the systems aren't so radical. It's like I need to understand what the process is for this work. I need to understand what my career path is. I need to understand where I can find benefit information. These little barriers we don't often think about as systematic oppression, but when you recognize that some folks may have, because of their own identities, more access to information than others, being really explicitly clear on what the career path is is really, really important.

Katie Augsberger:
So that is what my work often looks like now is first listening sessions and then creating the recommendations and those processes around what employees are saying they need.

Chris Russell:
Gotcha. Diversity and inclusion has just exploded in the last several weeks because of a lot of bad news. I have an ebook I wrote last year around a bunch of different diversity and inclusion tools out there you can use. It's probably my number one most downloaded book right now on [inaudible 00:30:33] media. What are some things companies are doing wrong today around this? There's probably a lot of stuff we could talk about here.

Katie Augsberger:
Yeah.

Chris Russell:
What are one or two things you can do tomorrow to start talking about it at least or just starting to improve the overall [inaudible 00:30:54] companies, because a lot of them are afraid to talk about it and a lot of them are just bad at it overall.

Katie Augsberger:
Yeah. I think two things are really important. One is to listen to what people need. I so often go into organizations where they just put out a statement or they just started a committee, but they didn't actually ask black and brown folks what would be helpful to you? I'm always kind of baffled about how simple that is and how easy of a step it is to miss. What do you need and how can I help you?

Katie Augsberger:
The second thing is the lack of investing time and money to this. So often with any strategy, organizations are like, yep you need to invest this money, we need to invest this time, we need to put it on calendars, we need to put a stake in the ground of why this is important. But with equity, this is the one area where we expect it to be free. We expect the labor to be done by black and brown folks. We expect it to be kind of a just nice thing to do. Until we start looking at equity with the same rigor as we look at the rest of organizational strategy, we will not actually move the needle on it.

Katie Augsberger:
So it's like we have to add rigor to it, we have to have budget, we have to hold people accountable, it needs to be on people's performance reviews. It has to be mechanized into the system of the organization for it actually to move the needle.

Chris Russell:
Measured, right?

Katie Augsberger:
Mm-hmm (affirmative).

Chris Russell:
Gotcha. Okay, so one of your job titles was senior manager of employee experience for [inaudible 00:32:42]?

Katie Augsberger:
Mm-hmm (affirmative).

Chris Russell:
For three years, so define employee experience for me and then tell me some things you did to improve the employee experience at that company.

Katie Augsberger:
Yeah. So I kind of think of employee experience as almost a more ambitious way of thinking than HR. So HR is the policies and practices of our work. Employee experience is taking that a level deeper and thinking of it as, if we center the employee in the design of this, what is our policy and practices? How do we center their needs in the needs of the organization. Instead of thinking of us as HR as necessarily an arm of an organization, I think of it as an arm of the employees and what they need.

Katie Augsberger:
So an example of that that looked like is recognizing that our staff was 50% female and mothers, and that we had no systems for working moms in our organization. So the system was just not built for these moms who were holding leadership positions but also were either single moms, small children, nursing others, and to actually center them and their needs in the design of their employee experience. So we started buffering out and making longer maternity leaves. We actually increased our PTO to be an unlimited PTO plan. We had very flexible stops and start times. We allowed for really flexible work from home plans.

Katie Augsberger:
So to recognize that, if we centered their needs, what was the employee experience going to look like for everybody? So, that was one of the things that I did there.

Chris Russell:
Gotcha. How about things like onboarding? Do you offer a-

Katie Augsberger:
Yeah, so I did all of the traditional HR things, like creating onboarding systems, recruiting. Luckily though, it was a really small organization, so I was able to test things that would seem very radical in a big organization, but for them was like, we're going to try this for six months and see if it works. We're going to have an innovation day. We're going to stop all work and do an innovation day for a full day and see if it works. So that experimental nature allowed for really cool onboarding programs and really cool PTO programs because it was small enough to try.

Chris Russell:
Yep. How about technology-wise? Did you bring in any kind of technology to improve the onboarding experience? Feel free to mention some different platforms out there.

Katie Augsberger:
Yeah, I'm the worst. I would do everything via spreadsheet and piece of paper if I could. I wish I was really great at technology and had good advice to impart, but I don't because it's just not my forte.

Chris Russell:
Gotcha, gotcha. All right. The employee experience I think was getting a lot of traction before COVID. Now it's probably even more on the minds of employees especially because they're all forced to work from home or change how they work. It's interesting how that concept has kind of taken hold in the last couple years overall. How do you think COVID is effecting all this, Katie? Is it positive, is it negative? Obviously remote work is much more of a vetted fact of life these days and it's probably going to be for the foreseeable future, but what do you think is coming out of this COVID crisis that is changing the way we work today and how to fix HR as well?

