Welcome to the Workology Podcast, a podcast for the disruptive workplace leader. Join host Jessica Miller-Merrell, founder of Workology.com as she sits down and gets to the bottom of trends, tools, and case studies for the business leader, HR, and recruiting professional who is tired of the status quo. Now here’s Jessica with this episode of Workology.
Jessica Miller-Merrell: Welcome to the Workology Podcast, sponsored by Ace the HR Exam and Manager Essentials Mini Courses. These are two courses that I offer for certification prep and people leader training. You can learn more about these courses over at Workology.com. This podcast was recorded and edited in one of my favorite tools, Riverside. You can learn more about Riverside and other creator tools that I love over at Workology.com/creator.
Today we are tackling a topic that challenges one of the most common assumptions in the workplace. Does paying people more money actually improve their performance? While performance-based pay is often viewed as a powerful motivator, the reality is much more complicated. In some cases, incentive programs can actually drive unhealthy competition, reduce collaboration, encourage short-term thinking, and even hurt employee engagement.
In today’s episode, we’ll talk about why traditional compensation models sometimes miss the mark and what HR leaders can do to create reward systems that motivate employees while supporting long-term business success. If you have ever questioned whether your compensation strategy is helping or hurting your culture, this conversation here is for you. So let’s get into it.
But before I jump into the episode for today, I do want to hear from you. Please comment “podcast” on the pinned post on our Instagram over @Workologyblog. You can ask questions, leave comments, and make suggestions for future guests. I want to hear from you. Sharell Thomas-Hodge is a dynamic HR executive, leadership strategist, executive coach, and speaker with more than 25 years of experience helping organizations and leaders unlock their full potential.
She’s known as the leadership lyricist. Sharell specializes in executive presence, leadership communication, total rewards, and talent strategy. Throughout her career, she has worked across corporate, nonprofit, and international sectors, guiding leaders on how to communicate with confidence, influence stakeholders, and build high-performance teams.
In her corporate leadership role, she has led compensation and total reward strategies for thousands of employees while helping organizations create equitable and people-centered workplace experiences. In addition to her executive leadership work as the director of total rewards at Tides, Sharell is also the CEO of The Sharell Group, where she coaches professionals and emerging leaders to strengthen their voice, elevate their influence, and accelerate career growth.
A sought-after speaker for organizations including the Society for Human Resource Management, WorldatWork, Payscale, and the HR Certification Institute, Sharell is recognized for blending practical HR expertise with an engaging and empowering leadership style. Originally from Nassau, she now resides in Atlanta and is passionate about helping leaders find and amplify their authentic voice to create a lasting impact. Sharell, welcome to the Workology Podcast.
Sharell Thomas-Hodge: Thank you so much for having me. Almost didn’t sound like me; couldn’t recognize that person.
Jessica Miller-Merrell: I love it when people read—when other people read my bio because I’m like, dang, who is that person? They’re amazing. So it’s—it’s a nice reminder that like it’s impressive. It is impressive. Let me start with the big question: What does performance-based pay—why does this sometimes backfire even when organizations implement it with the best intentions?
Why Performance-Based Pay Can Backfire
Sharell Thomas-Hodge: Thank you. Absolutely. I think that is a great question. And it is really, in my opinion, the foundation of what happens when you think about performance and merit and that process. I personally think that it backfires when organizations are really using the money to do the work that really leadership, clarity, and coaching should have already done. So the intention behind paying for performance usually is good, but obviously we want to be able to reward people for doing the great work.
We want to motivate their performance. However, if the goals are unclear, which 90% of the time they are, and they’re not SMART goals, if managers are inconsistent—so a lot of organizations aren’t training managers as to how to properly assess the performance of their folks, so there’s inconsistency there—or if employees are only hearing about their performance once a year, it should really be a continuous process and not introduced to them for the first time.
That is where you have the backfiring. As I always say, money can absolutely recognize performance, but it cannot rescue a broken performance culture. When people don’t trust the process, that is when performance pay starts to feel less like recognition and then it feels a little bit more like politics. This is when it actually backfires.
Jessica Miller-Merrell: It sounds like setting expectations, consistent communication, coaching, reinforcement—all these things should be happening in addition to having performance-based pay for it to work.
Sharell Thomas-Hodge: That is correct. It is an entire ecosystem.
