Using our heads to solve your Reward challenges.
A key part of any organisational change is workforce planning. This will take into account what skills and labour are required in order to deliver the strategic objectives and, as the needs of the organisation change, the workforce plan adapts. This can also be due to mergers or takeovers as well as organic change.
Where a strategic review has meant a significant change to the structure of a team or function, there is a need to review many areas of reward to identify any actions that are needed as a result of the change. The team at Reward Heads have lots of experience in supporting organisations through times of change.
Where would we start? First, we need to understand the new and changed roles and how they fit into the new overall structure, by reviewing the new role profiles to level the roles within your existing levelling framework or create one with you, update the benchmarking, assess each individual's pay against the revised market data, review internal relativity and carry out an equal pay review.
Of course, this assumes that you have already created your new organisation structure and have robust job descriptions which sit behind every role ready to be levelled and benchmarked. That is not always the case, and we can support you in getting that in place.
We have sometimes observed that roles are made redundant or combined without a detailed understanding of what they actually did and so certain tasks are now left floating in the ether. These need to be resolved before job profiles are finalised.
Expectations do need to be managed that combining roles may not necessarily lead to a change in the level of pay of a role - it may just be that it is now 50% X and 50% Y but the market dictates a similar rate for both elements. Employees can often assume that an additional team member or task is going to lead to a pay increase. Equally, however, restructures can sometimes assume that role X is going and so all of that is saved when in fact a chunk of the role now sits in role Y which needs to be reviewed.
As part of a strategic review, you may have a number of vacancies, some of which may be new skills you haven't recruited for before, so ensuring you have up to date benchmark market data is key.
Once we are clear on roles and levels, we would look beyond pay to other areas of the Reward package.
Benefits are an area that comes up especially when businesses are combined. The annual renewal process is always an opportunity to review the engagement levels with particular benefits but periods of big change are another time to ensure the benefits are fit for purpose. A change in size of workforce or possibly a shift in demographic should all be considered when making large-scale changes to ensure your benefits offering is what your employees are interested in and value. Benefits are far more about company culture and values than external benchmarking, and so differ from pay. A new strategic direction or composition of a group may mean that the whole benefits offer needs to be re-examined.
This is also a key area for consideration of how to harmonise the package, especially where some elements may be under TUPE for some of the team, and consider whether benefits are grandfathered or the package is looked at in total rather than seeking to harmonise each part of it.
Bonus is another key part of the package that can be impacted by organisational change- a successful bonus scheme should be about delivering the organisation strategy and therefore in times of change its important to review if that's still the case or there have been changes which mean that the bonus scheme needs to be reviewed. It may also be the case that roles have been created or relevelled and this has changed the make up of the scheme.
Significant changes may call for specific interventions. These might be around recognition, for a team working on an acquisition for example. Or a retention bonus for key talent in a business being acquired or restructured. Or indeed relocation packages if a role is being moved geographically.
In essence, the impact on reward of organisational change can be significant and needs to be well thought through both at individual and organisational level.
Has the Reward team itself changed?
If you find yourself needing to recruit for a Reward role then take a look at our Resourcing consulting services where we can help you find the perfect Reward employee for your organisation. Resourcing
Reward Heads can also offer an extra pair of Reward hands by becoming an extension to your team and providing short-term support to cover vacancies while you recruit. Please get in touch if we can.
Our mission is to help everyone reach their full potential and so we have Reward coaching modules designed to share Reward knowledge to help everyone working in Reward teams or who are part of the reward processes to be the best they can and understand how to make great Reward decisions. They are great for demystifying parts of Reward that some see as a dark art and cover everything from benchmarking to building a reward strategy - ideal for businesses going through change to develop your internal teams on how to successfully navigate through the change. You can find more information on those here - Coaching
Workforce planning is an iterative process which continually reviews the needs of the business against the capability and capacity of the workforce. Much of the above is done by in-house Reward teams on top of the day job. If your organisation is about to go through a change like this and need specialist Reward support, please reach out to our CEO Victoria Milford, at rewardsolutions@rewardheads.co.uk
Jo Cole - Consulting Manager