Matt McFarlane's Linkedin Analytics

I've seen inside a lot of companies comp practices. Here's a common thing they get wrong about pay. (and how to make it work)   Across all the startups I’ve worked with — and spoken to — there’s one mistake I see time and time again when it comes to compensation.   They’re too clinical.   Too much focus on structure, spreadsheets, and data. Not enough on the human side of how people experience pay.   It sounds obvious. But it’s not.   Here’s what that looks like on the ground:   - People don’t understand how their pay was decided, so they assume it’s unfair - Managers avoid comp conversations because they don’t feel confident explaining the system - HR gets stuck answering the same basic questions over and over   You can have the most beautifully benchmarked, tightly modelled comp framework  But if no one understands it, it’s not strategic. It’s noise.   So how do you fix it?   Start designing compensation like a product.   That means:   - Build for the end user - Think about what employees need to know to trust how they’re paid — then lead with that. - Equip your managers - Give them clear language, simple tools, and the confidence to explain pay decisions well. - Make it ridiculously clear - If someone needs a PhD in comp to follow your philosophy, you’ve lost them.   You’ll spend less time fielding questions. Your managers will show up with more clarity. And your people will feel less anxious about something that affects their life every day.   Simple doesn’t mean unsophisticated. It means understood.   And understood compensation is trusted compensation.

Instand LinkedIn viral post generator — compensation edition.   LinkedIn is full of idealistic posts that get massive engagement, but usually come up short on reality.   If you're looking for something vapid, that will guarantee instant virality, feel free to choose from one of the below :   1. I'm the CEO and I pay my employees more than me. 2. We let our people choose their salaries. 3. We don’t believe in benchmarks — we believe in trust. 4. We abolished performance ratings and replaced them with “vibe checks”. 5. We don’t pay for roles — we pay for potential. 6. We don’t negotiate salaries — we negotiate dreams. 7. We replaced our compensation framework with one question: “How are you feeling today?”   Let me know which one you're choosing so I can coordinate with my content calendar.

40 speakers in 40 days. Yep, that's how many incredible people you can expect to hear from at Startup People Summit. Follow Startup People Summit to see who else is speaking. Plus stay tuned - full agenda is dropping soon! Get your 🎟️ here: https://lnkd.in/g__vnB8d

As startups scale, compensation moves from something scrappy and reactive… …to something that needs to actually make sense. Strategically. Commercially. And culturally. In this webinar, I’m teaming up with Cynthia A. (founder of Wellpay.ai and fellow comp nerd) to unpack what it really takes to scale comp with your company, as well as how to make sure you have the right pillars (and support) in place to do it). We’ll talk about: ✅ How the market is shifting — and how comp practices are shifting with it ✅ The role of skills-based hiring in shaping pay decisions ✅ When it’s time to bring in a comp expert (and what kind) ✅ How to get the most out of a consultant vs fractional partner ✅ What to focus on at different stages of growth Friendly timezones for my US and Aussie friends: 🗓️ June 17th 4pm PST // June 18th 9am AEST 🔗 Register here: https://lnkd.in/giBUcY7i

6 months ago I wrote an article reflecting on how, in 1 year, I built a HR consultancy and made more money than I ever did working in-house.   Here it is if you missed it: https://lnkd.in/gtvzmRnU   The article was read over 5,000 times (which still blows my mind).   It was forwarded to people around the world.   I had dozens of people reach out with their appreciation for the radical transparency — or to ask questions relevant to their own journey.   These were people who - Were Solopreneur's themselves. - Were in their first year and just starting out. - And those thinking of leaving their jobs to take the plunge.   All of them took something from me sharing my journey.   Ever since publishing, I've thought deeply about starting a newsletter series focused on breaking down the components that led me to these achievements. To help others that are or aspire to become a HR consultant themselves.   Right now it's sat on the back burner because I've had too much else going on.   But the thought persists.   I'm keen to explore with my network whether this is something HR people would want to hear about in more detail.   I'd love to explore making this a paid publication. I really want to go deep on all the aspects that made this successful and share my lessons.   So I'd love to hear from you.   If you think this would be not only welcome, but valuable (i.e. you'd actually part with a nominal amount of money for it) — let me know below.   Feel free to drop topics and focuses you think would be valuable to you in either exploring or continuing on your own solopreneur journey.

