The Real Reason Your Pay Hasn’t Increased (And What to Do About It)

Most professionals think of pay as a one-time negotiation... but what if that mindset is keeping you underpaid?

In this episode of the Thrive Careers Podcast, host Olajumoke Fatoki sits down with Scott Trumpolt to uncover what really drives long-term pay growth. They go beyond the surface-level talk of raises and bonuses and dig into career architecture, market-based compensation, and how employees can take control of their pay trajectory.

🔍 You'll discover:

• Why your salary hasn’t grown as fast as your workload
• How understanding your career trajectory boosts your earning power
• The role of career architecture in long-term compensation
• Why market-based pay and transparency laws are shifting the game
• The overlooked path of incremental promotions for boosting pay
• How to approach pay conversations without sounding entitled

This episode is packed with practical insights to help you stop leaving money on the table and start building the career—and salary—you deserve.

✅ Subscribe for more career clarity, negotiation tips, and growth strategies.

📌 Don’t forget to like, comment, and share with someone who’s working hard but still underpaid.

You can also contact Compensation Expert Scott Trumpolt,  via the links below;

LinkedIn -  https://www.linkedin.com/in/scott-trumpolt-m-a-g-r-p-257a6b317/

Business Profile- https://www.bbb.org/us/fl/coral-springs/profile/human-resources/trumpolt-compensation-design-solutions-tcds-0633-90299333

Website: www.hrcompensationconsulting.com

Chapters

• 0:00 Introduction to Pay Growth Strategies
• 1:11:00 Market-Based Pay and Transparency
• 4:33:00 Understanding Long-Term Pay Growth
• 10:32:00 Exploring Career Architecture
• 18:29:00 Navigating Pay Conversations with Managers

Transcript

Olajumoke Fatoki (00:14)
Hello everyone and welcome to today's edition of the Thrive Careers podcast. My name is Olajumoke Fatoki and on today's edition, we're going to be talking about how to grow your pay over time while boosting your engagement at work.

Joining us today is Scott Trumpholt, a seasoned expert in compensation design with over 30 years of experience. As the managing director and principal consultant at Trumpholt Compensation Design Solutions, Scott has worked across global markets, helping organizations build innovative pay structures that drives both business success and employee engagement. His expertise lies in career architecture.

market-based strategies and creating compensation programs that benefit both employees and the organizations. As a promise, what you can expect to get on today's episode is how to move beyond one-time negotiation and build long-term pay growth structure. Also, you can expect to get how career development directly impacts your earning potential.

You can also expect to find how employees can confidently discuss pay with their line managers. And lastly, you can expect to get information on how the impact of pay transparency laws and how to stay competitive in today's job market. As we move on, I'd like for us to just briefly, you know, touch base with our guest on today's episode. Welcome to the Tribe Careers Podcast.

Scott, welcome to the Tribe Carriers podcast, Scott. Thank you so much for joining us on today's conversation. And we'd like to just meet you briefly. Even though I already shared your profile, you can just tell us a bit more about yourself as we get the conversation started.

Scott (02:19)
Sure.

Well, thank you so much, Ola, for having me on your program. I really appreciate it, and I'm looking forward to it. Just a little bit about me is at a very high level. Compensation is my thing, and employee compensation and how to link the idea of employee compensation, how you pay people in different ways, how do we link that back to the concept of employee engagement? The reason I

think about employee engagement is because when employee engagement goes up, you're actually moving the needle in a way that helps businesses thrive, it helps them to achieve higher business results that they desire. So that's really the link that human resources can provide is this ability to work in different programs to spur employee engagement. And I've been doing this

for about 13 years as an independent consultant. I'm based in South Florida. And it's that overall theme, that overall arching theme that keeps me engaged and keeps me to the point that I continue to want to work with companies in my own area. compensation, there's many different ways to engage employees. But in my area of compensation, which is often a black box. So

Olajumoke Fatoki (03:45)
Mm-hmm.

Scott (03:50)
How do we get compensation out of the shadows? So some of the topics that you're discussing, such as pay transparency, negotiating pay, and linking that in different areas to employee engagement, that's really what I'm all about in my services to firms, whether they're in Florida or in the United States or around the world. So again, it's my pleasure to be here today.

Olajumoke Fatoki (04:14)
amazing.

Scott (04:17)
and looking forward to answering questions that you have for your audience.

