As HR professionals, we should consider reward and talent management a key priority in any business. The overall aim is to improve the business’s performance by increasing productivity among employees while maintaining robust and fair pay practices. By doing this, organisations can build a high-performance workplace and add value to the business.
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How I work
As an experienced HR Reward Consultant, I can guide your business along the full reward journey from design to implementation. My pay and reward consulting services will come in handy whether you’re looking to undertake a specific reward activity, such as pay benchmarking, job evaluation, and building a pay structure, or whether you want to overhaul your approach to pay and reward and need a sensible, supported roadmap of activity.
HR reward and recognition play an important part in the wider talent management strategy across the organisation. I can help you establish a fair and pragmatic approach to reward strategies that drive performance and build employee trust. Integrating any approach to Reward with wider HR strategy and operations is crucial, and it’s crucial to join the dots across all areas of HR.
My coaching approach is deeply rooted in scientific principles, drawing from extensive research in fields like psychology, economics, and organisational behaviour. By leveraging evidence-based methodologies, I ensure that my guidance is not only practical but also informed by the latest findings in human resource management.
When I talk about guiding businesses along the full reward journey from design to implementation, I’m not just offering subjective advice. Instead, I integrate data-driven insights into my consulting services. For instance, when undertaking activities like pay benchmarking or job evaluation, I rely on rigorous analysis of market trends and organisational data to ensure that my recommendations are grounded in objective criteria.
A reward strategy in HR is a plan that outlines how a company will attract, retain, motivate, and engage employees through compensation and recognition. We look at all the reasons an employee chooses to join, stay or leave your organisation. It considers factors like business goals, market competitiveness, employee preferences, performance, flexibility, and budget. By creating and following this plan, organisations can gain a competitive edge, boost employee performance and satisfaction, and meet business objectives.
How does it work?
I’ll make sure your HR reward strategy consultation is valuable every step of the way. Together, we’ll set clear objectives, develop a smart HR reward strategy, and plan out how to put it into action. We’ll work closely to ensure everything aligns strategically. I understand how different parts of HR connect, so I’ll make sure any changes we make won’t cause problems elsewhere. With my broad HR experience and CIPD-accredited advanced reward expertise, you’re in good hands.
How your approach to pay supports the overall business objectives and values
Pay stance vs the market (which might be market median, above median or below median, depending on the strength of your total reward offer)
The purpose of each pay component
Which aspects should or shouldn’t connect to performance
Pay progression principles
Pay transparency stance
Internal consistency vs external market rates
Local vs global frameworks
Individual vs team reward
Perfect for
Organisations of any size where a strategic stance to pay and reward is needed to ensure all parts of the reward framework are working cohesively and consistently to support the organisation’s objectives. Especially relevant to organisations focusing on enhancing their EVP (employee value proposition) or wanting to find ways to better attract and retain talent.
“Gemma’s strategic approach has reinforced our position in the market and improved our retention strategies. We are grateful to Gemma for her expertise and guidance.”
Dawn Powell, People & Performance Lead
Solomons Europe
Job Evaluation
What is job evaluation?
Job evaluation is a methodical way to compare different job roles within an organisation to see how valuable they are relative to each other. It sets the foundation for fair pay by helping identify any pay disparities and establishing a consistent pay structure. It also helps understand the organisation’s structure better and creates clear career paths for employee
How does it work?
As a skilled Reward Consultant, I’ll team up with you to suggest, create, and implement a job evaluation system tailored to your requirements. This can range from a simple job hierarchy to a more comprehensive evaluation framework. I ensure it is fully calibrated across the business to ensure fairness and consistency.
Any such job evaluation system provides a more robust basis for a pay benchmarking exercise. It can also spotlight anomalies in your organisation design (OD), highlight gaps in the structure, and crucially alert you to potential areas to investigate from an equal pay perspective.
Choose appropriate evaluation methods and criteria
Rank or grade job roles
Callibrate to ensure consistency
Operationalise
Perfect for:
Organisations that want to establish competitive market pay position but don’t have an established way of grading roles, as job evaluation is an essential precursor to pay benchmarking. Job evaluation is also the critical first step to establishing a fair and consistent pay structure, and creating career pathways.
