diff --git a/pom.xml b/pom.xml
index 19f98e41..3a55eb31 100644
--- a/pom.xml
+++ b/pom.xml
@@ -1,11 +1,14 @@
 <?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
-<project xmlns="http://maven.apache.org/POM/4.0.0" xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance"
+<project xmlns="http://maven.apache.org/POM/4.0.0" 
+         xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance"
          xsi:schemaLocation="http://maven.apache.org/POM/4.0.0 http://maven.apache.org/maven-v4_0_0.xsd">
+
     <modelVersion>4.0.0</modelVersion>
     <groupId>works.buddy.samples</groupId>
     <artifactId>works-with-heroku</artifactId>
     <version>1.0</version>
     <packaging>war</packaging>
+
     <dependencies>
         <dependency>
             <groupId>javax.servlet</groupId>
@@ -50,6 +53,18 @@
                     </execution>
                 </executions>
             </plugin>
+
+            <!-- Added maven-compiler-plugin with Java 8 settings -->
+            <plugin>
+                <groupId>org.apache.maven.plugins</groupId>
+                <artifactId>maven-compiler-plugin</artifactId>
+                <version>3.8.1</version>
+                <configuration>
+                    <source>1.8</source>
+                    <target>1.8</target>
+                </configuration>
+            </plugin>
+
         </plugins>
     </build>
 </project>