Daniel Ibrahim· Benefits Analyst, Fairlead Shipping
Posted in New Member Welcome ·
I have just joined the reward team at a unitary council in the south-west of England, around 4,500 employees, after eight years in private sector retail reward. There are three of us.
It is a different world. Pay points are nationally negotiated, job evaluation is taken very seriously, and the tools I used to rely on, such as merit budgets and bonus design, mostly do not exist here. What we do have are market supplements, hard-to-fill posts in social work and planning, and equal pay risk that people talk about every week.
I would like to hear from others in public sector reward about where you find room to make a difference.
6 helpful · 2 agree · 4 replies · 100 views · 5 following
Ivan ChenCBS, GRS
Global Mobility Manager, Orchard & Vine
Welcome across. I made the same journey into an NHS trust and spent six months missing the merit matrix. The room is in three places: how market supplements are evidenced and reviewed, how jobs are designed before they reach evaluation, and the non-pay offer, which most councils undersell badly.
Head of Reward, Pinehurst Foods
Local government reward for eleven years here. Look at your market supplements first. In my authority a quarter of them had not been reviewed in over three years and several were being paid for posts that were no longer hard to fill.
A review every 12 months with fresh evidence is defensible; an open-ended supplement is an equal pay claim waiting.
Elif KellerCBS
Benefits Analyst, Meridian Health Systems
From the Canadian municipal side, the constraints are similar. I found career frameworks were where I could help: clear steps within a job family so that progression is not only about waiting for a vacancy. The Job Architecture & Careers space is worth a look for that.
Benefits Analyst, Fairlead Shipping
Thank you. I asked for the supplements register this morning. There are 212 of them and no review dates on about 70. I think I have found my first project.