Katie Augsberger:
Yeah. I see some really great positive things and I see a lot of really stark negative things that we have to address systematically as a country. The positive is, yes, companies who have been kind of thinking for years, could we possibly have people work from home are immediately like, oh I guess we can. We can figure that out really fast. I also think the other great thing about this is we are starting to talk about mental health in a lot more businesses. I think businesses are forced to have conversations about mental health because so many people's mental health was impacted by COVID that not addressing it inside organizations became a glaring-ness. So a lot of organizations are starting to have real deep conversations and offer resources for mental health.

Katie Augsberger:
The thing I find really concerning for freelancers, for people in this profession, for people who are concerned about how work looks like, is the deep inequities that are happening for people who can work from home and organizations that can't work from home, or people who cannot work from home. How are we extending that same care taking ability for those who are working from home, for those who are not? How do we extend things like childcare and breaks? So many people are just working all the time because the workday doesn't really end anymore because your kids and your work are all happening in the same place all the time, so there's not the same care taking for the employee experience, whether that's at home or inside a workplace where people traditionally have to work.

Katie Augsberger:
So for people to really start to get curious about what do we really value and how do we value and recognize people's humanities through crisis at work?

Chris Russell:
Yeah. I keep seeing the word empathy being thrown around a lot saying that empathy is sort of the new director for management and then for your employer brand. If you actually care about your employees, it's probably the best thing you could do right now.

Katie Augsberger:
Yeah. I feel for employers because this is not a one company solve. This is not a one consultant solve. This is not one employee solve. This is a large systematic national conversation about how do we value people. If you're an organization that serves food to the community, if you're a restaurant and there is no national or regional sick leave policy and you do not have the means during COVID to offer sick leave, then you have employees coming in sick. So this is not the problem of the business owner. This is the problem of national conversation.

Katie Augsberger:
So recognizing that we work in a system that is bigger than us and we need to push that system to create opportunities so that businesses can successfully take care of their employees.

Chris Russell:
Yeah.

Katie Augsberger:
And that we should prioritize that just as much as we prioritize profit.

Chris Russell:
Yeah, I think it was ... I'm not sure if it was Chipotle. They came out with a sick policy where maybe you had to get a doctor's note or something and actually bring it in. Did you see something like that?

Katie Augsberger:
Yeah. It was like, well okay, that helps if you can go do the doctor. That helps if you can get a COVID test. So it's really recognizing the first layer is we have to have national conversations. Then we need to work on it. There's a lot of organizations that are pushing further than the government can push, but that's really hard for small businesses to do and to recognize that it can be very difficult and it can be a real pitch point if we don't have the systems to help support business.

Chris Russell:
Yeah. I would imagine as a consultant you'd have a field day going into an Amazon warehouse maybe.

Katie Augsberger:
Yeah.

Chris Russell:
Learning to address all the complaints from the workers there.

Katie Augsberger:
Yeah.

Chris Russell:
Is that your dream client?

Katie Augsberger:
Actually, it's funny. My dream client is usually the people who I find to be the more problematic employers. So for example, Amazon is a good example, Walmart is a good example. Organizations who have had real rubs with their employees, with unions, with labor rights folks, because that's the opportunity ... because there's such large employers, those are the opportunities to impact most people's lives. My interest and heart is in people who are in blue collar space because so much of my life personally and professionally has been in that space.

Katie Augsberger:
So where we can make the most change. Consultants are often brought in for white collar work places to help people who are already kind of at the highest excellence of privilege have more privilege.

Chris Russell:
Yeah.

Katie Augsberger:
Really, if we can break into organizations that are retail frontline workers and then create their employee experience, that to me is the most exciting client.

Chris Russell:
Cool. Okay, well we appreciate the info today.

Katie Augsberger:
Yeah.

Chris Russell:
Audience, do you have any questions for Katie? Here's your chance. Feel free to speak up.

Martha:
About these systems that you say that we need to implement, do you see any guidance coming from the federal government or is this going to be mostly on a state level?

Katie Augsberger:
I think right now on the state level. There was some really exciting traction happening about four years ago on what labor laws could look like in the United States and real movement towards that, but we've seen a real stall in the last three to four years about what is possible on a national level. But so many states are moving towards creating paid family leave, to creating sick time. This is happening in local municipalities in the States. It is moving us to a national conversation.

Katie Augsberger:
I kind of think of it like legalizing mariajuana. I know this is a bit of a stretch.

Martha:
[inaudible 00:43:31].

Katie Augsberger:
On a national level, it may be another decade before we get there. I think that that would be a whole bunch, but way too long. But on a local level, states across the country are like this is not the battle, this is not the hill we want to fight on, so let's go ahead and legalize this. I think that that's happening in a lot of the workplaces. We know this isn't going to happen nationally, so we're going to go ahead and make paid leave a thing.