Jessica Miller-Merrell: And you’re right. I feel like that is where things fall apart. We just release the performance-based pay, maybe there’s a little training about it, and then everybody goes back to their usual day-to-day and it gets left behind.
Sharell Thomas-Hodge: Absolutely. But there should truly be numerous touch points. And a lot of organizations are now moving away from the one time a year to having multiple conversations around performance so that it’s sticky and so that it is clear.
Jessica Miller-Merrell: I like that. Performance pay can mean a lot of different things, and it really depends on the organization. Can you walk us through the most common types of performance pay? And I’m thinking like merit increases, bonuses, commission, profit sharing, and incentive plans. Maybe just explain where each tends to work best and where HR leaders should be cautious.
Choosing the Right Performance Pay Strategy
Sharell Thomas-Hodge: Of course, of course. So I think you said it best, right? Performance pay is not just one thing. So think of it as a whole HR toolbox where we have to know which tool fits with the type of work. It’s the way I kind of look at it. So when you think of merit increases as an example, this is best suited for sustained performance over time. So this really works when managers are actually differentiating performance and not giving everyone kind of the same type of increase. So when you’re thinking about projects and work that’s happening, usually tied to goals, you want to approach that with merit.
Bonuses are really great for those short-term goals. So think of the quick wins; think of—it could be tied to major organizational outcomes. So you just did a system implementation, as an example. And so maybe the members of that implementation team, they are the ones that you would just give kind of a quick bonus for short-term goals. But you want to be very careful when it comes to that because we don’t want employees to start to see that as guaranteed income when you do this work, because not all work is going to require you to incentivize with money. But if you do have a way where you want to really recognize those quick wins, I would live in the world of bonuses.
Commissions work well when you have safe environments where the person has a direct line to the outcome, which is why commissions are usually tied to sales environments, as an example, because usually the salesperson is selling. So they are directly impacting kind of that revenue and that growth that comes in for sales. And so based on that, because there is that direct relationship, this is where you want to make sure that they are paid appropriately based on the amount of work that they’re doing in that space. Again, you have to be very careful when it comes to commissions that it doesn’t drive, from a competition perspective, that ill will between teams. And then also you don’t want it to really damage customer relationships, because sometimes when you’re focusing on commissions, the end game is really to get the money, and so you may miss or have some missteps when it comes to really addressing customer needs.
Profit sharing is powerful. This is where you’re saying, “We are in this together,” right? So it’s employees understanding that we work for this organization, there’s a mission, there’s a goal, and because we’re all pouring into that, then we all benefit from the reward of that. So profit sharing is great. I think it’s a great tool. However, employees have to understand kind of the bigger connection between the work that they’re doing and the results. Again, we don’t want it to just be we’re handing this to the employee. We want them to understand that this is a team, we have done this together, and then this is the part that you’ve played in the “we,” which is resulting in you receiving kind of this profit as a result of that. So it’s important for profit sharing to understand the education part of it.
And then incentive plans are really meaningful when you have clear, measurable outcomes, right? So again, moving a little bit beyond merit where it should be tied to just individual goals, when you start getting into incentive plans, it’s usually where the outcomes are clear: we know that the end game is going to be X, and so we’re going to incentivize you for getting to the end game. Again, cautioning not wanting your employees to start chasing the rewards, right? So if it’s poorly designed, if it does kind of foster behaviors that are not true to the organization, then that will create a culture that’s not wanted. So you have to be mindful when you think of incentive plans.
I think the biggest question when you think of HR and leadership as it relates to pay is really not “What are we paying for?”, but I think it’s “What behaviors are we creating?” Because you can use all of what I just shared as a part of your toolkit, but you want to make sure that it is kind of creating outcomes in behavior change or even just rewarding the behaviors that are true to the organization. Cause if not done well, that could also create kind of a ruptured culture.
Jessica Miller-Merrell: I want to say, wow! That was like a mini class on performance pay. This was great. I am going to absolutely chop this up and put this into our HR certification prep program because I do feel like compensation and benefits often gets overlooked for a lot of HR professionals because we’re often more generalists than specialists. And so comp and benefits is definitely one area from a lot of our students that are like, “I need more help in this area.” So this was like so concise. I can tell like you are an expert in this and it’s clear why.
Sharell Thomas-Hodge: I love all things compensation.