Your people are under financial pressure. But your budget is under pressure too. And as a Head of People, you’re stuck in the middle. You’re hearing: - “We need to do more on pay.” - “People are stressed — it’s showing up in performance.” - “Engagement’s dropping — we’re losing good people.” 1. You know financial stress is real. 2. You feel the pressure to act. 3. But blanket pay rises aren’t always realistic — or strategic. So what can you do? Join me and Rebecca Maher (My Money Circle) for a practical, business-focused webinar: 🎙 From Financial Stress to Financial Strength: Balancing Compensation and Employee Wellbeing for Business Success We’ll unpack how to: - Build strong, fair compensation foundations — even in lean times - Tackle pay conversations with confidence and clarity - Introduce targeted financial wellbeing initiatives that actually reduce stress and improve retention - Empower employees without overextending your payroll budget This session is for People leaders who want to do more than say “we’re doing what we can.” It’s for those ready to build a culture of genuine financial empowerment — grounded in both empathy and business sense. 📅 11am AEST, 25th June 📍 Free virtual session 🔗 https://lu.ma/j6oluglr 🏷️ Tag a Head of People who needs to join. We’re not just talking about money — we’re talking about impact.

Friendly reminder for those of us who look at successful people and compare. Use the comparison to motivate you toward success — not as how you *evaluate* your success. Some perspective: Someone with 100k followers and a post with 500 likes is the same as you with 5k followers and a post that has 25 likes. It's 0.5% of their followers, and 0.5% of your followers. Of course theirs looks bigger. They've been doing this for a while (hence all the followers). 3x tips: - Give yourself a break. - Use their results as a goal. - Stay at it. 💪 You'll get there.

I've implemented HiBob's people platform twice, and it's the tech I see most of my customers use. So it's no surprise to me they're front and centre at Startup People Summit. Excited to count them amongst the exclusive but mighty list of sponsors.

Got $50 to spend on the best professional development activity of 2025? There's only 3 days left to grab an early bird ticket to Startup People Summit. People pro's, this is *your moment* In just 3 days, early bird pricing ends for the Startup People Summit — the event designed for startup People professionals, by startup People professionals. Why does this matter? Because the work we do is high-impact, high-stakes, and constantly evolving. You need more than inspiration — you need practical, proven strategies you can apply the next day. That’s exactly what this Summit delivers: ✅ Live, expert-led sessions from startup veterans (I mean just look at these names) ✅ Access to every recording ✅ Downloadable resources + tools ✅ Community access to speakers and peers ✅ All for just $50 AUD — before it jumps to $150 AUD You're probably coming anyway (right?), so that’s $100 saved just by buying a ticket now. You don’t need to convince your CFO.    You need to back yourself. This isn’t a fluffy HR conference. It’s the no-nonsense, career-accelerating, startup-savvy summit that equips you with everything you need to build, scale, and lead People functions in high-growth environments. 🎟️ Grab your early bird ticket before Friday 👉 https://lnkd.in/gcvtYZT7 Don’t watch from the sidelines. Be in the (virtual) room. Your future self will thank you.

