Why AI Will Change How People Get Paid (and what HR must fix first)
In this episode of our On The Road series, we sit down with Ken Wechsler, SPHR, CCP, VP, Total Rewards at Akamai Technologies, to explore how AI is changing the conversation around rewards, recognition, performance, and the future of work.
As a total rewards leader, Ken is now facing questions that would have seemed unlikely just a few years ago: What is our AI strategy? What outcomes are we trying to drive? How will AI change productivity, performance, and how people are rewarded?
His message is clear: AI skills alone should not automatically mean higher pay. The real question is whether AI helps people deliver better outcomes, raise performance, create more value, and help the business move forward.
🎓 In this episode, we get into:
Why the real question is not AI usage, but whether AI improves outcomes
Why AI is forcing rewards leaders to rethink how performance is measured
Why being proficient in Gemini or Copilot should not automatically mean higher pay
How Akamai is connecting recognition, trust, and performance in a remote-first company
How rewards teams can use AI to move from manual analysis to strategic business partnering
What if the future of work wasn’t more artificial?
What if it was more human?
On May 20, Workhuman Forum London brings the UK and Europe’s most forward-thinking CHROs, CPOs, and people leaders together at the London Hilton Park Lane for one defining day on trust, recognition, psychological safety, and leadership in the age of AI.
Because as AI accelerates, the real competitive edge is not just better technology.
It’s stronger cultures.
It’s leaders who can build trust when pressure rises.
It’s recognition that connects people to strategy.
It’s psychological safety that helps teams speak up, adapt faster, and perform through uncertainty.
And it’s human intelligence that gives leaders a clearer view of what is really happening inside their organisation.
You’ll hear from world-class thinkers and senior HR leaders including Rachel Botsman, Eric Mosley, Susan David, Ph.D., Tom Lee, and more, unpacking the practical strategies people leaders need now.
This is not another conference.
It’s a reset moment for HR leaders who know the next era of work cannot be built on automation alone.
[01:00:00:16 - 01:00:31:07]
welcome to the HR Leaders podcast my friend. How are you doing? I'm doing great Chris, how are you? I've got you at 9am bright and early. Is the coffee kicked in? You know, no. There's not enough coffee today to be honest. I'll just say there's a little tequila hangover. Let's be open about it. I like to see, by the way, the charge of people in the morning running to the coffee stations for their lives. Have you noticed that conference? It gets faster every day. I'm getting there faster. I'm moving faster. It's my personal record today to that coffee machine.
[01:00:32:24 - 01:00:39:19]
How's the last two days been for you? Obviously you spoke yesterday? I did speak yesterday, but I was on a panel. I can talk about that in a second.
[01:00:40:25 - 01:00:48:08]
I'm a member of their customer advisory team here at Work Human. I remember last year, this is my second, only my second time. A lot of newcomers I'm seeing.
[01:00:49:17 - 01:01:07:24]
I have to say as a rewards guy, I go to different shows. I thought, okay, recognition, yeah, yeah, yeah. It's a great conference. It's truly a great conference. I'm sure some of your listeners may know, like this afternoon we have Michelle Obama. I mean, to bring these kind of people and the things you hear about and think about that relate to org design. Making people first.
[01:01:08:25 - 01:01:29:00]
Most of our companies, it's about our people. And so really hearing it and the conversations and the people your media is great. I'm in every year. It's my first time here. One of the surprises, I mean, I should be surprised really, was to your point, how diverse the program is. It's not just about rewards. It's covering all facets.