Olajumoke Fatoki (04:22)
Amazing. Thank you so much Scott for that beautiful introduction and we can't wait to you know gain insights from your wealth of knowledge and you know

and I know that is going to impact our listeners in a very tremendous way. So thank you for that introduction and for helping us know what to expect on today's conversation. to get things started, let's start with a common misconception. Why do most professionals see pay as a one-time negotiation rather than a long-term strategy?

Scott (04:56)
Well, I think it's because even though they're not in the actual business that they're applying for the job for yet, it's part of the culture that we grow up in. It's like this is your big chance during the interview to look at the idea of compensation and speak freely about it because obviously it's not a type of discussion that individuals always feel comfortable.

talking about. so when you say why do most professionals think of it as like a one-time negotiation, again, they feel like this is their big shot because once they get into the organization, there are very few opportunities to do that. They might have an annual merit pay review, but even with that merit pay review, it's going to focus primarily on their performance and not necessarily their pay increase.

So it's a structural issue. Now there are ways that throughout the year that you can make the idea of pay a living thing and how to grow your pay. we will, I'm sure, get into some of those. But I think it's just a cultural thing. They see this as their one big shot, their one big opportunity. And once they're in there, they're going to be focused on day-to-day work activities, building relationships.

the idea of compensation kind of falls at least publicly to the sidelines. So how do we make that change? So it's at least part of the dynamic, but I think it's just a cultural issue.

Olajumoke Fatoki (06:40)
Amazing. you know, pay issue is very dynamic and it keeps evolving, you know, even with skills, expertise and market trends. So in your opinion, what do you think the first step to long-term pay growth should be?

Scott (07:01)
Um, if, uh, the, the, the first step in, uh, controlling your, your long-term earning potential, I think is first before, when you're in a career, you need to kind of look and see what the trajectory of that career in and of itself is outside of what you're going to be doing on a daily basis. You know, really understanding that different jobs.

pay differently in the marketplace. It's just a fact of life because most companies use a market-based model. They go out, they look at the job, and they engage people like myself to figure out how much to pay that role. So someone that's trying to gauge their long-term earnings potential first needs to look at what that looks like. So for example, a social worker, it's just a reality that the pay tends to be low.

in the marketplace and there's not a major, so that's something that you have to take into account when you are investigating your long-term pay potential. But the other piece of that on top of it is really, okay, once you get in the role, you might start off with low earnings potential, but what is the career development path for that role? Say you don't want to move into another area, you want to stay within the function that you're in.

So there are plenty of tools online, on the internet, that can help you project out five or 10 years or beyond that to see, you going to have to move in a people leadership direction? Or can you grow as an individual contributor within that role? So for example, if you're a software engineer, where do you go? You learn different skills as a software engineer. You gain more experience. As you do that,

Olajumoke Fatoki (08:33)
Thank

Scott (08:57)
You can climb the ladder, not necessarily as a people leader, but as an individual contributor, just become the market recognizes multiple levels of a software engineer. So if you obtain these skills and you start working on larger and larger scale projects, the market indicates that you're going to get paid more. So some jobs have a really well-developed career pathway going forward well into the future. And that's something you may not know all the little details.

and how much exactly you're going to get paid at a given point in time. But at least you can see the pathway. And the pathway for some jobs is quite dramatic, whereas others, it might be more static. So you have to understand the value and the potential of your job first.

Olajumoke Fatoki (09:39)
Amazing.

And I think that's really critical because that's like the foundation. So, you know, not to repeat what you have said, but I had a lot of things jumped at me. So understanding the career trajectory, you know, for whatever part they choosing to go into.

And also the career development plan. You need to have all of those before even going into a negotiation table or to have a conversation. So you're well informed when you to the negotiation table if you have all of this information. So a lot of research work, a lot of preparatory aspects to this is what Scott has been able to emphasize as helping you to make that sound decision when you get the decision, when you get to the negotiation.

Scott (10:04)
Right.

Mm-hmm.

Olajumoke Fatoki (10:31)
Thank you so much for that insight. right, so we're moving to our next question for today. So going through your profile, I came across a term, career architecture. And you know, that intrigued me. So can you tell us a bit more about the term career architecture? Can you break it down and how can employees use this concept to position themselves for higher pay?