I used to be utterly incapable of working remotely. But this simple structure is why I have a successful solopreneur business, and get more 💩 done than ever. I used to have no accountability on what I was working on - so when I was away from the 'structure' of an office, nothing got done. I would finish days, sometimes weeks, having no idea what I accomplished, and feeling like I was just treading water. Fast forward to today ⏩ I am routinely asked by my clients and community how I am able to accomplish as much as I do. Things like: - A solopreneur business that earns more than any previous job - A newsletter - A podcast - An upcoming virtual summit (s/o Startup People Summit) - Shed-loads of marketing via LinkedIn etc. - The list goes on. Everything I accomplish comes down to this approach, and it's only four steps: 1. What do I want from the Year 2. From the month 3. From the week 4. From my day I start my year by reconnecting to who I am and why I do what I do. I read/write my origin story, how I found may way into this work and why I do it. Specifically: will I wake up happy working on this problem? My mission 👉 empowering startups with compensation practices that are clear, fair and competitive. From there, it's objective setting. One this year is to expand where I get revenue from. I write down all the ways in which i currently make money - How do I maintain that? I write down all the ways I want to make money -What ideas do I have? - How do I test stuff?  - How do I build the ones that work? These are the goals I work towards for the year. Rigid in direction, but fluid in delivery. Then, I do monthly board meetings with my partner. I use a Notion template to capture the key business metrics and things I'm working on in aid of my goals. It's nothing fancy, but it's great because it: - Keeps me accountable - Pulls me up out of the day to day to reflect on wins/losses - Shows me what is working and what's not I see trends, what caused something, what actions I need to take. These then go into my project tracking for the next month. Next up is weekly. Every week on Monday I spend one hour focused on everything I need to do for the week. - All my meetings - All my tasks - Am I overloaded, can something be pushed? I ask one key question of all of it: is it helping me achieve my goals? From this I choose my three rocks for the week - if nothing else got done and these did, I'd be ok. I also tend to make little rocks, but the priority is the three big rocks. I keep it on a sticky on my computer so it's always in vision for the week. Then daily - specifically: - What am I getting done - How long should it take - What completion looks like I use calendar blocking to give myself clear timeframes and a time box for delivering - great for motivation. Is it perfect? No. I still work too many hours. I still take on too much. But it works for me. What routines get you through a week and help you feel accomplished?

It's no secret, but I've been a fan-boy of Open Org for a while now.   We've got a lot in common when it comes to transparency, and I know Adam and John share a lot of the same virtues as I do when it comes to people-first companies.   So it gives me no shortage of excitement to be announcing that 🥁 👉 FNDN is joining Open Org as a partner through their new content platform & marketplace! 🎉   I'm joining a handful of other incredible companies, defining what it means to be people first and transparency forward.   🎁 Interested in membership? Here's what that looks like:   £120 a year gets folks access to:   👉 12+ Exclusive Open Org Playbooks (think high-utility ‘how-to’ guides on culture, employer brand and AI) 👉 regular new content & playbooks dropped throughout the year 👉 Access to 50+ highly curated partners (including us 🙂 across HR Tech & Services) 👉 Access to carefully selected, modern personal development courses & cohorts for you 👉 Exclusive content co-created between Open Org and partners like us!   🙋‍♀️ Who’s it for? 👉 HR & ‘People People’ 👉 In Startup/Scale up’s (10-2000 FTE) 👉 Anywhere in the world   Check it out! Come find us 🙂   You can join here: www.openorg.fyi/membership and feel free to use this code at checkout for 25% off! OOLAUNCH25 (only valid for launch day!)

The most exciting room in startup People & Culture this year is already filling up.   We’re close to 400 registrants for the Startup People Summit — and the energy is building fast.   ✅ 60% from across APAC ✅ 60% are People & HR leaders (Head of People, People Lead, VP People…) ✅ 22% are Founders and Exec ✅ Majority from tech (software, startup, product-led businesses) ✅ Spanning companies from 20 to 800+ employees   If you’re leading the People function in a scaling startup, these are your peers.   And this is your event.   The conversations will be real, relevant, and honest.   Comp, culture, performance, the messy middle of growth — and how we show up as People leaders in all of it.   If you’re ready to both learn AND level up with the best in the business, don't miss this.   🪩 Join the movement: https://lnkd.in/gcvtYZT7 🎟️ Tickets are moving — grab yours now.