[01:01:30:12 - 01:03:07:22]
And also bringing multiple ideas and perspectives to the table. And obviously great speakers as well, of course. Right, right. You hear different messages. You connect with others. And after a while, the themes start to be the same. Start to hear the same thing, like, yeah, psychological safety. Everybody's worried about AI everywhere, right? Everybody's got conversations about it. And how do you keep your employees moving, worried that they may lose their job? Or you may want to skill them out of their job and use AI to get rid of them. So it's been an interesting, it's changed a lot even since last year, conversations. Yeah, last year, it feels weird, right? Last year, for like, people were just going a little, like, they were buying some AI software and like, kind of playing around. And then this year, it just got real. Like, it kind of like-- Two years ago, I was here, and one of my fellow members on this council, she's like, oh, we're using Copilot. Everyone's like, what's Copilot? It was just two years ago. That's insane, right? Literally was two, like, what? You know, as a former pilot, I'm like, it's the guy on the right seat. But there wasn't even, there wasn't a plan of why they even bought it. Right, right. It was just, we just happened. And then there was a link to, like, here's a business outcome we're driving, or-- Right, right. It was just like, give everyone. Right, right, right. I was literally just on a call just before I came down here with our leadership team and they're, what are our KPIs for our AI strategy? Yeah, that wasn't a problem. That was not a discussion. Our board, our number one thing, I, you know, we'll talk a little bit about maybe comp, but I'm on a comp committee, right? I run our comp committee. Our comp committee chair says, what is our AI strategy? That's what I want to measure. I don't care about what the execs are being paid. I'm being facetious. What is our AI strategy? It's all we're talking about. Did you ever think as a VP of total rewards, that that would be a conversation you'd be having?
[01:03:08:28 - 01:03:19:11]
No. No. No. I'm not going to lie. No. But that's part of it, right? You know, rewards, we kind of look at us as the base structure. I mean, you've got to reward people properly.
[01:03:20:17 - 01:03:41:22]
I do believe people could always find a better pay somewhere, but it's everything that makes up. The work environment, the EVP, all those things. What people like, like working at our company. Yeah. Or wherever they are. One of the things that came up yesterday and the day before, actually, like a theme, and I'd love to share with you, during our conversations, is a challenge. And no one really had the answer the last few days of around.
[01:03:42:25 - 01:03:50:28]
Now work itself is fundamentally going to change, right? We're going to be a lot of tasks are going to be led by agents.
[01:03:52:14 - 01:04:16:15]
So what does that mean for how people are compensated? Right? Because now, if you've got 80% of your traditional work now having agents run those tasks, and you're focusing on curiosity, strategy, growth mindset, resilience, emotional intelligence, psychological safety. Right. How do you now reward and measure and recognize?
[01:04:17:25 - 01:04:21:17]
I think what's going to happen is the bar is just going to go up. Okay.
[01:04:22:25 - 01:04:30:02]
We've already had people and we've had conversations here. It's like, oh, I've now I'm proficient at Gemini, Copilot, whatever. I should get paid more.
[01:04:31:08 - 01:04:48:19]
No, if your performance goes up, if you deliver more. Yeah, the outcomes. The outcomes. Now we have a unique strategy because I think we're going to be able to raise the bar for the whole company. Yeah. And because our rewards are a little different, everybody gets paid a lot of stock. So if our top line goes up because of our productivity and our bottom line goes up,
[01:04:49:19 - 01:05:23:01]
hopefully it translates to our share price. Everyone's driving towards the same. We literally talk about hashtag one. Ah, nice. That is a huge mantra within our company. And so we all the whole tide floats up. We float up with it. Yeah. So you got thrown in deep end yesterday and they put you on a session of leading the AI and they were enterprise. Just an easy topic for you. What you don't know is we were talking about this before and I will admit it was a little anxious. It wasn't exactly the sweet spot. And then they sat you next to Microsoft. And they sent me next to the leader of Microsoft who's brilliant, Leila. Hi, Leila.
[01:05:24:10 - 01:05:44:09]
You know, a couple of great, great individuals. But yeah, you know, because there is a question about as things change with AI, what's going to happen with the rewards? Yeah. I know most of my peers is that their companies are not doing that yet. Yet. I think by next year that discussion will change. But quite frankly, the tools are only just catching up.
