AQA

Their challenge

As an organisation with roots in the university sector, AQA’s reward structures were based on legacy arrangements, providing short incremental progression routes before roles became ‘stuck’ at the top of the pay range. A spot rate framework was in place for senior roles, placing all roles at the same level on the same rate of pay. As a consequence, there was little flexibility to respond to market movements, no opportunity to recognise differentials in performance and for the majority of staff, no further pay progression unless they changed roles / moved to a different level. This resulted in an element of grade drift and inconsistency in pay decisions.

There was a desire to change the approach to build in more flexibility, robust decision making, better alignment to the market and opportunities for progression based on contribution. With a long serving employee base and union negotiation required for reforms to reward structures, engagement was critical to ensure the implementation of desired change.

Our solution

Innecto began working with AQA to identify agreed reward principles and strategy for the future, clarifying the desired outcomes. Once determined, we worked with the team to put robust benchmarking process in place, identifying the appropriate comparators in the market, the best data available source and set about jointly matching roles.

Throughout the project, a collaborative approach was taken, passing Innecto expertise to the HR team to ensure the activity could be managed and replicated in the future. A review of the existing job evaluation framework highlighted overlap in descriptors and lack of clarity between levels, creating confusion. As a result, Innecto’s proprietary job levelling framework Evaluate was implemented, providing clear distinctions between levels and creating alignment to the benchmarking methodology.

Validation sessions were held with senior managers to ensure evaluations felt fair and were consistent across the business. Options for pay framework design were tested and modelled, to establish cost implications of moving to a new approach. Once the final design was agreed, an equality impact assessment was undertaken to confirm that no groups were disadvantaged by the new pay framework and had equal opportunity to progress pay.

We worked with the team to develop a pay policy & approach to pay progression, based on objective factors (position in range / comparison to peers / market alignment) as well as more subjective factors (performance). Modelling was undertaken to ensure affordability of the approach and guidance provided to the team to manage the implementation.

Throughout the project, various stakeholder sessions were held and education materials written, aiming to educate employees and Trade Unions in the approaches taken & testing ideas.  

The outcome

Due to changes in executive leadership, TU action and organsational changes, the implementation of the structure took longer than expected and required significant negotiation to reach agreement. However the new structure was successfully implemented in April 2023.

The discipline around levelling and market benchmarking continued throughout in the background, enabling the organisation to take action to remain competitive whilst negotiations took place and Innecto continued to support the team, coaching and advising as required.

Accessing Paylab, Innecto’s pay insights tool, the team could quickly visualize their pay position vs market and ensure that consistent decisions were made when making new hires.

The new approach has enabled to business to compete for talent in a competitive marketplace, provide a clear framework for pay progression and increase understanding amongst the employee population around reward.

Watch: Revamping Pay Structures at AQA: A Cultural and Reward Transformation

Join Isabelle Perrett as she shares AQA’s journey of overhauling outdated pay systems, overcoming union challenges, and creating a fairer, more competitive reward framework.

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