When it comes to startup people practices, this might just be the most packed agenda ever.   Startup People Summit is landing on 31st of July, featuring: - 40+ speakers - 35+ sessions - and 100's from across the APAC startup community   And when I say packed agenda, I mean it. In just 1-day, you explore: - How to implement AI in your people function. - How to build using product-principles. - How to build an exec team - Building lean, effective leadership - Building an employer brand on a shoestring - Building with global cultures in mind   and way, way more.   if there's one word that captures the essence of this day its this — BUILDING!   Startup people are builders!   Join Heads of People, Founders, operators that are serious about building the right people practices for their startup.   Tickets are on sale now : https://lnkd.in/g__vnB8d

We've been building up towards this for a while now, but 'HR' is heading towards a reset, and I think a lot of people in the industry aren't ready for it. The status quo isn’t going to cut it anymore. People teams can no longer afford to be non-commercial. Here’s why: AI is transforming efficiency: Companies with bloated processes or excess capacity will fall behind. Profitability is no longer optional—it’s survival. People Operations is the future: The role of HR is evolving into People Experience or People Operations — forget what it's call thought — it's about taking a people-centric approach that prioritises business outcomes. Irrelevance is a real risk: "HR" will be the name of teams that resist evolving, by doing things like resisting AI or continuing to introduce initiatives no one asked for these teams will fade into obscurity. What does this reset look like? People teams have a commercial edge, designed to drive revenue, not just watch from the sidelines. Here's what these teams are doing: - Adopt AI early: Use it to streamline processes and focus on strategic initiatives. - Be people-first, profit-forward: Create policies that balance employee effectiveness with commercial impact. - Listen to the business: Align initiatives with what the business truly needs, not what feels good on paper. - Eliminate friction: Replace cumbersome policies with scalable, intuitive solutions. - Be bold: Experiment, fail fast, and optimise quickly—timidity has no place in the new era of HR. The People teams that thrive in 2025 will be those that embrace change, leverage technology, and operate as commercial partners to the business. What else are the best People teams doing to advance the profession?

You built the framework. You levelled your people. You celebrated the rollout. But here's what most companies miss.   Too many companies treat job architecture like a project.   A box to tick.   A framework to file away.   But if you’re not actively maintaining and applying it — it stops serving your business.   Quickly.   🛑 New hires are onboarded without levels. 🛑 Promotions become gut feel again. 🛑 Managers interpret things differently. 🛑 Recruiting and workforce planning drift away from the structure you designed.   Sound familiar?   Building a levelling framework isn’t the hard part.   Keeping it alive is.   Here’s how smart companies make it stick: ✅ Build a consistent rubric for levelling new roles — especially as you scale. ✅ Use levels as a core input into workforce planning, budget forecasting and recruiting. ✅ Educate managers on how to use it in career conversations. ✅ Run regular reviews to audit how roles are levelled today, not how they were 12 months ago.   Done well, your framework becomes the operating system for how talent moves, grows and gets paid in your business.   But only if you treat it like a living system — not a static spreadsheet.   What’s one way you’ve kept your levelling framework alive post-launch?   👇 Would love to hear what’s worked in your org.

This is how it feels to be a startup Head of People reading content and going to conferences featuring industry heavy weights and mature businesses. You’re trying to hit the same outcomes with none of the budget and a quarter of the team. You’re on a scooter when everyone else has a motorbike. Thats was the reason for building Startup People Summit. To make a space where people tackling similar problems in a similar environment could see how it’s being done. Share their problems among relevant peers. Understand how to build with the same constraints. If you’re tackling startup people challenges and want a new environment, go here: 👇 https://lnkd.in/g__vnB8d It’s one day, it’s online, it’s made for all levels of access. Free or paid. Everyone is welcome. It’s time to showcase what our kind of people are doing.