[01:05:45:09 - 01:06:39:16]
Say that again. The tools are only now just catching up anyway. It is. It's not a good idea to do that. You look at what humans doing now with the ability to identify skills. Right. Right. Or what did they know? So it was a human leader. Human leader. What was the name of the. Forget the name now. Oh, my God. Yeah. You know what? They're working hard on the platform. They have instead of recognizing future leaders. Right. Yes. Like we can predict who's going to be. Yes. Now I'm going to get in trouble with my work human friends. Oh, a few of us. I like being bold. I'd like to be honest. A few of us are still a little skeptical of that. And it's not because the tool isn't going to be right. OK. We have to train our people to when we recognize something instead of saying, "Great job, Chris." Yeah, that's right. Great job in doing d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d. And then you create this big database that says, "Oh, my gosh, Chris has been recognized ten times." Otherwise you don't have the data to infer or to like.
[01:06:40:22 - 01:07:25:20]
How is that what? Sentiment analysis, I'm assuming? It's the sentiment analysis from all of the recognitions. Right. From all the recognitions. So if you're not getting that detail, like you're saying, how are you going to capture that? You can't sit there and say, "Well, so-and-so is our next leader in this department." This person's going to go from an individual contributor to a lead architect for some more interesting software. So as always then, it's more of a cultural mindset shift than it is a technology shift. Which has always kind of been the case of all this stuff, right? It's never really the technology, which is the reason that the transformation failed. Right. In my career of 20 years, that's never ever been... Oh, it was a technology's fault. Never. And we're seeing it now, like on LinkedIn article, it was something like 80% of AI transformations were failing.
[01:07:26:20 - 01:08:44:10]
AI, technology, sorry, rollouts. You know, it's interesting. It's crazy number. In boning up for this yesterday in preparing, I was reading there was a Gartner study, excuse me, a McKinsey study, where the guy said two-thirds of the employees are still not being told something specific and meaningful to do with AI. Hey, go learn AI. Here's Gemini. Here's Copilot. Now what? What do I do? What do I do? And I know you're talking to one of my colleagues later. He has some great examples of, well, change my meeting. Change my meeting. Change my meeting. What time is it? I've used it five times today, you know, and that's not meaningful. So, you know, what I was trying to share yesterday is one of the things to make it succeed is starting to give meaningful tasks. I'm actually taking my whole rewards team. We're doing a skills assessment of what we know or don't know, how we're using all the tools, and how do we get to the next level? You know, as a rewards team, we do compensation analysis, things like that. How do we let the machines analyze the numbers? Not us. Get away from it. If you're doing it in Excel, how can we have machines do all that analysis so we can interpret the numbers, understand the numbers, look year over year, see the trends, and be prepared to react to that as opposed to doing the heavy lifting. Let the machine do the reps. Yeah. Let's now see what we have. And I'm sure knowing your team is fighting you about loving being in Excel.
[01:08:45:22 - 01:13:02:20]
Oh, they love being in Excel. They love being in Excel. Okay, there's one or two who probably are going to be... There are a few people. Shane McConfounder loves a bit of Excel. I know that fellow, I've never understand it, but he loves it with his formulas. I have respect for those who know how to... Where do you see that? So, on that point, and then we've got some other things to chat about, with that, once you go through that process with your team, which is a journey, where do you then see yourself in the team testing that time, if we call it those unlocked hours as a web. I really hope we can spend the time interpreting data and be more business partners, compensation business partners to say, "Here are the employees at risk. Here's what we need to do. Oh, my gosh. Over here are these kind of comp programs." You're right. We're developing. We're running the internet. We're managing. We don't want to lose people. Yeah. And pulling together people's stake as a career opportunity. So, helping... We have a big initiative to put more career paths together. You don't want your career path to step out. You want to stay with us. We want to keep you. We've invested three years in somebody. We don't want to lose them. So, helping the business manage people and their growth. Nice. You mentioned growth mindset. That's huge in our company. So, work in the growth mindset so step A is here. Step B is here. We talk about trying to have people stay for life. We just introduced a retirement plan, which is very unique in... Yeah. ... in tech companies. So, it's quite rare now, right, that people stay with us. I was speaking to executive yesterday at Procter & Gamble. One