Jessica Miller-Merrell: And that is a gift. I do not! So I love that you love that for me, because I can learn from you. That’s amazing.
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Why Continuous Feedback Matters More Than Annual Reviews
Jessica Miller-Merrell: Let’s move on to an area that is related to performance compensation, but is one I think that gets overlooked. It’s the importance of continuous feedback. How can organizations create a culture of feedback that feels developmental rather than punitive?
Sharell Thomas-Hodge: That is a great, great question. And to be honest with you, for a lot of leaders, that’s hard. Like having difficult, as we coin it, conversations, which to me is not difficult if we’re being transparent and honest and doing it often enough. It is a challenge for a lot of people leaders. And I will say that feedback really has to become normal before it becomes necessary. And for a lot of us, we’re only addressing the issues, the concerns, the areas of opportunity when something happens, when it’s already escalated or elevated and it becomes a problem. But I think if we allow feedback to be the normal way that we do business—so business as usual—if the only time a manager is willing to say that something is going wrong or something is going right is then, obviously that is not going to support having an environment and a culture where there’s growth, where there’s clear expectations, where we’re talking about priorities, and that is really where the feedback becomes developmental.
We want to have outcomes such as support. So employees should feel supported. There should be growth. We’re having conversations about: “This is where you are now. I know that this is where you want to be. And here are some things that you can do to help to get there.” Clear expectations—that is really when it becomes a part of development and not just a way to be punitive, right? And so to be able to do that, it really needs to be consistent, right? And it should not be treated like it’s an event. It’s not just an annual review. It’s not just a mid-year review. It’s not just a quick check-in. And that is how most leaders currently treat it.
It is an actual coaching moment. It is a time to have an actual conversation. This is where the difficult conversation comes in. But if we’re doing it often enough and with clarity, it’s not difficult at all. It is really saying: “Here is what worked. Here is what needs to shift. And here is how I am going to support you.” That’s it. So you’re really solving in those three areas: Here is what worked, here’s what needs to shift, and here is how I am going to support you.
People can absolutely receive hard feedback when they know that it’s coming from a good heart, right? So it’s literally you’re having a conversation from the heart. That’s the difference between correction and development. When I’m correcting you, I’m only concerned about you not doing this again, right? Change behavior immediately. However, when I’m developing you, then I’m building a relationship. So we’re having a conversation that’s not going to be a one-time thing. It’s going to be continuous because I’m going to praise you as you develop the things and the areas of opportunity and get better at those things. And then I’m also going to challenge you when you do have those missteps or areas of opportunity to ensure that you’re better as a professional.
So I think that’s the real difference is having that continuous conversation and just making it normal. It should be the way we do business. From the first time you have a conversation with your direct reports, which should literally be the first time you come into the door, all the way to whether they’re transitioning out or you’re moving on, it should be a normal thing to always pause and have those conversations about performance and progress.
Jessica Miller-Merrell: I think people tend to get defensive when those conversations aren’t continuous, right? And so then it feels sort of unexpected or sudden. And then our natural human response is to be like, you know, “This is unfamiliar and I don’t like being pushed back on.” But if it’s happening often, and like you said, it’s more of a developmental conversation, there isn’t so much resistance.
Sharell Thomas-Hodge: Of course. And then I think having the conversation often is what’s going to reduce those barriers, right? Because as you said, we’re humans. So if you’re having a conversation with me, I need to know that this is a safe space, that it’s coming from a safe place. I’m only going to know that if you and I are having these conversations continuously. But if I haven’t shared expectations, I haven’t really leaned in to support you, it is fair for me to feel like, “Hey, you’re attacking me,” which is how I’m going to feel with kind of, “This is what isn’t going right,” but you didn’t really give me a clear roadmap as to how to get there.
How Performance Pay Can Hurt Collaboration and Culture
Jessica Miller-Merrell: When compensation is closely tied to individual performance metrics, what maybe are some unintended consequences that can emerge for team collaboration, trust, or workplace culture?
Sharell Thomas-Hodge: Absolutely. And I think I touched on this a little bit as I was sharing kind of those different pay-for-performance tools that we can use in our toolkits. But what happens—and it’s just natural—people start protecting their own scorecards when you are tying pay to individual metrics, right? So I know the higher I can soar, the more I’m going to be rewarded. And so it moves me away from the focus on the team to more of a focus on I. And when that happens, collaboration is going to take a hit. What that looks like is that people are going to stop sharing information. So now I’m going to hoard the information and then use it to really elevate myself.
