Newsflash: You've Been Doing Compensation Wrong This Whole Time (with Candor IQ's Haris Ikram)

Newsflash: You've Been Doing Compensation Wrong This Whole Time (with Candor IQ's Haris Ikram)

From I Hate It Here by Hebba Youssef

April 13, 2026 · 51 min

About this episode

Haris Ikram discusses the common misconceptions and challenges surrounding compensation in organizations.

It’s kinda wild how many people of are still dealing with compensation issues today! Most companies have a comp strategy the same way most people have a fitness plan...technically it exists, but nobody is really following it. Haris Ikram, co-founder and CEO of Candor IQ, joins me this week to talk about his founder journey and why compensation is the most misunderstood, most mishandled, and most consequential thing happening inside your org right now. This one's going to sting a little, but it’ll bring plenty of clarity too, so it’s still worth it! --- 0:00:00 - Intro 0:01:54 - Something Haris Believed About Work Early in His Career That he Unlearned 0:03:18 - The Moment Haris Decided to Start a Company 0:06:39 - What Starting a Company Seemed Like vs What it was Actually Like 0:09:49 - Being a Founder vs Being an Executive 0:13:24 - The Hardest Part of Being a First-time Founder That Nobody Tells You About 0:15:45 - The First Mistake Founders Make With Comp That Cost Them Later On 0:19:32 - What Made Haris Want to Solve the Comp Problem 0:30:24 - Why HR and Finance Can't Seem to Get Along 0:41:37 - How Data Alignment Transparency Benefits Employees 0:45:50 - Haris's Advice for…

People in this episode

Host: Hebba Youssef

Guest: Haris Ikram

Topics covered

  • compensation
  • founder journey
  • HR and finance
  • data alignment
  • employee benefits

Keywords

  • compensation strategy
  • founder mistakes
  • HR issues
  • data transparency
  • employee performance

Sponsors

The Predictive Index

Mentioned in this episode

Organizations: Candor IQ

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