Accent Group partnered with Innecto Reward consultants and used our tech tools PayLab and Evaluate to enable a successful transition for their pay frameworks and job evaluation. After a successful eight-month project, their Reward Consultant Pauline Prince spoke with Holly Coe.
Holly Coe: What key reward challenges were you looking to address?
Pauline Prince: As an organisation we didn’t have a clear and consistent approach to pay and reward. We aspired to be a median, spot salary payer – and for each individual new role we did check that – but for several years no benchmarking had been done to ensure this was being applied consistently and in a way that created scope for growth.
We needed a structured and robust framework that ensured a fair, transparent, and competitive approach to pay, aligning salaries with internal fairness and external market standards, and helping us to maintain financial sustainability.
We also needed a job evaluation mechanism to help us understand where different roles sat in the organisation and support the pay and reward elements of that. As part of that, we also wanted to review our benefits and introduce a new reward package.
HC: How were those challenges impacting the business?
PP: Our People Strategy lays out that we want to be an employer of choice but we had no way of demonstrating that without benchmarking or laying out a clear approach to reward and benefits.
Colleagues had been asking for a review for several years and there was some frustration that their salaries might not be competitive. It was one of the factors which was resulting in low colleague engagement.
HC: Why did you decide on Evaluate and Pay lab?
PP: Partnering with Innecto was the key factor in deciding on using their systems because their team demonstrated a level of knowledge and experience that we needed. We’d already invested in upgrading our HR systems to a cloud-based solution and wanted to align that with a new approach to reward and benefits. The support they offered for that was superb.
As a digital platform, Evaluate offers a perfect balance between simplicity and detail. It is simple to use from a user perspective but has enough complexity and detail to be able to flex and adjust to our own organisation-specific roles.
Working closely with the team at Innecto we created a bespoke hybrid pay structure that drew from private and specialist sector data. We then also used PayLab to apply that model fairly to all colleagues. We also audited all our benefits and were provided with data about competitiveness, with consultation provided on which benefits would have the most impact on our workers.
HC: What are the main changes and benefits you’ve noticed?
PP: Initial survey feedback from colleagues has been extremely positive across the board. 83% are now satisfied that their pay is fair, a satisfyingly high number for a reward project. The average score for understanding our new approach and appreciating the new benefits introduced is 8 out of 10, and 93% feel the benefits introduced are fair, this was just 5.9 out of 10 before we started
About Evaluate and PayLab
PayLab uses objective benchmarks and market insights to help implement and manage standardised pay structures and formulate salary bands for every position and level. By helping HR and business leaders better understand employees’ positioning within pay bands and against the market, PayLab allows for more robust pay decisions. The software can also generate reports by department, gender or ethnicity, helping HR and business leaders stay on top of pay gaps or anomalies, and move forward in a transparent way.
Evaluate makes evaluating roles quick and straightforward, reducing the onus on HR resource and increasing confidence that roles are being assessed fairly and consistently. The built-in job description library allows HR to create, save and edit job descriptions and the simple structure enables easy identification of where they sit within the hierarchy of a levelling framework. As a dynamic product, Evaluate can help model scenarios and proactively plan for periods of change or growth, providing clarity around requirements for organisational design.
For more information or to book a demo of PayLab or Evaluate please contact Holly.Coe@innecto.com
