From CD changers to FICA: a head of HR on money, AI, and people

Patrick Lopez === Hi everyone, and welcome to Beyond the Paycheck, where we bring you candid conversations with CHROs and people leaders who are rethinking how compensation and benefits impact far more than just employee bank accounts. From the first paycheck to financial wellness programs, we explore how money shapes identity, equity, purpose, and power at work, and how forward-thinking companies are using pay and perks to transform lives. This podcast is presented by Aura Finance, a psychology-based financial wellness employee benefit that combines coaching and financial management.

Now, let's get started and jump in with our next guest Kelsey HOST: Patrick Lopez, head of HR at CMIT Solutions. We are so excited to have you this Tuesday afternoon. To kick us off, I'd love for you to share a little bit about yourself with our audience, including a little bit about your career and background and where you're calling in from today. Patrick GUEST: Sure.

I'm calling in from, currently it's sunny in Austin, Texas, thankfully. We've had a bit of rain the past week or so, and we're expecting more later this week. So it's been hot, humid, and very rainy here. Calling from Austin.

I'm originally from the Houston area. I originally studied broadcast media, worked in radio and television and a few films over the years when I got out of school, and then I pivoted out into business and finance. And so many people in HR, I found myself just making my way into that space. And the comms career was great because it helped me build relationships with my personnel, the people I managed, the people I brought in and recruited.

When I left radio, I worked in oil and gas recruiting for a little bit, and I took the job. It was something outside of my comfort zone. I took on some new challenges. I've always been very tech-savvy, so that really helped me going into that space because they were still - This was '08.

They were still learning a little bit more on how to move into the tech of recruiting. So that really helped me pivot into this, that space. And the comms was great because I got comfortable or very early on communicating with people, reaching out to folks looking for candidates for job postings for companies. But then, like I said, it was '08, so the oil and gas market went down as well as the entire economy at that time.

So I find myself, found myself looking for something after a bit, a little after a year which was good because it really wasn't long-term for me. And I jumped into a law firm and I knew the group very well, and they were like, "Hey, we want you to come in and learn how to manage things for us." And it was a good opportunity for me to get my HR management skills under me, as well as some finance stuff. So that was something a dual threat there.

I was able to really get a base of skill knowledge , and then I went into a consulting firm where you service clients in HR. I was The representative that would be like the HRBP for some of our clients, we'd contract that out. I'd handle that for them and help build out their HR departments for them. And then I moved out of that into tech full-time and I really got into the cloud computing space for a consulting firm in Austin.

Became of the head of HR and the financial group. I was there for about nine years and recently I joined CMIT Solutions as the head of their HR group. They're one of the larger MSPs in the United States. We franchise out all of the locations across the country.

I primarily represent the corporate entity. We have corporate offices in Boston, in Austin, of course, and Rhode Island and Portland, Oregon. And so I help lead the HR and support the ops and C-level there as well. And as well as provide some HRBP to some of the franchisees as needed.

But we have - They have their HR departments all over the country in their a- in their franchise locations, but I provide support wherever they need in terms of consulting and leadership recommendations. So yeah, One of those unconventional approaches to HR, but I find myself kinda locked into the space in a leadership role. I was always a leader working in, television and film. They would always hire new production people, and they would just throw them in my lap, and you have these directors that'd be like, "Here, Patrick, why don't you go ahead and train them and teach them how to get good at this job?"

And so it just was, I was able to build up so many skills over the years, like soft skills and some really good leadership skills. And then when I got into this space, it was like, okay, this felt like na- it's just natural to me to be in this space. Kelsey HOST: I have a million follow-up questions, and I'm just delighted to have you on the show. As I had mentioned in the pre-call that we had before this, you are the first person that I've met with that comes from a broadcasting background.

But, it just totally makes sense to me as someone that needs to effectively communicate, needs to expand their reach on how many lives you're touching. That's something that I think radio hosts specifically do such a fabulous job at. So excited to dig deeper into it shortly. But before we get there my favorite question, tell me a little bit about your first job and what you spent your first paycheck on.

Patrick GUEST: Okay. So I really had to think about this, and we could talk about - I grew up with a family full of contractors and construction blue-collar guys growing up. And so I had little odd jobs as a kid that I would make cash on. What I did my first W-2, I was in high school my junior year.