Scott (11:01)
Sure. Think about career architecture as somewhat of a pyramid and there are different levels to the job that you do. A lot of people may think, okay, I'm a tax accountant. Okay, I work doing a tax accounting for a company. But the idea of career architecture is that there are multiple levels.

of a tax accountant. So you have an entry level tax accountant, you have an intermediate level, you have a senior level, you have a specialist level, you have an expert level. These are all market recognized levels. And so you're going to occupy one of those levels based upon your experience, your performance, your skill sets. And so what a career architecture helps you to do is to say, how do I get

from where I am now to the next step, or is the next step that I have to become a manager of tax accounting. I have to move in a more people management focused area than an individual contributor. But the interesting thing is, is that when you talk about career architecture, you're talking about a dual career path dynamic. And what I mean by that is people can move either

horizontally and then they can move up the organization to become a people leader or they can move up in the organization as an individual contributor just doing a higher level work. Maybe they're not actually acting as a people leader but they're managing projects. They're managing the day to day direction of a project or even people even though those people are not reporting to them directly. Now, the higher you go up in the career architecture

you will see that there is overlap between what a manager gets paid and what an individual contributor gets paid at a certain level. So if you're at the fourth level, let's say, you know, I was talking about intermediate, senior, say you're at the specialist level, you're going to get paid equivalent more or less to what a manager makes. Okay. So that's a dual career path in terms of

not only where your interests lie and where your skill sets are, but also, this is very important, the business need. The business need is going to really act as a linchpin for your career development while you are in that company. So what is the business need? Does the business need need people leaders in your functional area or are they set up? Is there hierarchy and their organizational structure?

their organizational mission more, that they need high level individual contributors that are doing a lot of these high level aspects, but they're not managing people. So the bottom line is that the further you go up into the organization is going to be dictated not only by your interests and abilities, but what are the future business needs. So when an employee is talking to a manager about their future growth,

They need to ask questions like, what is going to be the business need a year or two from now? What skills do I need to acquire within what I'm doing right now? But what am I going to need to acquire to meet those business needs? Because if you can align your own career development needs with the business needs, that's going to make life a lot easier for you to grow your pay. Because the higher the level you are, the more skill sets you bring to the company, the more value you add. And that's going to increase your chances for pay.

Olajumoke Fatoki (14:51)
That's amazing. Thank you so much for that. And very insightful too. And you sort of already touched on my follow-up question, which is what role does skills and competencies play, you know, in determining these moves across the levels?

Scott (15:07)
Yeah, exactly. It's not, here's the most important thing. Some people may think of it in terms of, we're talking mainly about the corporate environment and growing in the corporate environment. I think that's the most important thing. So it's not about your years of experience, but what are you doing with those years of experience? This is really important. For example, if you have five years of experience,

in that company or five years of experience in that functional area. You should be operating at that level of competency of a senior level. Now we all know people that may have only a few years of experience, but they just continue to acquire new skills. They gain confidence and they're actually operating, you know, kind of you've heard about fast track employees. They're kind of operating above

Olajumoke Fatoki (16:01)
Mm-hmm.

Scott (16:04)
their years of experience where you might have someone else that is very comfortable, they don't take risks as much and they're just very comfortable doing the job that they know how to do. But the problem is they may have been at the company for 10 years, but they're only operating at a skill level of say three years. They haven't grown, they're not leading projects, they're just staying very much in their own lane and that's okay. You need solid

good workers all the time. But if you're thinking about pay growth, you're going to be kind of limited because again, what we do in companies, what companies do is they look in the market and say, this is what is required of someone with five years of experience. If you've got those skills and competencies, you've demonstrated them and you've been a good performer in your organization, then okay, we can continue to move you up the scale. But if you become

Olajumoke Fatoki (16:48)
Mm-hmm.

Scott (16:59)
stagnant. That's why career development, it's not all on your managers. You have to take a part and a commitment in this. You need to ask the right questions like we've been talking about and getting the right type of answers, whether it's what is going to be the business need and also what kind of skills do I need to grow to support that specific business need within this organization.

So when you do those things, put yourself in a much better position to grow your pay. So it's not about the years of experience, but what you do with those years of experience.

Olajumoke Fatoki (17:38)
And that is so profound. Thank you so much. Listeners, I'm sure you've, I mean, your notes should be full by now because my notes is already getting full as well. So I just like to reemphasize something as Kurt said that is very important. That career development is not all on your manager. You have a part to play.

