Seven years as an HR generalist, three weeks as a reward adviser

Welcome. Your generalist years are worth more than you think: you already know which managers will argue and why. The numbers are learnable in a few months. Knowing how a pay decision lands with a team takes much longer, and you have that.

I would gently push back on leaving the numbers until later. With a 2017 structure, check how many people now sit above the top of their grade or below the bottom. If it is more than about 5 per cent either way, the structure needs attention before the review, not after.

The Compensation space has a few good threads on ageing structures.

Thank you all. I spent Friday doing the count suggested above: 9 per cent of staff are above their grade maximum, nearly all in maintenance trades. That is now the first page of my note to the HR director, and I have started documenting the matches.