Then there’s competition. And we love competition, but we love healthy competition. I think it gets unhealthy when there’s not a true partnership, when I’m ready to literally step on your toes, step on your back, trample over you to be seen as kind of the expert, right? And so the focus quickly moves away from the mission to really focusing on the person. I think reframing that so that we go back to the shared mission and the shared goal is what’s really going to help to turn that around. Numbers always look good on paper, but sometimes they do really hit the culture. And so your culture is going to quietly suffer.
And while we do need individual accountability—I’m a strong believer of that—we should be rewarding individuals for individual work that they’re doing. I think the best plan of action is to really have a balanced approach. So it’s looking at individual contribution within the team, and then how does that support organizational success? So then you still have the layer of “I contributed,” but “I contributed within a team,” which brings back the focus to this collaboration, and then “we collectively worked towards organizational success.” So it’s really making sure that the most meaningful work doesn’t happen in isolation, that it’s happening through people, but we’re looking at how are we balancing and rewarding that individual contribution, but we’re also looking at team success and talking about it, and then we’re tying that into organizational success.
Whatever gets rewarded is going to get repeated. So if we want to really have a culture where it’s all about teamwork and collaboration, then let me go ahead and reward that teamwork and contribution just as much as we’re rewarding individual contributions. And then I think that will help to distort any of those behaviors where the competition becomes too aggressive.
Jessica Miller-Merrell: Let me take a reset. This is Jessica Miller-Merrell, and you are listening to the Workology Podcast. We’re powered by Ace the HR Exam and Manager Essentials mini courses. Today I’m talking with Sharell Thomas-Hodge, Director of Total Rewards with Tides, about what to do when performance pay backfires.
Compensation Challenges for Nonprofit Organizations
You have worked extensively in the nonprofit sector, so I wanted to ask: What are some of the unique HR challenges that nonprofits face when it comes to compensation, maybe performance management, and employee engagement?
Sharell Thomas-Hodge: Great question, and a very powerful question. I think it’s really all summed up—I don’t even need to be overly complicated—it’s all about resources, right? So for most nonprofits, it’s all about the mission. The mission is powerful. That’s why people come to work for nonprofits. However, with that, resources are often limited because there’s not a lot of money, there’s not a lot of resources to be able to develop programs to sustain them. When you think of building out compensation programs and structures and bonuses, you don’t want to start and stop. It needs to start and really continue because it is going to evolve.
And so people come into the nonprofit space and they really want to do the hard work. They believe in the work; they believe in the organization. However, that passion without being kind of tied to having the resources to make sure that we’re properly staffed, having the resources to make sure that pay is keeping up with the market, having the resources to make sure that we are rewarding for all of those individual contributions as well as teamwork—that is where, and being able to keep with the mission and pay the bills, that is where it gets tricky because most nonprofits don’t have the financial resources or the bandwidth, because a lot of times they’re really operating with a skeleton workforce to get the work done. So we know it needs to be done; it’s just hard getting it done when you don’t have resources.
And so what happens for HR—and that is why I love working in nonprofits—is that we have to then be creative and thoughtful. So we’re no longer thinking of all of those “it’s already made for you, run with it.” It would be great if we had the money to really work with some of these systems and platforms and partners. But when you don’t have it, it allows you to really flex and lean into how can you be creative, and even more so, how can you be thoughtful so that you’re still showing your folks, even though you may not be able to lead with the highest salaries, you can still create an environment where folks feel recognized. So having a strong recognition program, you can still create fairness in and through all of your policies and processes and decisions, transparency.
We talked about development, so there’s a lot of making sure that development and coaching is happening, and then having some flexibility. Like a lot of my nonprofit environments, they are remote, and that helps with allowing employees the flexibility to really be able to live their lives while still working. And I think that creates a strong employee experience. Nonprofits are dealing with pay compression, we do have limited career pathways, and so sometimes employees are wearing too many hats—I won’t even say multiple hats, because again, we’re very lean. And so that can make compensation and performance management even more sensitive and challenging.