You know, and I think that's the most important part of the piece You know your own part in asking the right questions so that you can get the right direction the right clarity You need to be able to move ahead to know what skills and competencies you need to be able to move to the next level I think that is really critical. You know, thank you so much for Sharing. Yes All right. I'm glad our conversation is moving smoothly

Scott (18:21)
Sure.

Olajumoke Fatoki (18:29)
Yes, yes, yes, so

Okay, based on what we have just discussed, having pay conversations with managers, we are taking it a bit further. So many employees tend to hesitate to talk about their pay with their line managers, like I just said now. What's the best way, from your years of experience, what's the best way to approach these conversations?

Scott (18:56)
Sure, it is a very difficult subject to go in there and talk about freely. You wonder about how it's going to be received by your manager. I think you need, when you go in and talk to managers about your pay, for the purposes of your conversation, you need to take the emphasis off this direct focus and approach on the issue of pay.

and redirect it more into career development, asking questions like, I want to grow as an organization. I want to grow as an individual in this organization. What steps do I need to take to support the business need? Saying things like that and getting the kind of answers to that, especially also look for opportunities.

that do present themselves during the course of the year. example, employees, we talked much earlier about the fact that they feel like the only real time they can do it is when they're being hired for the job because that's kind of an environment that invites itself to do that. But when you're having your annual performance review and your manager is talking about your performance, areas where you need to improve, take that into account and

So use the idea of career development because when you grow yourself, you grow your pay. This is absolutely true. So if a manager hears things like, really want to make a long-term commitment to this company. I want to grow within my career, but also in a way that's linked to the business need. That's something a manager can easily respond to. And it takes the heat.

off the conversation, strictly going in there and talking about something very directly like compensation because it leads to that. You can say, want to grow my career, I want to grow my pay, and I want to grow my commitment, and I want to be as engaged as possible. So you can get it in there so they know part of it is about pay. And you can also mention if you've done some research, but don't make it first and foremost upfront.

slowly integrated into the conversation where at the end when you've really established that this is about career development and linking to the business need and developing your skills, then that's an opportunity to say, you know, I've been here five years and I've just gotten a merit increase, but I believe that I'm underpaid for my contributions, especially if you've got a track record as a top performer. Now keep in mind, a manager wants to avoid

Olajumoke Fatoki (21:46)
Mm-hmm.

you

Scott (21:51)
someone that they view as a flight risk. They don't want to avoid the person, they want to avoid them leaving the company. And if the employee is making those kind of messages to their employee in a very positive way, they're going to pick up on that. And then they might have to then go to human resources and build a business case and see, is this individual far from their market, given their performance, given their skill levels? I just reviewed this employee.

for their past year performance. These are the areas that I've said. And if a manager, by the way, if a manager is saying, you're great at this, you're a top performer, I don't see many areas that you need to improve upon, that means you've, that doesn't mean the end of the line, end of the road for you. What that means, that should be a signal to your manager and to yourself, hey, I'm not growing anymore. What do I need to do to get the next step up in my

department. And because if you're saying the person's doing everything right, then they're probably ready for the next level of contribution. So the two really fit together. That's the key thing to understand. Crouch it in career development, which is linked then to the market. So if an individual goes in there and they're making $100,000 a year and they know that the market for their role, they've studied the descriptions.

and they know that it pays $115,000. They've been with the company several years and they've been a top performer. They've got some ammunition to work.

Olajumoke Fatoki (23:26)
Amazing. Thank you for that deep insight. just to summarize what I hear you say, the conversation, even though it's about you, but your approach should not be about you. It should be about the organization. What can I do to make more impact for this organization? And from there, you walk your way back to then making it about you. So you put the organization first in having the conversation, correct?

Scott (23:55)
Yes.

Olajumoke Fatoki (23:56)
And then you then sort of narrow it down until it gets to you because then what can you do, you know, and then the conversation eventually comes to you and how you can make that impact. So I think that's a really, yes.

Scott (24:09)
It's a balance.

And the more you can broaden it and make it objective, see career development is more objective than pay. You can get the pay in there. The message will come across. But think of it as you just said in those terms about the business need and linking your skill sets to what you need. You know, we used the example earlier of the tax accountant.

Okay, what's the next step for me? What's missing? I just had a performance review and it says I'm doing great and everything, but I want to grow to the next step. Is it a stretch assignment where I might work in another part of the department to gain some skills that I don't have? Those types of things.