I wanted to help pay for prom or cover most of prom myself, so I got a job at JCPenney's working in the men's clothing department in the jeans area. My first paycheck, though, did not go to the prom budget that I had set aside. It actually went to a 10-disc CD changer for my truck. So I had a old Blazer that my friends would call Old Blue, this blue Blazer that I slowly have built out a system, like a audio system in there.

But my goal was I need - I had an individual CD player on the console. I wanted that 10-disc changer, so that was my first paycheck, was to go out there and buy. Now, the shocking thing, Kelsey, was that that was also the first time I learned what federal taxes and Social Security taxes are and how that affects your take-home pay. So yes, at at 16 years old , I was like: Whoa, okay.

So I had this number in my head, and then when I opened my check, I'm like: Okay, that's a lot less than I thought. So go, just did what I needed to do, what everybody does, goes to HR, ask that question, and they're like: "Yeah," they look at me fresh-faced. They're like: "All right, kid, let's talk it over. You gotta pay for this.

You owe Uncle Sam. Oh, Uncle Sam this." "Okay, how long will I have to do that?" "For the rest of your life, unless you are a contractor."

And okay. All right. So yeah, that was my first check, was from JCPenney's, and I bought a 10-disc CD changer for my truck. Kelsey HOST: I absolutely love that.

And yes, it is a moment that I believe all of us recall the first time you get your paycheck and the time you realize you're not getting paid the hourly rate times X. It's times X minus something. And so we all have that wake up call and moment that we need to pay taxes. Patrick GUEST: I always love it when we hire people, new employees right out of college that have never really - That have most, some haven't worked before.

And, that, it, is that a rare thing? It's rare, but it does happen, and it, actually it happens a lot more in tech than you realize. So when I worked in tech for a long time, I would recruit people and they would reach out to the HR department like: "Hey, we have questions." ""Okay, what's up?"

"Yeah,, I don't think I'm being paid the right amount."" "Okay, what do you mean?" It's a lot less than I expected." "Okay, let's pull up your stub and look, go over it.

Go over FICA, go over Social Security." And oh, so I have - And I think back to all those years ago being a kid in front of the, that HR rep in that office, in the back office at JCPenney's, and they're telling me, and I'm like, "Oh, man." It's just like that nostalgia, but at the same time it's okay, that's, yeah, I, maybe they should teach that in school. I don't know.

But I don't remember learning that in school, like that comes out of every check and how much. But, maybe I missed that day in class. But yeah, it's just I, that's the one thing that always cracks me up about when I hire people that are out of school or someone that has never had a full-time W2 job. Yeah.

Kelsey HOST: I think you're on the money. We don't teach this in school, but that could be an entire, other conversation we could have. But I think it's a good segue into my follow-up, which is, how do you think your money story and the experiences that you've had have influenced how you think about paying and supporting the people that you lead? Patrick GUEST: That's a great question, Kelsey.

So, for me, one of my philosophies in leadership is when I recruit people and I mentor them whene- whenever they want feedback like, "How did you gain the skills you did?" Or, "How are you able to process and handle these type of situations?" I always tell them I think back to two things. When I - Not my first job at JCPenney's, but my first full-time job, my full-time career job in broadcast media, I think back to getting those paychecks and realizing, "Oh no," "I no longer have support."

Like, Thankfully, I had the backup of my parents should there ever be any issues, but there was always that idea of I have to learn to figure this out myself. So I had to understand I could no longer go out and buy a ton of video games or go buy, go do this and go out and eat a bunch a bunch of nights during the week. I had to learn how to say, "Okay, I have to make sure my bills are met first," and then understand at some point I'm gonna have to start saving. When am I gonna start for that for retirement?

But I've had good leaders around me in my career, Kelsey, that have given me good feedback. They've always told me, "Oh, you have a great business mind and a solid business mind, and you can think forward on things." So if you're able to think forward, now find a way to make sure you can execute. So get there from just the thought process of it to how are you gonna execute all that.

And I think back to, and this is my leadership philosophy, I don't only think about the great leaders I've worked with over the years that have mentored me and provided me support. I think about the bad managers and the bad leaders I've had and see their struggles, whether they're talking about, having to manage groups and manage budgets, how they present information in terms of raises to people when it comes to performance reviews, how they've managed their teams in general.

