Client
Children's charity with a mix of roles, including some quite niche, providing support for children, young people and families who are experiencing challenges. The charity works across children's centres, prisons, schools, young carers and families affected by domestic abuse.
Solution
- A robust cross-organisation levelling framework.
- All roles across both support functions and direct services levelled and benchmarked, outliers identified, resulting costs understood with a flight path to the agreed goal.
- Provided pay progression options in line with culture and values.
- Reviewed benefits to provide lower-cost, higher-impact benefits for the team.
Challenge
- Pay was aligned to the National Joint Council (NJC) public sector pay grades, with an incremental approach to increases that was not driving passion for the job. Employees and the charity also had a limited understanding of their pay position in the market.
Impact
- Provided reward expertise and insight into pay position both internally and externally and enabled significant progress on the reward journey.
"We engaged Reward Heads to support us with external benchmarking, a benefits review, developing a pay framework fit for the future and considering pay for performance. The external benchmarking enabled us to validate that we were paying broadly in line with our desired market position as well as reassuring us there was minimal organisational risk around equal pay claims. As a small charity we do not have external reward expertise and finding a partner that was flexible and equipped to help us progress this work made all the difference."
Context
Pay grades were fully aligned to National Joint Council (NJC) pay scales, with a spinal point structure and incremental increases, but the charity wanted to explore moving towards a performance culture that instilled passion for the job. This was a big culture shift and was going to be a journey, but having knowledge of their current pay and benefits position was the first step to developing a pay framework fit for the future of the charity.
The Problem
- The charity was restricted in how they rewarded their people both philosophically and financially.
- They needed a new approach for better financial control as well as a cultural shift from incremental automatic increases to the ability to reward performance and contribution.
- They had limited insight into how their pay and benefits faired in the market; with some roles being comparable to public sector roles and others in support functions in a charity.
Which meant:
- There was limited flexibility in pay decisions, and no ability to reward performance.
- Lack of knowledge and market insight into how fair pay is and whether pay decisions should be addressing market inequities.
The Tension
The charity did not have reward expertise; they knew that the existing pay framework was not working and supporting their desired culture, but they had no insight into whether pay was fair and justified in the external market, or how to go about addressing a problem that they didn’t really know the size of.
What Reward Heads did
- Identified where salaries were not market competitive through levelling and benchmarking all roles.
- Diagnosed where their benefits offering could better meet their need for lower-cost, higher-impact benefits.
- Built job families, and aligned all roles across both support functions and direct services to the agreed market position by providing an indication of resulting costs and a flight path to support the journey to the agreed goal.
- Designed and implemented a levelling framework in line with their needs to support ongoing pay governance and strategic decisions, along with pay progression options to suit their culture and values.
Business Impact
- Confidence in pay and benefits that are fair, consistent and aligned to market.
- Greater confidence for the future of reward in the charity that aligns with organisational goals.
People Impact
- Greater pay transparency, and fairer pay with an approach that ensures both internal and external equity.
Which resulted in …
A new pay framework and salary ranges based on robust benchmarking and a fair and consistent process that is fit for the future of the charity. This has enabled a clear plan and given leaders the confidence to break the link to NJC annual rises with new contracts.
We have continued to work with this charity through periods of significant change in both leadership and dynamic with the acquisition of another charity. The approach has been maintained, and enabled harmonisation and the alignment of legacy salaries, as well as continuing to ensure that pay decisions are fair and in line with the desired market position.
If this feels familiar …
Many organisations know that something isn't working but don't have the insight, knowledge, or expertise to move forward in the right way. At Reward Heads, we help organisations understand their current starting point, their desired destination and a flight path on how to get there.