But I think for me, what has worked and what I share with my clients, even in my consulting business, is always trying to find a key balance: How do we honor the mission of the organization, but we’re not exploiting the people who are carrying the mission? So we want them to be able to join for the mission, but we want them to be able to stay because of the leadership experience. And so instead of focusing on those tangible financial rewards, we focus more on the leadership experience and what that looks like to help sustain a strong culture.
Jessica Miller-Merrell: Thank you for that. One of the most common questions that I’m getting on TikTok in particular from HR leaders, maybe or folks who just want to move into HR or looking to kind of gain some experience, I wanted to ask you: Can you share maybe an example of how one could gain real-world, boots-on-the-ground experience, if you will, that can accelerate someone’s HR career more effectively than just classroom learning?
How to Build Real-World HR Experience
Sharell Thomas-Hodge: Of course. Classroom learning gives you really the language, but real-world experience gives you judgment. That’s the main difference. So as an example, someone can study employee relations. So you go, you take a class, and you’re understanding kind of the policy side. But until you are actually in a conversation with a manager who may be struggling to deliver feedback, or you’re working with an employee to help navigate a real workplace issue, you’re not fully understanding the weight of HR and the work.
So for me, that is where volunteering, internships, and networking matter so much, because they actually put you close to the work. Theory is great, but it can never replace being close to the work. Early in my career, the moments that really shaped me were not just the things I learned formally from my SHRM certifications and being in so many HR spaces; it was the moments where I had to listen, where I had to solve, where I had to adjust and pivot in real time and then communicate with real people in real situations. I was not able to pull out my handy-dandy textbook to be able to help me with that.
And so that has been instrumental. And I think for someone trying to grow in HR, I always say: Don’t worry about a perfect title or being able to elevate. Start with really building the skill. Volunteer for a project. A lot of us, especially in the nonprofits, we’re looking for folks to help us to get things done. So volunteer for a project. Do an internship. Join an actual committee where you’re able to serve on a board. Be able to help in that way, but being close to the work gives you the ability to be able to benefit so much from shadowing someone, sitting in on seeing what they’re doing. And then usually, at your next opportunity, you’re able to demonstrate that you had capability, not just that hidden potential.
So we know that we have potential, but pulling that out may require you to be connected to the work. So find some time to either volunteer, to intern, to network in the HR spaces so that you can be a part of these real conversations in real time. It is so important.
Jessica Miller-Merrell: So for volunteering, is it as simple as sending a LinkedIn message or an email to directly say like, “Hey, I’m looking for some experience. Do you need some volunteers?”
Sharell Thomas-Hodge: Of course, and twofold. I would say—very great follow-up question—I would say start with your network. If you don’t have HR professionals that are doing the work, then I would reach out to folks that are doing the work and, to your point, see if there are any projects that you are able to help with—because obviously there’s sensitive information and we’re aware of that. But are there some volunteer projects that you can be a part of? There are organizations that do have, to your point, formal outreach for needing help. So organizations all the time post that they’re looking for volunteers, they’re looking for members to be on their board. Like, I serve on the board for Friends of Refugees, where I advise on all things HR. I was also on the board for the Atlanta Home Project, which again, the goal in that short space was to help that nonprofit really be able to build and develop. They didn’t have a fully dedicated HR professional on staff, and so I served in the capacity of being able to consult and advise on all things HR.
So all of those are volunteer events, but I get to still do HR work. For some of them, there is an HR team, so you can get to partner with the team. But yes, you can reach out. Some organizations do advertise directly, but just think of HR as everywhere and in everything for most organizations because we’re dealing with people, and that’s what we do in this function. So there is always a need to get plugged in. I would start with HR associations because they sometimes are doing projects or have access to organizations that may be needing the work. If not, reach out to HR professionals that you know—and even if you don’t know—just to say, “Hey, how can I plug into some volunteer work or to some projects?” And then of course, you can always find out a little bit more with organizations such as SHRM, WorldatWork, HRCI, HCI. So there are tons of things that are happening in the spaces where you can just volunteer and sign up and be a part of that and continue to build just your HR community. So that way you’re leveraging those skills, but then you have partners that may be in other areas of HR that you’re not in. Great question.
Jessica Miller-Merrell: Yeah, thank you for that, because I feel like I get that question once a week over on TikTok.