I think about those bad managers and bad leaders that I've had as well, and that helps shape me because it's like I don't want to - That's not the approach I want, how I want to lead my teams. That's not how I want to communicate to my teams especially when we're in a, like right now, we're in a very tough market when it comes to looking for opportunities, when there are people that are struggling with the balance of the inflation, the market cost of living's high, but at the same time medical costs are so high.

So there's so many things that everybody's trying to balance all at once. So I think back to when I was younger and all that advice that was given to me, but I also think back to the bad advice that was given to me because it's also important too. It's good learning material and it's a good way to approach how to better effectively c- communicate things and show some empathy with your teams and the people you work for, the people you represent. Kelsey HOST: I think it's just great advice that it's not just about, how do you think about, supporting people, but it's also what advice not to take and how do you actually give yourself the autonomy to make the right decisions for yourself.

Another thing this is making me think a lot about is, I think that companies right now are doing a lot to support the whole person. We see constantly, today different mental health, physical health, and financial health initiatives that are going on to support the whole person at work. Can you tell me where you also see companies falling short in supporting the whole employee? Patrick GUEST: Yeah, sure.

So obviously the big I guess elephant in the room that, the business world is really hyper-focusing on is what's AI's role with things and how it's going to affect everyone. But you're getting a lot of different avenues of communication from different leaders across the entire workforce, and it's a very different tone for the employees, right? So for me I think And I see this with a lot of companies that are working really hard to make sure people feel empowered with their healthcare with their compensation in competitive markets, retention, but at the same time, there's that smoky path down, on the other side of things of what's coming up?

Where Is there gonna be contraction in the workplace? We've seen it in big tech. Is it going to happen across point being is I think what I think that how leaders in business can really empower themselves and their people is to effectively communicate where their vision is and going forward outside of just, "We want to be on the cutting edge of everything." Because every leader wants to be on the cutting edge of, of whether it's AI or whatever the technology is, that everyone always wants to be on the cutting edge.

I think back to 15 to 17 years ago, where every business that, going into workshops, going into meetings, the One thing leaders wanted was "We, are ready to move into the cloud space what do you need, what do you, "Okay, how do you want to set up your cloud technology, your tech stack, for your company?"" "Oh, we don't really know." So I'm hearing that right now with AI is like, "We want to be on the cutting edge. We're gonna provide solutions and support with AI models and systems."

"Okay, how do you wanna do that?" "Eh, I don't really know." I think we're not at that, just over that hump yet. When we get there, I think a lot of things are gonna settle in, not only just what AI's role is in the workforce, what it means to people, like long term for their jobs, how it's gonna support them and empower them.

But then once that happens once those, blocks start falling into place We are going to start seeing people saying Ok I want to get back to focusing on my future because I wanna talk about what's gonna empower me to have a good home-work-life balance, have good benefits to be able to take care of my family because, that stuff is getting very expensive. I wanna be able to balance all that." We talked about that for years, and and it's kind of quieted down and the conversations have been more steered towards the future of business with AI.

I'm hoping that once we hit that inflection point, we start going back to focusing a lot more on what we can do to empower our people outside of just the tech and the role. We're talking about them as, a whole balanced life, that whole... Let's go back to talking about home-work-life balance. I wanna hear that 'cause that's conversations that I had with people years back, and it's kind of quieted down with leadership.

Let's go back to that. And I think that's where leaders are not really thinking forward thinking in that part of it because there everyone is so hyper-focused on what are we gonna do with artificial intelligence, which is great because it's exciting, it's trailblazing. But I also think that, the people that help build those companies that, that put those blocks in place to help you grow, to become - help you reach an IPO, to help you get acquired, whatever it may be to help you build that company's value I think there needs to be a much bigger focus back on that because I think we were there.

If you think back to the Great Resignation, everybody, in the summer and spring of 2021, there was a massive focus on that, and it's shifted away from that a little bit, which it - markets always reset themselves. But I think there's gonna be a shift back at some point to where it's not gonna be an employer's market. It'll shift either to more of a balanced market again or maybe even the employees out there are empowered again in some way, but I really think that the conversation needs to be shifting back to how we can provide that home-work fl- home-work-life balance for our people.