Olajumoke Fatoki (24:55)
Amazing. Thank you so much for that insight yet again. All right, so moving on

Let's talk about market-based pay and how to stay competitive. So with pay transparency laws on the rise, how would you advise employees think about their market-based pay?

Scott (25:27)
Well, think that the first thing you need to understand is it's true. Pay transparency laws are on the rise. You see this, there's a few more states that added them, Minnesota and Massachusetts, I think for 2025. But keep in mind that when we're talking about pay transparency, what we're saying is we're saying that we're obligating companies of a certain size to

visually show you the range for a position. It might be the minimum of that position and it might be the maximum of that position. But that's all the viewer is getting. Now where you fall within those range can be a matter of a whole lot of different factors. The experience that you bring to the job, again the skill sets. So it's really only a starting point is the best way.

to look at it is again, you're just gonna see these numbers at minimum and a maximum and you might gravitate and say, well, I should get the maximum of the pay range but I think people need to understand from a market perspective that a pay range is a living thing that you, while you're growing, your pay is going to grow over time. But just posting these ranges, I don't believe are gonna be of a lot of value.

to employees because they're just going to look at these two numbers. What they need to understand is where they fit within those numbers. And I think that when they read the job description for the job that they're going for, I think it's a great idea to look at all of the qualifications for that job. Oftentimes the job description has preferred qualifications, not necessary.

And, but the more you meet or exceed the qualifications, as well as the preferred qualifications, and the more you feel like all of the things that they're asking me to do, I've done, or at least been part of doing, that's the kind of thing that's going to make you feel more confident in asking about, well, I see the ranges from this minimum to this maximum.

you're going to feel more confident. Where do you fit against this job? Because everybody that comes in the job, some may be overqualified, some may be underqualified, some may be looking at their existing job title and the job title of the job is the same, but the content of the job may be different. So there's a lot of variation in there. So what I say to people is when you see the range, understand it's just a range. You need to figure out where you best fit.

fall into that range. And like I said, by studying the job description and asking questions, because remember, you're checking the company out as much as they're checking you out. So really understand the job that's being offered. And are you going to be someone that comes in on day one and really be able to make an impact? Or are you going to have to grow over time in this role?

I think those are the key questions to ask and that's going to help determine where you fall on that range.

Olajumoke Fatoki (28:56)
Amazing. Thank you so much. lastly, in this category, what are some of the best ways to research and leverage paid data? Where can people get some of this information?

Scott (29:11)
Well, there are different levels of myself as a consultant. I pay for and I access market data that is very specific and it's not generally available to the public. But I think it's important, first of all, for prospective candidates for jobs to understand that there are some free services out there.

a glass door, some other areas where you can get a sense of what the job pays. But keep in mind, there's some other factors. It's just not about you. It's where the job is located. So pay can vary based on the cost of labor in different parts of the country. It depends on the industry that the job is in, the size of the company. All of these factors go into

making a decision in terms of the market value. So if you're looking out there at some of the free services that are available in the market data, try and be as precise as you can. For example, if you live in Los Angeles and you see a job you really like in Texas and you're willing to move there, understand that the cost of labor is lower there and you have to take these

different factors into account. think another thing that should be said is also look at what the total cash compensation situation looks at in terms of what portion of your benefits are they going to be paying for? What type of a bonus potential are you going to have? What kind of a 401k match? This is all money into your pockets. It shouldn't just be about base pay.

Maybe you might be getting a base pay increase and then you get in there and you can find out you're paying more for healthcare and they don't have a 401k match. So do your research carefully, but as far as the market data sources, there are some out there where you can get an idea of what that job will pay, but then also look a little bit behind the surface and understand that they're going to adapt that market data based upon the types of companies that they compete against.

Olajumoke Fatoki (31:12)
Thank

Okay.

Okay.

Mm-hmm.

Scott (31:36)
where they're located geographically within the United States. It's not just a flat go out there, okay, that's what that job pays. There are different factors to be involved.

Olajumoke Fatoki (31:44)
Okay.

Interesting. Do you have any specific ones for the Canadian job market?

Scott (31:52)
Well, I mentioned, you know, there's this glass door salary dot com has some free information out there. But keep in mind that some of these sources that are out there free, a lot of it, they depend on employee related data. In other words, glass door. It's very anecdotal. The employee. It's not data that has necessarily been calibrated by market data professionals. And

Olajumoke Fatoki (31:55)
Okay, yeah, okay. The general ones. Okay.

sure.