Sharell Thomas-Hodge: Absolutely, absolutely. And folks have done it to me. I mean, even with my consulting business, I have had two interns, and that was not the plan, but I got outreach by folks saying, “Hey, how do I get in? How do I learn a little bit?” And I’m like, “Well, I do have a coaching business.” While I didn’t have any openings at that particular time to do some work with my full-time job, I did have the need. And so they were able to sit in on some conversations that I’m having, understand how I’m doing my coaching, where am I pulling my tools and resources from, and be able to learn that area of the business, too.
So the same way that I was willing and open to, there are tons of HR professionals that love mentoring and partnerships and coaching and collaboration. So I would just do absolutely direct outreach: TikTok, Instagram. I’m really the TikTok and LinkedIn girl, but I’ve had folks on TikTok and LinkedIn reach out all the time where I’m either connecting them with someone that I know is looking for someone to really help support—it could be a startup, it could be someone starting their own nonprofit. And I’ve also been willing to help folks, especially the ones that are just getting started, because, you know, each one help one. We are paving the way for the next generation of HR leaders to really carry the torch. So we’re always excited to partner in that capacity.
Jessica Miller-Merrell: I agree. AI continues to dominate our conversations in the HR space, and that’s going to continue. Like, this topic isn’t going away. From your perspective, where is AI adding the most value for HR practitioners and where do you see some of the greatest risks happening?
AI, Human Judgment, and the Future of HR Leadership
Sharell Thomas-Hodge: Of course. AI for HR is really helping us to move faster and to work smarter. So I know that seems really broad, but I think all of what we do really sits in those two buckets: It’s being able to move faster and work smarter. And so when I say move faster, it helps me draft communication. So when I’m there thinking through how do I—especially when you have different audiences—I can absolutely use Copilot and Claude to be able to help me with that, help me brainstorm. So sometimes, again, I know the meat of what I’m trying to say, but trying to put it together in a structured format, it’s been instrumental with that. All of the administrative loads. So now where it would have taken me hours to do a PowerPoint presentation, I can do that in minutes. Even when I think through dashboards and kind of metrics, where I would have been spending time building tools with BI and building these crazy formulas to really tell us, now I can go ahead and have Copilot analyze my spreadsheet with data and kind of give me the nuances and the anomalies and help me to be able to articulate what that means.
So I’m loving the fact that AI is really helping with communications. It can help you to summarize your survey data, your feedback, just the basic things—even email management, right? Sometimes I get—I mean, my email inbox is crazy. I’m not going to call a number, but being able to just go to Copilot and say, “Hey, I’m looking for an email with this keyword,” and they can just scan it for me and pull it up, let me know which emails I have not replied to, versus me trying to go to my sent messages. Like, there’s a lot in the administrative load that I don’t have to worry about and that usually would have kept me and my teams buried, that we’re now using AI for. It helps us to identify trends. In my compensation world, it’s doing a lot of the basic compensation analysis and giving me the framework to get started. I’m building my training content, a lot of it, with the use of AI.
So really, it has helped me a lot to become an assistant and be a part of our HR team. It’s learned us. We’re working on agents right now so that, again, we can have some consistency and predictability around the comms when we do use AI. So it has been phenomenal in keeping us obviously on track from a timing perspective. The risk comes in because AI cannot replace judgment. Right. And what happens is that a lot of folks are doing that. So you have to be able to fact-check all of what you’re doing when you’re using AI as a companion, because HR work is deeply human work. So we’re dealing with context, we’re dealing with emotions; we have to think about fairness, trust, and consequences. So AI can give you the draft, it can give you a little bit of data once you verify that, it can give you options, but it’s not going to truly understand kind of the judgment, human part of that.
So it won’t know the history of your team and the ins and outs. It won’t know the nuances of your culture, and they do exist. It won’t know the impact that a decision is going to have on a person’s life. It won’t know what the folks on your teams are going through. So basically, it’s not a substitute for wisdom. It’s a collaboration tool that can help you do things faster and do things smarter, but it absolutely cannot replace just kind of that human side of it and you being able to listen and make wise decisions, right? So AI can never operate in the gray; it’s always going to be black or white. But the best HR leaders, we know that a lot of times we’re operating in the gray. And so we would never want to use AI to actually—to really outsource our own discernment and the human part of it. All we want AI to do is help us to accelerate the work.