Kelsey HOST: I think you bring up a really good point around, it's not that it's a distraction, but AI is taking up a lot of brain space for folks right now, given it's, the hot topic. Every, conference you attend, it is the subject that everyone is talking about. But you bring up a really good point that, that doesn't mean that the whole person at a company, like their mental, their physical, their financial health, all the things that allow them to be a productive employee don't matter.

So when you think about this pendulum shift and continuing to get leadership invested in programs like these, when that brain space is being taken up by AI initiatives, how do you think about making the internal case for leadership to again care? I'm not saying that they don't, but I'm saying how do you get that, attention when it's being pulled in lots of different directions, or also when, the equation for investing in mental or physical health might not be as obvious as, we spend $2, therefore we save three.

Patrick GUEST: Where I see not just value, but where I see so much of the conversation building up in terms of momentum to help provide that shift, it's in HR leadership. I am proud to say that I absorb so much of the information and the conversations that are happening, not just around me in this market, but just in the industry in general, and not just in tech, but - Overall in the workforce I'm seeing so many HR leaders prepare that conversation. You could see them laying the foundation of that conversation that's gonna be - we're gonna have to have very soon, and that's "Okay, guys.

AI is great. There's so much there. There's so much focus on it. We appreciate the passion, but what about the people?

How is it gonna support us? Remember, this could be something to empower and bring about a change to everybody's job, the quality of their life, their work life could be shifted so much." I see HR leaders all across the country in my feeds and when I'm absorbing podcasts, just like yours. I listen to yours too.

I can just see little snippets of HR leaders really putting in "Hey, there's a groundwork here being built by HR leadership." And the funny thing about that is so many years ago when I first started out in HR, almost 20 years ago, HR was always perceived as a admin type of role. But over the years, I've seen so much shift from that to really a thought leader for a company. Not only are you focused on regulation and providing the benefits and the quality of work life, but then you're providing thought leadership as a business partner, right?

HRBP is something that's become so crucial to companies now. So I think that once again, once that whole... and I don't wanna call it like a FOMO or passion, like a passion project. It's just there's something innovative that's happening with AI.

But once things balance out to what, where it's gonna be in the workforce, how it's gonna be used all across the board, I can see leadership then turn around once again to HR leaders and say, "Okay. What can we do to make our people feel like not only there's value there, but there's value in their jobs, there's value in their security going forward?" Because there has been a lot of chaotic energy the last couple of years. We wanna go back to everything feeling a little more stable and a little more secure.

Obviously, the big conversations they're gonna be having, and where it depends on when this all starts, this conversation starts happening again with business leaders. But how are we going to have that conversation and what are we gonna be able to do to offer to make people feel stronger? Is it bigger benefits packages or we, we offer a bigger cut on the corporate side? There's so many different layers of it, right?

I think that once that kind of it's kind of the balance is met with AI, with AI in the workforce, then they're gonna have HR leadership step in to provide them kinda ""Okay. What can we do now to make our people feel empowered Kelsey HOST: You've spoken a lot about, innovation and, being at the cutting edge. How are you staying current on what's working, whether it's in benefit strategies, thinking about how to influence, work culture? Are there specific conferences, peer networks you've been a part of, startup ecosystems?

What's been working for you? Patrick GUEST: I won't say I've fully even have embraced AI, but I have put it into the space for our company on the ops side of things to where people can access information as quickly as they need it. And, to reduce that time, that, that downtime of reaching out, putting in a ticket versus if it's something that - if it's information they can easily access, having those models be able - those agents help provide that to our team, that's one area of it.

you know, CMIT goes to conventions our franchisees, and a lot of feedback from our teams have always been: What's the next step? What's the next step with AI? What's the next step of innovation? And we've spent the last few years really honing out a path to how we can make our franchisees feel empowered with the tools that we're building and offering to them as well as helping them offer those to their client bases in each region that they are based out of.

That's something that's happening. I also think that I'm seeing more of this being built in, like the AI agents helping really help on the benefits side in terms of information, access to it, loc- how to get it, where to get it, what kind of information do you need, what are your options? Building out those trees they do take time, especially if you're building in-house models, right? If you're building in-house agents to help with those things.

