FNDN Series Custom Comp: Getting Personal During Downturns with Sarika Lamont, VP of People & Culture at Vidyard
Description:
Welcome back to the FNDN Series, where we continue our deep dive into startup compensation with industry leaders from across the startup world. In our conversation with Sarika Lamont, Vice President of People & Culture at Vidyard, we explore how to customize and personalize compensation in today's challenging economic environment. We dive into the art of persona mapping for compensation design, discuss how five generations in the workforce have vastly different priorities, and examine practical strategies for creating equitable yet personalized reward packages without breaking the budget. Stay tuned as we uncover how to balance transparency, fairness, and personalization in your compensation strategy during economic downturns.
Chapters:
00:50 Guest Introduction: Sarika Lamont from Vidyard
02:15 The Era of Personalization Meets Economic Reality
03:04 Five Generations in the Workforce: Different Values and Priorities
06:32 Building Employee Personas Like Marketing ICPs
08:07 The Importance of Transparency in Equitable Compensation
09:02 External Context: How Downturns Change Employee Priorities
13:08 From Government Consulting to Tech: Scaling Persona Mapping
14:01 The Interview Process: Validating Personas with Real Data
15:01 Country-Specific Compensation: Australia vs America Priorities
15:29 Why Companies Fear Asking Employees What They Want
16:12 The Christmas Wishlist Approach to Employee Feedback
18:10 Building Culture Through Transparent Communication
19:52 Scaling Back: When You Need to Unbuild What You Built
20:23 Budget Transparency and Honest Conversations
22:03 Resources and Templates for Getting Started with Personas
23:44 Using AI Tools to Build Persona Maps
Connect with Sarika
Visit: vidyard.com
https://linkedin.com/in/sarikalamont
Resources Mentioned
Companies Mentioned:
Vidyard - AI-enabled go-to-market tool with video messaging and hosting capabilities
Mercer - HR consulting firm (acquired the persona mapping consultancy mentioned)
Netflix - Referenced as pioneer of personalization algorithms
Tools and Concepts:
Persona mapping templates (to be provided in show notes)
ChatGPT/Claude - AI tools for building persona cards
Engagement survey data analysis
Compa ratio analysis for compensation planning
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Pave is a compensation intelligence platform that gives you real-time compensation data from more than 8,300 companies, allowing you to make calls with confidence, not guesswork.
Access Information & Resources from Pave:
2026 Budgeting & Trends Report: Get your free copy of the full report discussed in the episode, which includes trends on planned merit budgets, "job hugging," and pay transparency.
Learn More About Pave: Visit the Pave homepage to explore how you can benchmark pay, price jobs, manage pay ranges, and run your merit cycle all in one place.
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