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28 Nov 2019
by Rebecca Patton

Jaguar, Konica Minolta, Skyscanner and Wellcome Trust on the challenges impacting reward

Jane Humberstone, Director Global Reward and Mobility at Jaguar Land Rover; Gemma Lee, Head of Employee Experience and Brand at Konica Minolta; Julia Clemant, Head of Reward at Skyscanner and JC Fonfreyde, Head of Reward at Wellcome Trust address today’s tough business challenges by focusing on the employee experience and rethinking reward and benefits to better support the demands of an ever-changing workforce.

These employers have all been through huge changes in recent years and this has had an impact on the way they are tackling reward and benefits strategies.

Chaired by Reba Director, Debi O'Donovan, the panel looked at how each employers is meeting the unique challenges that have arisen in their organisations.

Following a shift from being a manufacturer to an IT services focused company,  Gemma Lee, Head of Employee Experience at Konica Minolta said that when they began looking at the rewards package they offered they realised that much of it was simply aligned to a benefits system already in place and what not personalised to the current workforce. 

"The actual feedback we got was some of what we are offering is not what people want and the biggest shift that we saw at Konica Minolta is having a truly agile and flexible workplace."

"So being able to offer true flexibility for people to work where and how they want to. That is the one that that has really changed who will come and work for us," adds Lee. 

Jane Humberstone, Director Global Reward and Mobility at Jaguar Land Rover said that a lack of focus on skills development and career progression has hindered the attraction and retention of staff at the automotive company.

"I think the piece we are trying to get hold of is how can we show what the career paths might be and how people can develop and increase their skills. When we do our exit interviews it is not the money it is that learning opportunity.

"I'm trying to push it away from a pay and benefits conversation towards the skills, the teams, the development and training. This will then affect how we structure our pay systems." said Humberstone. 

Julia Clemant, Head of Reward at Skyscanner, said that their organisation's biggest reward challenge is actually caused by the open and direct culture which has been developed and encouraged at the company. 

"There is a desire in the organisation to have a lot of transparency in reward, We try to have a consistent experience across all countries because of this culture and fairness. But I am having conversations with employees now who are taking that to the next level and wanting to share salaries broadly across because the feel that is the fair thing to do to drive a greater pay equity." 

She added although this is a positive idea, it could also be a difficult area and may not be a good idea to "put salaries up on a Slack channel and dive right in."