Client
A local hospice that we have worked with on several projects since 2019, including supporting the harmonisation of reward as part of their merger with another hospice. The charity employs both clinical staff and non-clinical, including fundraising and retail as well as support functions.
Solution
- Developed pay principles and pay framework.
- Levelled and benchmarked all roles against the NHS and relevant non-clinical markets, produced pay ranges and provided individual pay positions within these.
- Provided an indication of resulting costs and a flight path to support the journey to the agreed goal.
Challenge
- Lack of robust pay framework or principles.
- No way to 'read across' roles between clinical and non-clinical roles.
- Tension between attraction and retention versus cost efficiency to provide maximum benefit to service users.
- No reward experience.
Impact
- Providing expert knowledge and experience to develop a framework that is suitable and sustainable for both clinical and non-clinical parts of the business, ensuring fair and consistent pay decisions for the appropriate market and with consideration for the affordability of the organisation.
"Reward Heads have the expertise and experience to recommend the appropriate comparison data relevant to the charity sector and how each role should be levelled. This advice is invaluable as job titles and responsibilities differ so much between organisations. Job levelling can be complex without the right expertise guiding you through the principles. We had regular dialogue and Hannah was able to give suggestions to approaches based on her experience working with other organisations. Another huge benefit is Reward Heads's impartiality as an external resource, roles are levelled purely on job descriptions and not the individual, and the salary data is from a robust independent source."
Context
The client is a multinaReward Heads have worked on several projects with this hospice since 2019, building a long-term relationship to support them on their reward journey, including as part of their merger with another hospice. They employ both clinical staff (where there is competition with the NHS on both pay and benefits) and non-clinical staff comprising of retail, fundraising and support functions where the competition is arguably the entire market. They are a charity who aim to devote funding to caring for patients and families and so attracting and retaining staff as cost-effectively as possible is crucial.
The Problem
- Client lacked a robust pay framework or principles.
- As such they had no way to 'read across' roles between clinical and non-clinical roles.
- Benchmarking was not meaningfully carried out, but they were aware that they were paying less than the charity market and needed a way to close the gap, without the means to fund this all at once.
Which meant:
- Risks around equal pay: clinical versus non-clinical roles and work of equal value.
- Risks around attracting and retaining staff and thus quality service provision.
- Risks around a lack of strategic pay decisions due to lack of frameworks, and in an environment where cost effectiveness is key, they lacked the knowledge and expertise to make pay decisions in the most cost effective and impactful way.
The Tension
There was tension around costs - as a charity they need to use money efficiently in a difficult funding landscape to provide maximum benefit to service users, but they also need to attract and retain skilled staff and thus provide salaries capable of doing so.
There was tension around competition in other sector - for clinical staff they were competing with the NHS and for non- clinical staff arguably competing with the entire market.
What Reward Heads did
- Robust job levelling, working with the hospice to ensure engagement, knowledge transfer and accuracy.
- Diagnosed where salaries were not market competitive through levelling and benchmarking all roles
- Developed a broad band salary framework and a read across from the framework to the NHS agenda for change, so clinical and non-clinical roles can be graded on one hospice framework but have pay set according to the appropriate market, including relevant job families for the non-clinical population.
- Identified agreed market position for all roles and developed a longer-term flight path to support the journey to the agreed goal within the financial restraints of the hospice, with recommendations on high priority roles and critical market adjustments.
- Designed and implemented pay principles, including pay progression, to support ongoing pay governance and strategic decisions
- Conducted a benefits review and supported the hospice with low-cost benefit improvement options, as well as insight on benefits to shout about with a 12-month communication plan.
Business Impact
- Improved market position and the confidence of a fair and consistent approach, to ensure that affordability is balanced with an ongoing commitment to fairness and good governance. The framework and principles put in place were a foundation to support the harmonisation when merging with another hospice.
People Impact
- HR had the tools and confidence to make informed pay decisions and leaders had clear and consistent principles and frameworks to have honest conversations with individuals.
Which resulted in …
Having clear principles around the appropriate market data for different populations; how pay decisions are made and pay is progressed; as well as the desired market positions and transparency about affordability.
Enabling the hospice to have a reward framework that works for them and their population by cutting through the complexities and arming them with the tools to make ongoing fair and consistent decisions in an informed and sustainable way.
We have continued to work with this charity to support the longer-term reward journey, from
the initial benchmarking and benefits review, through to the broadband framework an
progression principles. The framework and principles put in place were a foundation to support
the harmonisation when merging with another hospice.
If this feels familiar …
Many organisations come across reward challenges that they don't have the capacity or expertise to undertake. At Reward Heads we work with you to understand the problem, what is really driving it, and can either give the resource or the thinking to find the right solutions. We also take pride in building an ongoing relationship with our clients to continue to support that strategic reward journey as needed.
