Their challenge
The Trust came to Innecto with several challenges that the charity faced. Firstly, the pay and grading structure required a refresh. With outdated pay scales which were behind the market, the charity was struggling to attract and retain talent, resulting in poor hires or paying out of range. This also drove a high staff turnover rate, with a high proportion of leavers citing lack of progression and salary as their reason for moving on.
With no coherent strategy or structure in place, there was a distinct lack of understanding surrounding building pay and pay decision-making. A focus group conducted by the Trust found significant dissatisfaction with the pay structure, a high percentage of staff felt they were paid unfairly.
Alongside this, the Trust was unsure whether its benefits package was competitive, and there was a lack of clarity in how to build their benefits package piecemeal.
Our solution
The Prince’s Trust was seeking a pay and reward infrastructure to ensure they were paying competitively, to attract talent and retain it.
The first area we looked at was the existing pay ranges, to understand the current structure and how it had evolved. We conducted some internal research which included a selection of employee focus groups, and it became clear that the current pay system wasn’t working.
As with all projects, we aimed to get to understand the workings of the organisation and develop an appropriate solution. Our way of working is always tailored to the client, we do not believe in providing an “off-the-shelf” approach. As a charity, The Prince’s Trust was limited on budget, so Innecto provided a selection of different options.
Through benchmarking, we discovered that The Prince’s Trust had a significant pay gap in comparison to the rest of the market. We believed that the charity needed to think differently about what happened to pay with tenure. We also felt that on a strategic level, the charity needed to create reward principles, but investment would be needed to close the gap.
We also approached this project intending to ensure the Prince’s Trust would be self-sufficient when it comes to managing pay within the coming three to five years, to remove reliance on a third party and to allow the charity to develop internally. By implementing PayLab, the Trust is now able to benchmark roles themselves, instill a pay benchmarking discipline and keep the Prince’s Trust up to date with the market, with support from us when they need it.
The charity has also utilised our Reward on Demand service, to provide them with access to specialist support when required - this is an excellent solution when there is no budget to hire a reward specialist.
The outcome
To enable the transition, The Prince’s Trust’s learning and business partner teams developed essential training for managers, focussing on the approach to pay decision making and job evaluation. Unfortunately, the rollout was held back due to the COVID-19 pandemic, and any pay adjustments were put on hold.
With support from the Innecto team, the Trust also utilised an existing employee group to help enforce the messaging internally. Here, the Innecto Team helped with coaching on messaging, provided support, and also acted as a sounding board for ideas. In conjunction with this, we designed the project so that The Prince’s Trust could access the insights they required through Hapi to manage themselves going forward.
The next step is to focus on youth workers, pay bandings and progression routes. Additionally, Innecto will get involved with board rewards and executive pay.
Client feedback
“The service Innecto provides is comprehensive, the team has true subject matter expertise and understand the topic inside out. Justine was integral in developing the long-term lens, while Alastair concentrated on the nuts and bolts. We have developed a strong, working relationship with the Innecto team, and there is never a feeling of being “sold to”, or that we were being pushed into something we were unsure about. Justine and Alastair understood our sector challenges, and the solutions they provided were easy to sell internally because they were tailored to our organisation.”