But thankfully, I have a really good system here, a good team in place that can help us build those things out. So as our team provides us because we ask for monthly feedback. It's always voluntary for us, but we have a lot of participation and - which I appreciate, and that feedback helps us to really look at those things. Where can we really make, revisions or revise the agent here, and here to really help them feel empowered, and it's not just from the HR benefits side of it, too.

We ac- we have it on our ops side when it comes to project management, when it comes to systems integration, onboarding all of that stuff. We have it all built out and we're continuing to refine it, which is the cool thing about this whole thing, just seeing like where it starts versus where it could finish out. It's been very cool to see the last, year and a half. Kelsey HOST: And last kind of topic that I'd wanna discuss with you is, this concept of money confidence how important is, financial confidence and wellbeing to the company right now?

And I'm specifically interested in this topic given one of the things you spoke about was, a few years back companies were really thinking a lot about mental health given the great resignation. I would argue where, inflation's at, people are stressed about job loss in this kind of wave of AI. Financial anxieties at a really, all-time high. Is financial wellbeing important to the company?

And if yes, why? Patrick GUEST: It's very important for us, and I will tell you, I work with a very solid group of leaders to where they pay attention to what's happening to their workforce. The information that's being presented to us, whether it be through surveys, one-on-ones from the management, all of that stuff comes to us and they absorb it and they process it, and they know that there are questions about what's gonna happen to my future. Is there - am I going to have job security, going forward, or am I going to be replaced by a learning machine?

And I will tell you, the one thing I'm very happy with is to have those conversations with the leaders that we have, and those conversations are, "This is how it's going to really improve the quality of your work life." Then we can start talking about what we could do to figure out how we can improve everyone's work-life balance and those benefits, how they can affect your home life. The one good thing is even as a competitive market as we've been in, I don't see us really constricting much in the way of benef- I, I don't see us constricting benefits.

I actually see us looking to expand them more. And those are the conversations since I've been with the company, since the beginning of this year I joined in January, and I will tell you the conversations that I constantly have with leadership is, "Okay, like we have this whole model, this whole thing going on, which is huge for every company in the entire country or in the entire world right now. How can we get better at certain things here for our people?" Those are the conversations that we're having, and I'm very proud to say, to be a part of those conversations because it's enlightening and it's refreshing to hear that especially when there's so many people that you can go onto LinkedIn and see all of the conversations and people with their fear and their concern about what's gonna happen to their future.

Whereas, I'm a part of a group that's right now, how can we empower them? How can we make things better? How can we balance both? Because it is such an interesting market and an interesting time.

The number one thing that I always tell them is communication. Whatever we feel that whatever our next approach is, whatever avenue we go down going forward, the best course of action for us is to communicate that with the team effectively to make sure they're a part of that process. That's really it. If they feel like they're a part of that process, they know that we're taking a swing at making things better in such a very interesting time.

Kelsey HOST: I think that's such a wonderful way to wrap up our conversation. It's no secret we see every day new posts on LinkedIn, slashing of benefits, investing in robots over individuals. But it's clear to me that, CMIT deeply believes in continuing to invest in their people for the purpose of the success of the company. So thank you so much, Patrick, for sharing your wisdom and being a part of this conversation.

Where can our listeners connect with you beyond it? Patrick GUEST: I'm on LinkedIn. That's normally where I'm at. I always welcome people to reach out to me if they wanna have conversations.

Someone, "I'm trying to figure out myself as a leader. I'm trying to figure out how I can best support my groups. Here are the struggles I have." I love having conversations with folks to give them my experiences, and maybe I provide them an insight that helps them resolve something, come up with a solution, or maybe it's just a gain perspective.

That's one thing I can tell you. The one thing I'm very proud of is conversations always lead to gained perspective, and that gain perspective can become a knowledge to where you can really build out your own solution over time. So people are always welcome to reach out to me on LinkedIn, and I will connect with them. My email is on there.

If people can reach out to me, I'm always welcome to have conversations with folks. Yeah, definitely. Kelsey HOST: Thank you so much again, Patrick. I hope you have a wonderful afternoon, and thanks for joining us Patrick GUEST: Thank you for having me, Kelsey.

You have a good afternoon.