“The framework created was clear and adapted perfectly to our specific needs. I highly recommend Gemma as a reward partner.”
Simona Liverzani, Senior HR Director
Deltatre
Pay Benchmarking
What is pay benchmarking?
Pay benchmarking is the process of comparing an organisation’s pay rates and compensation practices with those of similar companies or industries. This comparison helps you ensure that your compensation packages are competitive and aligned with prevailing market trends. By analysing pay benchmarking data, you can make informed decisions about salary levels, benefits, and other forms of compensation to attract and retain talent effectively.
How does it work?
I’ll handle everything involved in comparing your pay rates to industry standards, starting from finding the right data sources to accurately matching your roles. I’ll provide a clear analysis of how your workforce compares to these benchmarks and can create basic pay structures tailored to your business needs. With my expertise in both reward strategies and general HR, I’ll ensure this process integrates smoothly with other HR aspects like career paths, bonuses, and performance-based pay.
Define goals and align with organisational compensation strategy; involve key stakeholders.
Gather internal job data and grading
Choose relevant external data sources (e.g., industry surveys) and appropriate benchmarking methods.
Analyse collected data, compare internal pay structures with market rates, and identify gaps.
Create a report of current market position and a sensible phased plan to correct outliers
Perfect for:
Organisations that want to establish competitive market pay position – either to achieve a pay fairness principle, or to tackle a talent attraction/retention challenge, or ensure pay equity. Ad hoc pay increase are a significant hidden cost for many business – a robust pay framework is an essential foundation to ensuring pay decisions are robust and fair.
“Gemma is a strong reward expert, with deep technical understanding, in addition she is also amazing to work with, making sure workloads are managed in a straightforward and simple way.”
Jo Dogherty, Chief People Officer
Verastar
Executive Pay
What is executive pay?
Executive pay and reward requires a specialist approach due to the strategic nature of executive roles, their higher impact on company performance, and the need to align their interests with shareholders, consider long-term value creation and regulatory requirements..
Benchmarking is undertaken using a combination of different data points, depending on company factors such as revenue, profit, and other commercial measures.
Considerations for executive pay can also involve greater scrutiny from regulatory bodies, shareholders, and the public, requiring transparency and justifiable pay structures.
As an experienced Executive Remuneration consultant, I can undertake a thorough analysis of your executive pay landscape, from an in-depth analysis and benchmarking of each pay component to advising on corporate pay governance principles, preparation for Remuneration Committees (Remcom), and LTIP review and design.
Analysis is provided as a clear and concise Board-ready report designed for use in Executive Board meetings, Remuneration Committees, and senior leadership presentations. With my board-level HR experience, I can also work directly with your CEO, CFO, or Executive team and present on your behalf or provide support for you to do this, as needed.
The following areas might be covered:
Base salary benchmarking using multiple data points
Annual bonus design, appropriately weighted to company success factors
Long-term incentive plan design (stock or cash, depending on circumstance)
Remuneration Committee preparation
Corporate Governance Principles
Relocation packages
Perfect for
Organisations that want to establish competitive market pay for their Exec team and/or have a requirement to follow regulatory or other corporate governance processes.
“It is great to work with Gemma. Being an HRD can be lonely, and Gemma provides wise counsel. She has a great ability to bring clarity of thought to the most complex of situations.”
Rosie Ranganathan, Former People Director
England & Wales Cricket Board
Bonus Schemes
What are bonus schemes?
When designed well, variable pay schemes (bonus or sales incentives) can provide the most affordable and powerful way to motivate and reward high performance.
How does it work?
Do you have a bonus scheme that you think isn’t really delivering this? Whether it’s an issue with design, market alignment, internal equity or communication (or a combination of any of these), I can review, recommend and deliver the changes you need to reward and drive high performance.