Jessica Miller-Merrell: Thank you for all of that. And I have to tell you about the AI agent that I’m using right now. It’s like six agents in one, and I have a link, so I’ll put it in the show notes. And I think there’s a 10% off coupon. It’s called Marblism., and it has little AI agents that do different things. And my favorite one is the sales automation guy. He goes and searches LinkedIn for me and then sends out some basic, like messaging automated every morning. And then my executive assistant for my email reads my email, organizes the email, archives them, and then, to your point, will draft a response based on my sort of guidelines that I have. And once I got it trained—it took a little bit, but it’s been great. And it has probably saved me just in the last month probably about 50 hours, I would say, of time.
Sharell Thomas-Hodge: There you go. And if you think—because you said 50 hours, but you translate that into dollars, right? ‘Cause a lot of times we say it and it sounds, you know, it’s 50 hours, but that’s 50 hours at your hourly rate. So when you’re thinking of organizations, that’s 50—
Jessica Miller-Merrell: 50 hours of my hourly rate or my VA. Like either way, it is—it is a lot.
Sharell Thomas-Hodge: A lot! There you go. Absolutely. And now the time—especially for organizations, you know, time wasted—and I use that word intentionally now that we have AI—but time wasted on kind of those day-to-day manual tasks could have been better spent on strategy or the people part that AI can’t address, right? So I love that. I love us being able to just tap into it because it’s not going anywhere.
Jessica Miller-Merrell: Not perfect. Not perfect. I will say, like I asked it to set an appointment for me for like a Thursday, like last Thursday or something, and I went to look for it because my friend was like, “I didn’t get the calendar invite.” And it made it for 2025. So it’s—it’s still learning. So all that to say is like it’s not infallible, it’s not perfect. And it probably was created in 2025, and so when I said, “for next Thursday,” in its brain, it’s like, “it’s still 2025,” and it created the calendar invite. But it has been super helpful in terms of saving me—saving me time.
Sharell Thomas-Hodge: Of course. It has been a game-changer for me. I will say that, especially with the coaching business and then being at a nonprofit. Just like you said, it’s just that. I mean, it is the administrative tasks that really keep me up at night; it’s never the bigger things. It’s always this kind of—like you think of calibration and merit. Like I am so excited and looking forward to what that’s going to look like for us in 2027, because we’ve already done it this year, but we didn’t have AI. And so I’m already building and predicting and doing all of the things. And I’m like, it’s going to be seamless because now we’re going to have AI to help me with all of the calibrations, and it’s not just this one human needing to work with all leaders.
Jessica Miller-Merrell: Looking ahead, what do you think will really separate great HR leaders from average ones, thinking about the next 3 to 5 years? And I’m thinking about like how we’re balancing not only AI, but like people strategy, technology, and the changing expectations of work.
Sharell Thomas-Hodge: I think the difference is really going to come with great leaders being able to bring clarity to complexity. So even with AI technology, all of what you just shared, it is creating some complex situations. We are still trying to figure out, just as you said, what we were just sharing: sometimes AI doesn’t do what we want it to do, and then we’re still thinking through the compliance, the privacy part of that, and what that really looks like. And every day, if you’re keeping up with the headlines, there is kind of this new version of Claude, and then there’s a new—so even AI is changing, in my opinion, faster than they are even able to keep up with it.
And so that in itself creates complexity because we don’t know. We’re shifting and we’re making changes to jobs and processes today based on what we have exposure to today, but tomorrow that looks completely different. And so with that, the average HR leader will just know the policy. But when you’re thinking of a great HR leader, it’s “How do I apply that policy with judgment, knowing that my world and things are changing?”
When you think of data, the average HR leader will be able to just report the data, but the great HR leader is knowing how to translate that data into actual decisions, right? Even thinking of AI: How are we going to use it? What is it going to look like 3 years from now, 5 years from now? And how are we going to pivot when it pivots? It’s being able to think about application. The average HR leader is only just going to use the technology. However, great HR leaders are thinking about using the technology, but not losing humanity.
So I absolutely think, even though a lot of organizations are letting AI and the governance of that sit with IT, sit with compliance, I think that it should really sit with HR, or we should absolutely be a part of the conversation in the beginning because, again, it’s thinking about: How do we partner with technology, but not lose our humanity? And that is the human in human resources. That is what our job is, and so we should be the owners of that because we should be thinking in every way where we’re using it or where we’re partnering with it, “How does that impact the human?” So helping us to keep the human in the loop, right?