Okay.

Scott (32:21)
For example, someone,

an employee may be entering, yes, I made $100,000 at this job, but what they're not telling you is that they've been with the company 10 years, okay? So, and the level of the job is very important. Is this an entry-level job? Is it an intermediate, senior? So yes, these free sources are out there and they provide you at least a snapshot. You really have to look behind the lines and see.

Olajumoke Fatoki (32:38)
I hope so.

Yeah.

Scott (32:50)
what is comparable to your situation.

Olajumoke Fatoki (32:52)
I think that's the key thing there, looking beyond the lines, using them very carefully for the free resources. So thank you so much for that extra layer of information that is very critical. All right, so the last question, I thought that was the last one, but this is actually the last one. So besides promotions, which a lot of us are familiar with and we love, what are some overlooked ways that employees can raise their pay over time?

Scott (33:11)
I

Well, a lot of people think of promotions as this big grand event where they might move from being an employee, an individual contributor to a management role. But there are incremental promotions too. I've talked about them in this session. So for example, someone moving from a senior level to a specialist level or moving from an entry level to an intermediate level, that's a promotion too. And that can happen at any time of year.

based again by business need. Maybe there's an opening for a job and they will advertise outside for that job, but maybe they have the right person internally to fill that. At any time of the year, pay adjustments, sometimes the market will indicate that certain jobs are going up in value faster than other jobs and companies hear about this. So they might do a market pay adjustment for jobs, employees in certain jobs.

Or like we were talking about before, where the employee goes in, has that conversation about their pay, manager starts to think about what they said about what the business needs going forward. They put together a business case to do what we call an off-cycle pay equity adjustment, where they might bring that person's pay up five or 10%. Because of that conversation that they had,

Olajumoke Fatoki (34:30)
you

Scott (34:48)
with their manager and when the manager step back and said, you know, I've got this business need to fill and this individual that I just talked to can do that. They can grow into this role. So it's more than just a one time thing. You have your merit pay increase, you have promotional opportunities. There are possible during the year internal equity adjustments, but again, there's gotta be a business case.

Olajumoke Fatoki (35:14)
Amazing, amazing, amazing. Thank you so much for bringing a lot of clarity on some of these topics, that people are constantly looking for the right counsel, looking for the right approach, looking for clarity, and you've been able to do that in this conversation today. So thank you so much. Finally, before we let you go, we have a set of rapid fire questions.

Scott (35:41)
Okay.

Olajumoke Fatoki (35:42)
And I'm sure you're ready. We've been talking all the big, big stuff. Now it's time to just get around to play with some fun questions. But one of them is still about what you do. So what's pay growth myth that you would like to debunk?

Scott (36:04)
I think one that I would want to debunk is this idea that it's all about the base pay. We talked a little bit about this during our conversation. And I think a lot of individuals go in there with good intention. mean, it's only a natural reaction to go in there and to really focus on the base pay.

because that's something that they feel that they can count on. But I think it's important. think people missed an opportunity. Some don't, some individuals don't, to look at the total cash compensation picture of what's being offered in making your decision about whether to join the company. And I think also,

the level of sophistication that that organization has when you ask about, what career development opportunities, what programs that you have. I believe that the negotiation needs to include all of those different things, like looking at what they're offering you from a total cash compensation perspective. So debunking the myth that it's just really about trying to negotiate your base pay, there's a lot more to it. If you...

if you want to go into that company and start getting engaged, if you know that the company is taking care of other aspects of your financial well-being that are not going to come out of your pocket, and if there's a real company, you know, you hear about these top 100 companies to work for, you know, a lot of them, they have very well-developed career development pathway programs and

Olajumoke Fatoki (37:48)
Mm-hmm.

Scott (37:58)
They also have very well developed total cash compensation programs. And that's why they've got that type of certification.

Olajumoke Fatoki (38:12)
Interesting. Thank you so much. think that was really enlightening. know, thank you. So the second question is what is one small action that can have a big impact on career earnings?

Scott (38:26)
One small action is what I talked about earlier, and that is when you start down a path, learn as much as you can about what the future looks like for that role in a general broad sense, not just in a narrow sense. What is the pay growth development? Out on the internet, are so many, you can plug in your job and it can tell you,

what the pay growth opportunities in a general sense are going to be, what are going to be the needs for your role in the future, the next 10 years. So the ability is out there to do this research and the one thing you can do that are going to impact your pay long term, which was your question I believe, is this idea of knowing what the future of your occupation looks like and what type of cross-pollination, what other opportunities are there where you can use your skills.