of them had been there for 25 years. And it's just so rare that you see that now, right? Right, right, right. So, averaging like two to three years now. Yeah. Yeah. How long has it retired? Not that off-comment anymore. We just had a little over 30 folks who've been here averaging 16 years. Wow. Oh, like to move on. Good for them. They've earned it. Yeah, I know. One of the things we talk about is how you're embedding recognition into the flow of work. Right? Because I think that's something that many are struggling with. Yeah. We... I would say we're doing it good. I'd love to tell you like we're the top. I think we make sure that recognition is part of our daily routine. We try to have, you know, as I say, recognition moments. We try to do more with e-versions. We have learned that we have about, you know, 40, 50 people wake up every day and overnight they've been recognized for something. Really? Yeah. Yeah. Every single day. Thank you to my team for pulling some stats together. How does that work though? Do they get like nudges? They literally get an email saying you've been recognized. And then I get an email saying someone on your team's been recognized as the manager. Nice. And then after that recognition has been accepted, I then get, you know, because certain things, like we have certain ones that are of value and points, the manager has to approve it. The employee's manager has to approve it. Shall we remember by accepted? Yeah. Okay. Manager approves it, then the employee receives it, and then I hear it's been accepted. Nice. And, you know, it is interesting because I'd forgotten sometimes, as I've been doing a little more of that around here and recognizing people, I forgot how good it is, how good it is to feel to get recognized. And frankly, how... I'm enjoying recognizing people. I feel like that's more... I feel like giving... I feel like that is the bit that people don't really think about. I feel like giving the recognition is, if not more valuable than it is to give, like sometimes, because it's great. So we feel good. Chris, this is a totally random thing, but, you know, the first night here, they have a special dinner for all of us customers. Yeah. Beautiful place at Disney, great band playing. Thanks for the invite, everyone. Band, nobody's listening, you know, I mean, people enjoying the music. I've found that every time I go to one of these things on the end, I walked out, I had a hat on, I went like this and I bowed and smiled. I got huge smiles and a nod back for them, like, you recognize me and it made me feel great. It's like, thank you, you were making our day great. So recognition is such a part, we try to really embed it in the company. And after here, I'll charge up to double down on that. Yeah. One of the... I spoke to a couple of stage shows yesterday that aren't customers of work human, but considering them and other platforms, but one of the questions they get asking me, and I'm not an expert, I didn't have the answer to this, is like, how do you turn recognition from a nice to have to, you know, a driver of performance?
[01:13:03:27 - 01:16:44:00]
And that's really what is struggling to translate internally, right? You know, that is a tough one, you know, because I thought about that, you know, as a rewards guy, I still believe the rewards are the driver of performance, but I do believe this is the icing on the cake. Yeah. It can be the differentiator, in my opinion, of somebody not feeling connected or feeling connected to the company. I didn't have a chance to tell you, we're one of the few that's 100% remote. So the connection... Oh, I know you. Yeah, we're not coming back. I was joking on the panel yesterday saying... We're not coming back. All of you who are saying come back two days a week, we say bring us your people. They want to come to us. And so connection is huge, and that does drive, in my opinion, connection to the team, connection to the organization, trust, and that relates to performance. Yeah, that's going to drive the engagement, the like, that sort of discretionary work that you don't really talk to, measure. I have a couple of people on my team who, you know, moms, and I had somebody join recently, a certain time she's got to deal with the kids, you know, and she was apologetic. I'm like, it's okay. And after a few months, I checked in, she's like, this makes me want to work even harder because you let me manage my life around my family. And indeed, she gets stuff done. She's like, you know, sometimes you're up at six, six, 30, you know, so there is that the connection and the trust in all builds a psychological safety, as you mentioned, all builds performance. Yeah, my wife's the same, right? She's working hours around my daughter. Yeah, school drop off, you know, even like swimming lessons, but she gets the job done. Right. Right. What are you measuring? Are you measuring time in an office? So it's like, like, all you measuring the outcomes. We were, I know you're going to talk to Cleo later. We were talking about that as a team last night. It's like, it is about outcomes. Yeah. You know, that will be the interesting thing with AI. People get really