So we are in a season where work is changing, employees’ expectations are changing, they’re having options, they can work pretty much anywhere around the world. And so with that, leaders are feeling pressured because we have to make decisions faster than we ever have before while still thinking about: We’re making these decisions, we don’t want to be reactive, but how can we still be strategic, courageous, and then deeply connected to the business? And so to be able to do that, it’s going to take us truly leaning into our humanity.
I think the HR leaders that are going to do well in the future are going to be the ones that can say the hard things with grace. So having those conversations with leadership, maybe to say, “We’re not ready for this part of AI,” or maybe, “We’re not ready for AI at all today because we do have to do some fundamental, foundational work.” It’s being able to have those conversations with people leaders around continuous conversations. So the leaders that can say the hard thing, but saying it with grace; the ones that can use the data, but you’re using it to tell a story and not become so cold, where still with that, it’s just a dashboard. And then I think the ones that are going to protect the people experience while they’re still driving results.
So I am a high performer and all about the outcomes, but I never forget about the people, because that is my role as the HR leader. At the end of the day, employees are not going to remember every policy, but they absolutely will remember how leadership made them feel when the policy was applied. And so I think the great HR folks are going to be the ones that are going to lean into the feelings, right?
So I know in the beginning of HR, when I joined 20-plus years ago, it was kind of a touchy-feely career. But somewhere along the line, as we became more strategic, we moved away from what that looks like. And I am saying that we should bring that back—the putting people first, the touchy-feely part of it, the thinking about how every decision we make in the organization is going to impact the people that we serve, which are our employees. That is what’s going to make a lasting HR professional and one that’s going to be great and not just average.
Jessica Miller-Merrell: Well, Sharell, thank you so much for taking the time to chat with us today. Where can people go to learn more about you and the work that you do?
Sharell Thomas-Hodge: Absolutely. So I am all over social media and I am trying to lean into all of these things. So first and foremost, you can find me on my website at www.sharell.org. Feel free to email me; my email address can be found on my website, or you can book some time for us to just chat about this. And then I live in the world of LinkedIn because I’m always dropping nuggets, and making—that’s where I get my learning from. So I get to figure out what’s happening, latest and greatest. So you can find me, Sharell Thomas, on LinkedIn. You can find me on Instagram; “Leadership Lyricist” is who I am, and so that’s my handle for all of my social media platforms. But I would love to connect with you there, and I would love for you to stop by my website just for us to say hi.
Jessica Miller-Merrell: Well, I love it. And we will include all the links to all the places so that you can connect with Sharell there. Again, thank you so much for chatting with us today.
Sharell Thomas-Hodge: Thank you for having me. It’s been a pleasure.
Jessica Miller-Merrell: What a great conversation with Sharell Thomas-Hodge. Today we explored the complex relationship between compensation, motivation, performance, and workplace culture, and why effective reward strategies require so much more than simply tying pay to results. As HR leaders, we have the opportunity to design systems that encourage collaboration, recognize meaningful contributions, and align employee success with organizational goals.
If you enjoyed today’s episode, be sure to subscribe to the Workology Podcast, share it with a colleague, and leave us a review wherever you listen to your podcasts. You can also find additional resources, articles, and courses, and also community support for HR professionals over at Workology.com. Thank you for listening, and until next time, remember that the future of work starts with how we support and invest in people. Thank you for listening, and we’ll see you next time.
If you enjoyed this episode, be sure to subscribe, leave a review, and share it with another HR leader. Thanks again for joining the Workology Podcast. We’re sponsored by Ace the HR Exam and Manager Essentials Mini Courses. You can also learn more about my favorite creator tools like Riverside, which is for video and podcast editing and recording—go to Workology.com/creator. You can also check out our new Workology Technology Marketplace. It is my favorite space for all my recommended HR Tech. You can head on over and check it out at Marketplace.Workology.com. This podcast is for the disruptive leader who is tired of the status quo. This is Jessica Miller-Merrell. Until next time, visit Workology to listen to all our podcast episodes of the Workology Podcast and more.
RESOURCES
Sharell Thomas-Hodge on LinkedIn
Marbilism – AI Agents with a 10% Discount
AI Hiring Discrimination Lawsuits | Learn & Work Ecosystem Library
