Posted in AIA, Erin Agdinaoay, General, Pay Transparency, Podcast
On a recent episode of the Practice Disrupted podcast, host Evelyn Lee spoke with WPA associate principal Erin Agdinaoay about her people-first leadership style and how radical pay transparency has reshaped WPA’s culture. Erin has long played a central role in developing the firm’s approach to transparency, championing pay equity and expanding financial literacy to strengthen an ownership mindset across the team. In the episode, she reflects on what makes WPA’s culture distinct and why empowering emerging leaders with financial knowledge is essential to the future of the profession. Here are some key ideas from the conversation.*
The importance of pay transparency
It allows open and direct conversations. When we tie it also to the fact that everything on our server is 100% open books, from our budgets, to our monthly invoicing, our performance, our profits, it lets people learn to connect the dots between their salary, their role on a project, their role in the firm, to firm performance. We have found people naturally start behaving like firm owners and it has allowed us to then design our own employee ownership structure.
How Pay Transparency Leads to Financial Literacy
Every Tuesday, we have an all firm studio meeting. The topics can vary, but if there is something to talk about financially, we’ll talk about it. For example, we do quarterly financial reports. We walk through our budget and how we’re doing during that quarterly report out and if we’re on target or not on target. Part of our radical transparency is we’ll celebrate the wins, but if things aren’t going as expected, we also openly talk about that. Small businesses have their ups and downs, and I think it’s very important for everyone to know that and know how the firm works through it.
How younger generations are inspired by transparency
I think our younger generation right now is inherently very, very curious and demanding of more transparency in any institution they want to work for and they want strong alignment to their own personal values. With younger people, what we see is a curiosity of, am I spending the right amount of time on this and understanding more and having access to, ‘Oh, we’ve made a profit during this phase, but not this phase. Is there a more efficient way or creative way we can look at getting these tasks done than in a more typical fashion?’ They help ask questions.
Combining community-driven work and transparency to build trust
I think those together provide our candidates with a lot of trust in us, because it’s not just a tag line. We’re not just saying we do community-based work. They see that internally we’re being very transparent and open. And I think when you do community-driven work, that work also requires a lot of transparency. I think it helps them see that this firm is trying to really live our values fully, in the day to day, internally and externally.
Listen to the full episode on the Practice Disrupted website, Apple, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts.
* Quotes have been edited for length and clarity