proficient at it. They can get done in 20 hours, what they could in 40. Back to some of your original comments. Do we then add on to their job? Yeah. Which then should turn into rewards. It's interesting as well, like people's relationship where you see, I know it's not a great word, but sort of the AI slop. This out there, you can tell like when someone's just kind of done that. But on the other hand, I have members of my team come in to me saying, me and Claude built this. I want to show you it right. Like they're talking about Claude as if it's a person, right? Right. Look at what I built with Claude. Like we built my head of marketing and built a brand new website with Claude. And he was worried that I would see that as less than like, as in like he's cheating, you know, and not doing the real work. And I was like, no, that's great. Right. Leverage these tools to solve a big business problem we have. And I was like, if you're doing that in that way, but you're being intentional about solving a specific business problem, that's fine. If you're just like throwing, you know, answering customer emails with AI rather than paying attention, then that's an issue. Right. Right. Right. Yeah, we have there. You know, it's interesting. Total sidebar, but you know, Angela Duckworth was here yesterday. Yes. Lucky enough to be part of the panel. We get a private conversation with her after. Of course, she does tons of research. You mentioned Claude. One of the things we have to think about as she was explaining to us, the younger generation who some working remote are losing connections. And again, we talk about connection and Claude and AI is becoming their friend. One in 10 is using it as a friend. Excuse me. One in four is using it as a friend in the younger generation. She said one in 10 is potentially using it as a boyfriend or girlfriend. I believe it was. I believe it jaw dropping to me. Let me tell you something. I've not told anyone this, which may sound a bit crazy, but I have chat TVT built into my headphones.
[01:16:45:10 - 01:17:19:03]
So I've got a pair of headphones. They're called nothing headphones and I have it on hardware. So when I'm walking around like out and about, I just talk to my headphones. Like it's just there and it's always on, always connected. And for me, it's like I'm just problem solving with my headphones. I don't have to open the laptop. I just press the button. Just do this all the time. Same thing. Yeah. I feel like it's become more common. Oh, absolutely. Open the door. Yeah. What was the key takeaway that you took away from the session yesterday around the AI and AI with enterprise from the other panelists?
[01:17:20:25 - 01:17:33:26]
That everybody still is very, very early in their journey. There are some that are well on their way. I saw a couple of great sessions where companies really moved it forward, but they've been using it and that take it at your own pace.
[01:17:35:00 - 01:17:41:08]
And I guess it's still a lot of fear that probably the biggest thing from a people perspective.
[01:17:42:12 - 01:18:06:29]
If you're able to communicate like we do that, we're not here to take your job away. We're actually to make you better, produce better. And together we will all thrive. That's some of the messages I'm hearing. Yeah. Easy to say that. Very easy to say that. Not so easy to execute. Yeah. I can see that on your face. Yeah. Listen, before I let you go, what would be your parting advice, Ken, for others that are earlier on their journey?
[01:18:08:21 - 01:19:08:22]
You know, earlier on the journey, ask the questions, as I meant. You know, we're asking, even though we're two and a half years in, what are the intended outcomes? What are we trying to do with this? Are we trying to scale down our workforce? Are we trying to change the way we deliver whatever we're delivering? Because, you know, we're a tech company and services, just manufactures everybody here. What are the intended outcomes? And how do you bring your people along? Yeah. How do you bring them along with the process? Don't, you know, everybody's rushing. I'm not one who wants to rush. I would rather do it right slow than do it right wrong fast and have to repair something. Was it the go slow to go fast? Go slow to go fast. Yeah. Yeah. And bring people along the journey with you. I'm seeing that. That was kind of a key take away from yesterday. But also, if you go too fast, I think there's a risk that the organization cannot absorb that amount of change. Right. Right. And if that makes sense, like, I feel like we're already overwhelmed. Yeah. Yeah. As it is.
[01:19:09:25 - 01:19:32:02]
And by the way, we're all doing day to day. Yeah. Everybody's got day to day things going, whether it's systems upgrades, you know, developing the business sales teams, whatever they're all doing, they're still doing their day to day job, developing new tools. Oh, and throw all this into it. So it's take your time, do it right. Yeah. Well, listen, I appreciate you coming on. It's good to meet you. Enjoy the rest of your day and I'll catch you soon. All right. Thank you. Yeah. Thanks.
Ken Wechsler, VP, Total Rewards at Akamai Technologies.