Katie Augsberger:
So we're seeing it on both coasts, we're seeing it in some southern states that this is an actual movement that's getting traction. So I don't think we're going to see that any time soon on a federal level, but I remain hopeful. I like to keep hope alive.

Chris Russell:
Any thoughts on the California AB5 law with the freelance stuff?

Katie Augsberger:
No, but tell me do you have thoughts?

Chris Russell:
Well, did you hear about how they're classifying Uber drivers as full-time employees versus-

Katie Augsberger:
Fantastic.

Chris Russell:
You like that?

Katie Augsberger:
Yeah, well I like it in theory. I really think it's important that we protect workers, that we do not assume that all freelance workers are choosing to be freelance workers in the way that ... I am choosing to make a freelance life. I'm choosing to pay for benefits on my own. I'm making that choice. But if I'm in a job in which that was the only option in order to do that job, that's not really a choice. So for Uber drivers, that's not really a choice. That's the only way you can do that job.

Katie Augsberger:
So for people to have some clarity about how much rights they can have as a worker and that their job as freelance does not preclude them from protection.

Martha:
I'm concerned about that as well because we fought that battle with Microsoft several years ago where the contractors, hey if you're controlling them, if you're telling them when they work, where they work, what they're working for, you're they're boss and Microsoft lost that suit which was good because they were bringing in contractors. Just saving money, not paying benefits and things like that. But it really wasn't good for the economy because-

Katie Augsberger:
Yeah.

Martha:
... didn't have enough money and blah, blah, blah. I know it's hard to think of somebody working at Microsoft not making enough money, but that was essentially what it was because they had to pay all their own benefits and everything like that. So they had no real support.

Katie Augsberger:
Yeah. That's to me the big thing I think.

Martha:
Yeah. I see this lot. You fight it, and 10 years later you fight it again.

Katie Augsberger:
Yes.

Martha:
They just keep calling it back. They vote, all right minimum wage is $15 and that's it, and not know if we're going to graduate. You put it in and then it goes up two dollars and then folks postpone the next raise for another three years, and just keep delaying, delaying, delaying. So it's just-

Katie Augsberger:
Exactly.

Martha:
... a constant fight for people.

Katie Augsberger:
We're constantly in this loop of trying to advocate for workers, constantly. My hope is that we're having this kind of reckoning in our society, both imposed. We did not expect ... we all were sent home to our rooms to think about our sad choices. That's what I always say about COVID. That's all that's happening right now, but I'm hoping that we're having this reckoning about who are we as employers, who are we as employees, and what is our role and relationship to each other. Is this the time to renegotiate that? My hope is that, following this event, we will see some really radical shifts in workers rights.

Chris Russell:
Well said. Well said. Any other questions for Katie? Awesome-

Anca:
Hi Katie, this is Anca. Besides diversity inclusion, what other hot topics do you see rising at the moment in HR?

Katie Augsberger:
I think ... Thank you for that because I think that there are two things that I am seeing a lot of conversations around. One is career path. I think people are ... the model of just advocating for yourself in a career is broken because people do not have always the access to know what options they have. So having clarity in career paths and what this looks like and helping organizations paint that picture, which means how we do promotions, how we do performance feedback, how do we mentor. I think that's a really big and juicy emergent thing.

Katie Augsberger:
I also think, as always, compensation. I think as we're starting to create a more equitable workforce, how we pay people, what they are paid, how we compare salaries is going to be more and more important, encouraging. So to me, having really great compensation systems is going to be the definition ... I'm sorry, the differentiator between organizations.

Anca:
Thank you.

Katie Augsberger:
Mm-hmm (affirmative).

Chris Russell:
All right, everyone. We're closing in on 4:50 PM here in the east coast. Any last questions? I did pull Katie's website, FutureWork.design in the chat.

Katie Augsberger:
Yeah, that's us.

Chris Russell:
How else can people contact you? I put your LinkedIn in up there as well.

Katie Augsberger:
Yeah, LinkedIn is great. You can find me ... I tend to post quite a bit on LinkedIn, so feel free to comment or hop on or share an article with me. I'd love it.

Chris Russell:
Nice. Well, thank you for your time today, Katie. It's great to get to know you a bit and learn more about you.

Katie Augsberger:
Thank you. This was fun.

Chris Russell:
Yeah, awesome.

Katie Augsberger:
I appreciate it.

Chris Russell:
The replay will be out probably tomorrow and I'll put it up on HR Lancers socials and the website as well. Yeah, I appreciate you joining us, again. It was a great conversation I thought.

Katie Augsberger:
Yeah, thank you. I appreciate it. Thanks everybody.

Martha:
Thank you, Katie.

Chris Russell:
Awesome. Mark, thanks for joining us, Tanya, Alyssa, Anca, Monique, Meghan, Maureen and Dr. Joy. Have yourself a great day and we'll see you next time.