Olajumoke Fatoki (39:25)
Beautiful, thank you. And the last one, what is the best career advice you've ever received?

Scott (39:34)
Take risks. Do not be afraid to get out of your comfort zone. This was the best advice I ever got because there will be times where you feel literally when you're doing that you feel incompetent because you're learning new skills and when you're learning you're growing. So any opportunities you have don't shy away from them. While I haven't done that yet I'm not ready to do that.

I believe the best thing is to jump in because you will adjust, you will adapt. So the best advice I ever got is don't be afraid. Feel that fear, but move forward as a motivator.

Olajumoke Fatoki (40:20)
Amazing. I love it. Thank you so much. And I think that's a wonderful way, you know, to bring this conversation to a close. But before we do that, finally, I'd just like to do a quick recap based on my note that I have here. You know, some of the things that we've discussed today, that pay growth is a strategy and not a one-time event and how you approach it is what really matters. You know, you also spoke about career architecture, you know.

Scott (40:32)
Sure.

Olajumoke Fatoki (40:46)
and how that involves mapping out your earning potential, knowing where you are right now and how you can plot a graph to where you want to be, the skills that you need, the competencies that you need to build along the way, you know, being able to have career conversations with your line manager and coming from the angle of what can you do for the organization, you know, not just a selfish, you know, ambition, for lack of a better word, but that's how I was able to capture it.

And lastly, you know, making market based information, understanding trends, and also, you know, being able to plan for the future. I think that this is really impactful and you know, enlightening conversation today. Thank you so much Scott for leading us in this conversation. So what are your final words as we round up on this, on this session? What are your final words for our listeners?

Scott (41:40)
Well, first, thank you, Ola. It's been a pleasure to be on your program and much success to you as you go forward and you have other guests on your shows. You've had a lot of interesting topics I can see that you've covered and a lot more to come. just thank you again for having me on this show. As a, for the other listeners out there, I think it's important

We hear a lot about strategy in companies. It's important to be strategic about yourself. looking down the road at where you want to be and not so much, it's important to live in the moment, but to also have an eye on the future. And I think that the more you can seek out understanding that career development is so important for your own engagement.

within the organization. And I think that the idea of career development, seeing what your company has to offer in that area, and if they don't have that in that particular area of career development, pushing a little bit to see how they can get their company to be more focused on what their long-term career development needs are. Because that's really the key to

employee engagement and to growing your pay.

Olajumoke Fatoki (43:08)
Amazing. Thank you so much. Thank you so much for leading us in that direction. where can our listeners connect with you and how can they learn more about your work?

Scott (43:22)
Well, I'm on LinkedIn. I have a profile on LinkedIn. And I think when you publish your videos, think maybe you will put in there my LinkedIn source. then from there, know, phone number and email contact is in there. I'm a member of the Better Business Bureau of Southeast Florida and the Caribbean. So I have a presence and a profile out there.

videos of podcasts on YouTube. So there's different ways to contact me, but once, as I said, once your video comes out, it'll have some contact information there. And it would be my pleasure to speak with anyone.

Olajumoke Fatoki (44:05)
Thank you so much and I can't wait to share this with the world. This has really been enlightening and impactful. I imagine if we did this in less than 45 minutes and what value, what ton of value people would gain from you if they subscribe to your services. So thank you so much for sharing that. And definitely I'll put that information out there so people can easily reach out to you and get to you know.

understand what they can do together with you. All right.

Scott (44:37)
Yeah, it may

be just that they may not be in a position themselves, but they can talk to their human resources department and say, I saw this video and this individual that does these type of programs. And they'll be familiar, not necessarily with me, but the concepts that I'm talking about.

Olajumoke Fatoki (44:56)
Interesting and that's that's another good way to look at it. Thank you so much for joining us on this conversation and that brings us to the end of the show Thank you so much to all our listeners for tuning in on today's episode of the thrive careers podcast And if you found if you found today's episode helpful Be sure to share it with someone who is looking to level up in their career And until I come your way again next time keep thriving

Thank you so much.

Scott (45:28)
Thank you. It's been a pleasure.