Presented by

Hello!

Happy March and happy International Women’s Day for the 8th! I’m constantly amazed, impressed and enabled by the incredible women I’m surrounded by. I hope you have a chance to recognise and reflect on those who have shaped and enabled you, too, whoever they may be.

I’m writing this month's edition as a tropical cyclone barrels towards us. Over the years, I’ve supported plenty of people navigating their own crises — but I’ve never been in the path of one myself. Fingers crossed this lands in your inbox with me (and my fellow east-coasters) safely on the other side of it.

All things going well, I’m planning to be in Sydney next week presenting at the Not Just Another conference, which plans to be a fresh infusion of People practices into an otherwise amorphous events calendar here in Australia. I’ll be meeting people I’ve followed for a long time, like Hung Lee and Vanesa Cotlar, who I recommend you follow if you aren’t already. Sing out if you’re also attending, and let’s meet!

It’s also been a busy first quarter, presenting webinars, recording podcasts and penning articles for the likes of Strivin, PeakHR, ChartHop and Toot or Boot (possibly my favourite podcast name of all time). Suffice to say this is a theme of 2025 as I look to continue to make compensation a well discussed and understood topic by People functions everywhere. If there’s a People event you think could use more ‘comp chat’, let me know and I’ll see if I can weasel my way in there.

Something else I want to recognise, and a huge milestone in the life of a solopreneur, is that this edition includes my first ever sponsor for the FNDN Series! I’ve always been a massive fan of HiBob and have implemented their system at two of the startups I’ve worked at. So it brings me enormous joy to not only have them share this stage, but be a product I confidently stand behind as one I know and love.

Outside of work, and with all the spare time afforded me by cyclone enforced couch surfing, I’m now heading into season 5 of the Sopranos. I’ve always heard it was great, I’ve always wanted to watch it, and now I’m doing that. Question for everyone who has seen it, it’s good but not great, right? Like it’s a good and interesting show, but, does anything happen?

I’m also undertaking my weekly dose of brain training with season 2 of Severance, where I finish each week more confused than the last. If you think you know what's going on, please tell me. Because even Reddit isn’t helping.

And now, onto this week’s edition — featuring one of the most influential voices in our field, the brilliant Jessica Zwaan. If you don’t already know her, she’s reshaping how we think about modern People Ops, bridging the gap between strategy and execution like few others can. You’ll want to pay attention.

I’ll see you on the other side of this 🌪️ (hopefully)

Matt

Breaking Barriers, Driving Change

Women are taking control—advocating for fair pay, career growth & work-life balance. It's time for businesses to act.

Compensation as a Product: The Startup Approach to Pay

with Jessica Zwaan, COO of Talentful

In my latest conversation, I had the pleasure of chatting with Jessica Zwaan, COO at Talentful and author of Built for People, to challenge the traditional thinking around startup compensation. With a background in People Ops, Jessica is very much credited with leading the approach of applying product management principles to People Ops.

Using this approach, Jessica reshapes how startups approach pay, performance, and transparency. She challenges traditional HR thinking, advocating for market-informed, data-driven, and strategically designed compensation models that actually serve a company’s goals. Here’s what we covered:

• Not using benchmarking as the sole pay strategy.

• Why benchmarking should guide, not dictate, pay structures.

• The risks and unintended consequences of pay freezes.

• Shying from pay-for-performance without strong performance management.

• Using structured variable pay for flexibility.

• Different approaches to pay transparency in startups.

• Why roles should be benchmarked collectively, not alone.

• How to communicate compensation decisions effectively.

• Transparency as clarity, not just public salaries.

My 5 Key Takeaways:

• Market data is a reference, not a rulebook. Benchmarking reports give you percentiles, not structured pay bands, and following them too rigidly can create misaligned compensation structures. Instead of matching every role to a set percentile, use data to create logical, scalable salary bands that make sense for your workforce and business strategy.

• Pay progression needs to make sense internally. If salary bands are built solely from external benchmarks, you risk creating erratic jumps in pay between levels — some too large (expensive for the company) and others too small (demotivating for employees). Instead, look at pay as a career progression framework, ensuring compensation increases are consistent, motivating, and aligned with internal mobility opportunities.

• Compensation freezes often cause more harm than good. While they seem like a logical cost-cutting move, they rarely apply equally — exceptions are always made, which breeds mistrust and resentment. Instead of freezing pay altogether, consider structured variable pay or delayed increases tied to performance milestones, which allow for flexibility without eroding fairness.

• Performance-based pay only works if performance is measured well. Startups often introduce performance-based pay before they have a clear, objective system for measuring contribution, leading to subjective, inconsistent, or biased outcomes. Before tying pay to performance, ensure managers have structured evaluation criteria, calibration processes, and quantifiable success metrics to make fair, data-driven decisions.

• Transparency is about clarity, not exposure. Employees don’t need to see every individual salary, but they do need to understand how compensation decisions are made, how they can grow within the company, and what factors influence pay changes. Whether you choose full transparency (public salary bands) or structured transparency (clear internal frameworks), the goal is to eliminate confusion and build trust.

Learn more about Jessica Zwaan

• Visit her website

• Connect on LinkedIn

• Read her book: Built For People

• Explore Talentful, where she is the COO

Listen, watch or read the full interview here.

Got a specific topic you want me to cover or a guest you’d love to nominate? Hit reply to this email and let me know.

Here’s some of the stuff we found interesting this month.

That’s all for this week.

Sure, this is technically the end of the newsletter, but we don’t have to end here! I’d love this to be a two-way chat, so let me know what you found helpful, any successes you’re seeing, or any questions you have for me.

Sharing is caring. If you are enjoying our newsletter, others might too — forward this on to them and get their endless appreciation.