Comp and Coffee Compensation History: A Walk Through the Past and Future of Pay
Jun 13, 2025
Ashley Tamala leads the U.S.-based compensation consulting team at Hub International, while Sarah Hillenmeyer serves as Senior Director of Data Science at Payscale. They discuss the evolution of compensation practices, from handwritten ledgers to AI-driven insights. Listeners will learn about the shift towards market-based pay structures and the role of data in modern compensation strategies. They dive into the future of compensation management, highlighting innovations in AI and the importance of human judgment in making nuanced pay decisions.
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Early Comp Work Was Manual And Fragmented
- Ashley Tamala recalled her first compensation project in 2010 using Excel, PDFs and early online benchmarking tools.
- She described struggles gathering dispersed employee data and pulling job descriptions from multiple places.
Market-Based Pay Became Dominant
- Market-driven pay structures became dominant in the U.S. from the 1990s and solidified by 2010.
- Different countries still emphasize internal job evaluation, so practices vary globally.
Pay Equity Shifted To The Individual
- Pay equity evolved from job-level comparisons to individual-level analyses tied to protected characteristics.
- Technology shifted pay equity from reactive investigation to proactive strategic priority.