Determine the type of bonus or sales incentive scheme that is right for your organisation
Define individual, team and company-wide metrics
Establish appropriate performance metrics
Recommend how to align to your wider performance management processes
Align to your overall approach to pay
How to communicate the plan to ensure employees understand the bonus scheme
Perfect for
Organisations who have a bonus scheme in place and want to get an expert view on its effectiveness. Or organisations who want to introduce a bonus to help drive performance, minimise reliance on base pay to remain competitive, or want to motivate/retain key staff.
“For anyone looking to refine their bonus schemes, I highly recommend Gemma’s expertise and strategic approach.”
Rebecca Clarke, Head of HR
Sciensus
Pay Progression
What is Pay Progression?
Organisations with clear pay progression principles and processes provide a fair and transparent framework by which individual wage increases are defined and presented to employees. Determining pay progression also ensures payroll costs can be more robustly managed, supporting wider strategic goals and budgeting.
Making decisions around pay structures, frameworks, and progression can seem daunting, with many strategic mechanisms involved. As an experienced HR reward advisor, I can walk you through the process step-by-step.
The following areas are typically covered:
Pay progression and promotion principles
Connecting, or disconnecting, pay from performance
Establishing clearly defined pay structures
Defining pay progression salary bandings
Perfect for
Organisations who want to attract and retain key talent, grow and develop their own talent pipeline and reduce reliance on and cost of external hiring.
“I would highly recommend Gemma to anyone looking to professionalise and streamline their reward systems and also help upskill the team.”
Victoria Wilson, Chief People Officer
Travel Counsellors
Frequently Asked Questions
What is HR Reward and Pay Consulting?
HR Reward and Pay consulting involves analysing and optimising your organisation’s compensation and benefits strategy. It seeks to ensure that companies offer competitive pay, rewards, incentives, and benefits to help attract, retain and motivate their employees effectively.
As an experienced HR Reward Consultant, I can guide your business along the full reward journey from design to implementation. Whether you’re looking to undertake a specific rewards activity or are seeking to overhaul your approach to pay and rewards, my consulting services can help provide you with a clear, strategic and realistic roadmap of supported activity.
Why is HR Reward and Pay Consulting important?
A fair and transparent rewards and pay structure can significantly improve performance and help to build employee trust and morale.
It is a leading factor in attracting and retaining top-level talent while enhancing employee engagement.
The professional landscape changes at a pace—now more so than ever. A growing global and diverse workforce demands and deserves transparency and flexibility in their reward and pay structure that reflects not only their skills and talents but also the broader company goals and ethos.
What is the process for implementing a new reward and pay strategy?
It is vital that a new HR reward and pay strategy is implemented with care and consideration for all parties involved. While each business is different, and my approach to each business is bespoke, there are a number of stages typically involved with the rollout of a new reward and pay strategy:
The discovery phase involves a thorough analysis of both internal and external factors that affect the organisation and the establishment of key goals and objectives.#
The design phase is where we collaboratively create the structures, strategies and processes that will form your HR reward and pay strategy.
The implementation phase is where I will work closely with you and/or management at all levels to facilitate the changes across your organisation, maximising communication and transparency.
The review phase is where the evaluation of the success of the strategy is undertaken.
What are the benefits of HR reward and pay consulting?
There are many benefits to seeking out HR reward and pay consulting services. Implementing change on a wide organisational level can be turbulent for any business.
Having an experienced HR Reward Consultant on hand to assist and help guide you along the full reward journey can transform your strategic outputs and establish a fair and pragmatic approach to pay and rewards across the organisation.
How often should you review your reward and pay strategy?
As the world of work evolves rapidly, it is important to regularly review your reward and pay strategy to ensure that your business goals and objectives align with the broader industry standards.
The level of review requirement may differ—some organisations may need a complete strategic overhaul, whereas others may only need a simple realignment of one or more areas within their reward and pay framework.
Depending on this level, you may choose to review your strategy yearly, in line with, for example, annual pay reviews.
What my clients say
“Gemma is a strong reward expert, with deep technical understanding, in addition she is also amazing to work with, making sure workloads are managed in a straightforward and simple way. I would highly recommend Gemma as a reward partner.”
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