An Engineer Walks Into a Total Rewards Conference

A developer’s POV and takeaways from a compensation conference

World At Work ’24 Cincinnati Ohio — THE premier Total Rewards experience — and I was one of a handful of software developers given the honor to attend. Dressing to impress, I didn’t know what to expect. Executives in suits? Ambitious sales people clamoring to land the next whale? Free food? Even just 5-minutes in, I wasn't disappointed. And by the end of the conference, I was left with a whole new appreciation for the world of total rewards. 

I made my first round, eager to associate and absorb, expecting to get some good ol’ fashioned comp advice — make decisions impartially, excite and incentivize your employees — the likes. How wrong I was. People were speaking my language: “Leverage market data to make informed decisions while scaling your employees' pay.” Yes! “Surface interactive analytics to help managers assess pay equity and competitiveness.” Exquisite! I’m a data guy, and I was in data heaven. I went into the conference expecting old school, but I was shocked to learn how innovative and forward thinking the total rewards industry has become. Even more exciting: so many of the new data-leveraging innovations discussed are exactly what we’ve been building at CandorIQ since day one!

We live in a data-driven world, it’s only natural we make data-driven decisions. The brilliant folks at the conference taught me that the world of Total Rewards is on board with this, and—luckily—CandorIQ has been in on it from the start. From inception, all of our compensation and total rewards suites have surfaced relevant data and analytics via interactive plots, widgets, and tables. The next phase of analytics we’re developing will double our stakes. 

Our goal at CandorIQ is to give people-persons a holistic understanding of the impact of every compensation decision — no matter the scale. Making data and analytics as accessible as possible is our mantra and solution to this end. 

Let me give you four specific examples of how we do this:

1. A new and exciting headcount tracker suite featuring charts that give full understanding of the impacts of adding even a single new headcount, paired with a headcount scenario tool that empowers decision makers with the ability to create headcount plans and compare planned vs. actual headcount statistics in live time.

2. An easy-to-use benchmarking suite that provides extensive market data from the global to city level breakout for every pay type. At CandorIQ, we’re big on aggregating as much data as possible and putting it directly in the hands of our users. Our intuitive user experience lets anyone (not just comp experts) navigate compensation data that’s overwhelming when consumed raw, helping decision makers scale pay for each and every employee. 

3. Revamped merit cycle analytics that surface almost any breakdown you could think of to help decision making during the merit cycle. Spend by department, category, employee performance, manager, level, pay band position, you name it, we’ve built it. 

4. A comprehensive total rewards suite that delves deep into pay equity and gives insights by gender, race, and sexuality to help our comp leaders make fair decisions. 

At CandorIQ, we’re data-driven. I’m thrilled that Total Rewards experts have embraced this approach, and that I get to build tools that are right in line with the trends they highlighted at the conference! With this bolstered affirmation, we surge into the future, continually empowering compensation decision makers with the data they need to make the best decisions. 

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If you want to know more about how CandorIQ is thinking about the future of compensation and total rewards, reach out.