One of the hardest lessons I've come to terms with since starting my own business: I lose more work than I win. And I’m completely ok with that.   It wasn’t always the case.   - In the early days of FNDN, every lost opportunity felt like a gut punch. - I’d take it personally. - Replay discovery calls in my head. - Start wondering if I’d priced too high or said the wrong thing.   Here’s where it gets interesting:   The moment I stopped trying to win every piece of work… I started winning the right work.   Because I realised something important:   My job isn’t to close every client. It’s to filter for fit.   - Not every company needs what I offer. - Some want a transactional fix. - Others are hunting for the cheapest option.   I’m not that.   I pitch myself as a premium partner — and I back it up.   - My clients say I feel like an extension of their team. - That I’m so present, they thought they were my only client. (They’re always shocked to learn how many companies I support.)   That level of service doesn’t come from scrambling for every win. It comes from knowing who you’re best built to help — and holding the line.   If you’re building a solo practice — or thinking about it — remember this:   - You may lose more work than you win - That’s not a sign you’re failing - It’s a sign your positioning is working   The goal isn’t to appeal to everyone. It’s to resonate deeply with the few who really get it.   You don’t need more yes's.   You need better-aligned ones.

The best leader I ever worked with introduced themself with a ‘How to Work With Me’ guide. Here’s what it included — and why it worked so well.   I was new to the team, and so were they — I didn't know what to expect. They didn't hire me — which led to feelings of: - Would we get on together? - Would they like me? - What if they're a terrible boss?   But before we had a chance to connect over a call, something landed in my inbox and the inbox of each of their new direct reports.   It was a 'how to work with me' guide. It introduced themselves and how they liked to work.   This was the first thing that set my impression.   - Not a flashy PowerPoint. - Not a long-winded speech. - Just a raw, honest doc.   The doc wasn't lengthy, but it was comprehensive — it covered things like:   • What they look for in their team • How they like to communicate • What great work looks like to them • Their strengths and where they struggle • How we could help them be better   They didn’t know us yet.   But this gave us immediate insight into who they were — and how to build trust and momentum quickly.   - There was no pressure to respond immediately. - We read and digested it in our own time. - And then we responded in kind.   That moment set the tone for our entire team culture.   We started sharing our own guides. It encouraged us to do the same with our teams. It scaled trust without needing synchronous time.   We talk a lot about onboarding processes and leadership styles.   Start here.   It’s simple, human, and unforgettable.   Have you ever received or written a ‘How to Work With Me’ guide?   I’d love to see your take 👇

If you're wondering how much you should be paying for high performers and promotions, here's what everyone else is doing.   Pave is out with a new report on pay for performance, this time they're folding in some data from Culture Amp, and it shows some interesting insights into tech pay.   The high level data is interesting — if you've got people who are: - Meeting expectations — on average they're receiving a 2.3% pay increase - Exceeding expectations — on average they're receiving a 5% pay increase - Promotions — on average they're receiving a 9.9% pay increase   Some thoughts from me:   At 2.3%, your standard person is probably just keeping pace with the market and inflation (which has settled down in most places).   If you're expecting more from them, show them what they stand to gain (i.e. tell them what high performers got more $$ — that's how incentivisation works).   But the difference in increases — 5.0% for high performers vs 2.3% for meet's expectations — feels a little too slim to drive behaviour...   On a $100,000 dollar salary it's $2,300 vs $5,000 a year... after taxes its hard to notice that.   Especially with such massive productivity gains coming to companies via AI and other means.   Those who were outperforming were awarded half as much as those who are taking on more responsibility in a promoted role, with 5% increase for high performers and 9.9% increases for those entering higher roles.   I've always felt that promotion increases should be in the vicinity of 2-3x (+) more than a high performer.   We're barely even scraping in there... so I'm not surprised people increasingly don't think a promotion is worth it.   Side story: I used to work for a company that capped pay increases at 10% — no matter what ...   Then they were wondering why all their junior talent left — it was because their market rate had the steepest uplift (15%+ YoY for 5 years or so).   Question whether it is worth it to your people to pursue promotion for so meagre an increase.   Anyway, check it out and let me know what stood out to you. Kudos to the Pave team for helping us all see some of the ways that pay for performance can show up in an organisation, and for backing it with data.   Report 👉 https://lnkd.in/g2iraBiG

Canva is down it seems, so it's lucky I keep good old MS Paint around as a backup. Please lord — just don't take ChatGPT 🙏