Compference25
Free Virtual Event | September 9-11
Ready to transform your pay strategy into your greatest advantage? Join Compference25 to get the insights, data, and resources you need to lead with confidence.
Hear from leading voices shaping the future of pay and total rewards. Walk away with real-world strategies and data-backed insights to help your organization stay competitive, compliant, and ready for what’s next.
Compference25 Speakers
Compference25 Agenda
Tues. Sept. 9th
Welcome to Compference25
Join Ruth Thomas, Lulu Seikaly and Lexi Clarke as we welcome attendees to Compference25! Here you'll hear key insights into why a strong compensation practice is essential to modern talent and business development.
The unsung hero: how compensation leaders supercharge talent strategies
Behind every great talent strategy is a powerful but often overlooked force: compensation. In today’s fast-moving workplace, pay isn’t just a number—it’s a driver of agility, culture, and connection. This session will reveal why organizations can’t thrive without agile, change-ready compensation teams, and how the best leaders are already rewriting the playbook. You’ll discover the three C’s of modern compensation: Continuous, creative and connected in addition to uncovering the latest research, innovative examples, and practical insights that prove compensation leaders are the unsung heroes of business success. You’ll leave with fresh ideas, future-ready strategies, and a renewed sense of the impact your work can have.
This session, delivered by bestselling author, speaker, and researcher Ben Eubanks, will examine brand new, never-before-seen research on the evolving role of the compensation function from the 2025 Lighthouse Research & Advisory Compensation Trends Study.
Intro to comp strategy and pay transparency compliance
How do you get up and running on strategic compensation that is competitive to market and meets minimum requirements for pay transparency compliance? This session will educate attendees on the foundations of building a compensation strategy and publishing pay ranges in job postings and the results they can expect with real examples backed by research and data.
Meeting employee expectations for pay progression and career growth
Your current pay structures and salary offers are competitive for hiring talent, but how do you grow employees with your organization, retain top talent, and reward performance? This session will cover successful strategies for pay progression, promotion, and pay adjustments, with real examples from HR veterans.
Wed. Sept. 10th
Driving action through strategy
Continue the conversation with Ruth, Lulu and Lexi to gain insights to establish (or advance) a clear foundation for your compensation practice covering topics like philosophy, strategy, fundamentals and data.
The next chapter of confident compensation
Compensation leaders are under pressure to balance market shifts, employee expectations, and organizational goals. Join our Chief Product Officer and team as we explore these challenges, beginning with the latest industry trends and strategies shaping the future of pay. Hear real customer stories that show how organizations are tackling complex decisions with clarity and confidence. Through live demos and use cases, discover how Payscale innovations are helping compensation teams transform the way they work today while preparing for tomorrow.
The ROI of compensation management
Communicating with executive leadership on compensation management requires adept storytelling skills. In this session, we will hear from experienced compensation practitioners on what data stories and visual aids are effective at getting buy-in from leadership on compensation investments and how to measure and communicate outcomes that showcase the ROI of compensation technology.
The art and science of pay increase planning and managing exceptions
Compensation is going to be particularly important in 2025-2026 as inflation rises and wage growth exceeds planned pay increases, especially when budgets are tightening due to economic uncertainty and rising operational costs. What is the best way to allocate pay increases on a limited salary budget, particularly in an uncertain economy? How do you retain top performers? What do you do with underpaid talent? What about exceptions who are red-circled or paid more than similar roles?
Thurs. Sept. 11th
Engaging your organization
We'll conclude Compference25 with reflections over the past two days of content and lay a groundwork for how to repurpose the skills and insights you learned in your day-to-day operations.
Fair pay: real talk from the changemakers shaping pay equity
Pay equity has moved from a compliance issue to a business imperative — but real progress takes more than good intentions.
In this powerful conversation, a panel of trailblazing experts who have led and shaped the fair pay movement share hard-won insights from the front lines. From navigating tough conversations to driving cultural change and redefining transparency, these changemakers will break down what’s working, what’s holding us back, and what it truly takes to build pay systems that are fair, inclusive, and trusted.
Whether you're an HR leader, executive, or employee advocate, you'll leave with practical takeaways, fresh perspective, and a deeper understanding of how to turn commitment into measurable impact.
Using data to combat misinformation in salary negotiations
Employees have a lot more resources for learning about salary than they used to, including generative AI like ChatGPT, social media, and job postings. For HR leaders and compensation professionals, it’s never been more challenging (or more important) to ground compensation conversations in fact over fiction. In this session, you will hear from practitioners with success stories from both sides of the aisle when it comes to unrealistic expectations about salary and practical guidance on how to approach misinformation with confidence and secure positive outcomes.
Compensation in focus: a cross-functional conversation
Pay communications can be challenging, but the better informed your employees are about how pay is determined, the better the experience with your organization’s employer brand. In this session, you will hear from compensation professionals leading the way when it comes to empowering HRBPs and talent acquisition with visibility into compensation data, as well as how to field questions and educate employees throughout the organization on pay decisions.
What people are saying about Compference
Why should you attend?
Compference is for leaders who want to turn compensation into a strategic advantage. This free virtual event offers sessions you can tailor to your goals while connecting with peers who care about building confident, data-driven pay strategies.
You’ll also get an inside look at Payscale solutions like Marketpay and Payfactors, gaining practical insights and support to help you make informed, defensible decisions in today’s fast-moving landscape.
Who should attend?
Previous attendees
What to expect
At Compference, you'll learn from practitioners who live and breathe compensation. Expect sessions led by HR and total rewards leaders who are navigating the same challenges as you are—sharing real-world strategies, data-backed insights, and lessons learned from the field.
You'll leave with actionable ideas you can apply right away to build confidence in your compensation strategy and drive impact at your organization.
Tune in and listen to our Compference24 recap podcast episode on Comp and Coffee!
Frequently asked questions
September 9-11, 2025. We plan to host 2 hours of content each day.
Compference is free to attend.
We will not be offering paid workshops in 2025. We wanted to offer a fully free event that focuses on topics and sessions that apply to every attendee.
We plan to launch our agenda and keynote speakers by mid-August at the latest.
Yes! The event will feature many opportunities to connect with peers, session leaders, keynote presenters, and colleagues. Among these opportunities, you can message attendees directly, have space to interact with fellow session attendees before, during and after sessions, use break-out and zoom rooms for longer form discussions, and more.
Due to the short duration of Compference, we are not offering any CEU credits.
