Client
A global tech-based media organisation with employees across multiple countries
Solution
- A bespoke job levelling framework
- Role-by-role pay benchmarking
- Design of bonus arrangements to strengthen fairness, consistency and links to business performance and extend to all
Challenge
- A complex and rigid job evaluation system, not suited to an organisation undergoing rapid change
- A desire for individual reward to drive high performance, particularly through bonus
Impact
- A consistent levelling methodology and transparent framework
- Clearer evidence on pay competitiveness
- Recommendations made for performance-related Reward across the workforce.
Context
A global streaming platform was growing and changing in a competitive media market. They needed a more flexible, future-focused approach to job levelling that would better support organisational goals and provide a robust but accessible framework going forward.
In addition, they wished to link corporate and individual performance more closely to individual bonus. Further to ensure everyone was recognised and rewarded in line with business success to drive corporate high-performance goals, as bonus had been only for Leadership roles to date.
The Problem
Issues:
- A complex points-based job evaluation process lacked the flexibility needed for a changing organisation and was sometimes ‘gamed'
- Our client required a more robust approach to pay benchmarking, recognising the competitive nature and the potential challenges of their market sector
- Bonus arrangements covered leadership roles only, limiting the link between individual performance and business success across the workforce.
Which meant:
- Risk of inconsistent role levelling and perceived unfairness due to the complex points-based process.
- Risk of losing out on specialist talent without reliable evidence of whether pay was competitive in the market.
- Risk of weaker alignment between individual contribution and business goals while bonus opportunities remained limited to leadership.
The Tension
There was tension around the levelling process and existing frameworks; the organisation needed to make decisions about changing roles, while the existing points-based system made those decisions harder to reach and defend, especially as there was perceived unfairness.
There were tensions around bonus costs and organisational desires; while they wanted to use bonus to reward performance more widely, there were concerns about costs if it were to be expanded beyond the Leadership team.
What We Did
- Diagnosed where the existing levelling structure and bonus arrangements may not have been best serving the organisation
- Aligned their levelling approach and bonus arrangements to better meet organisational needs
- Designed a bespoke, intuitive levelling framework that could stay with them through organisational changes.
- Provided insights into how their pay compared to the market through benchmarking and made bonus recommendations to facilitate it being used to reward performance more widely across the organisation.
Impact
Business impact
- The client could more easily assess roles in their organisation, with a process perceived as fairer and more accessible
- They better understood their position in the market
- Bonus recommendations gave them a clearer route to aligning Reward with business performance
People impact
- Employees could better understand their roles and how they could progress
- Employees could be more confident that they were rewarded in line with market practice
- Bonus recommendations created an opportunity for performance recognition to reach employees beyond leadership
Which resulted in …
Leadership can now make future pay decisions with clearer evidence on internal equity and market competitiveness.
Reward has a clearer structure for connecting individual performance with corporate success across roles, levels and countries.
If this feels familiar …
When a business grows and changes, Reward frameworks need to stay clear, fair and practical without losing the detail needed for sound decisions.
At Reward Heads, we help organisations cut through complexity and make Reward work for them.
Let's chat: email us at rewardsolutions@rewardheads.co.uk
