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04 Oct 2018
by Rebecca Patton

Secrets of success: Paul Nelson, group head of reward, Travis Perkins

Paul Nelson, group head of reward at Travis Perkins, believes creativity has become an important tool in any reward professional's skill set.

 

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How do you think the reward skillset has changed?

It has changed hugely, although it still requires a lot of the skills needed when I started in reward. Then, it was a lot about grading, benchmarking and pay budgets. It required very analytical skills.

That is all still there and it is still important, but now reward requires a huge amount more creativity. Engagement is also very important, and testing the voice of your colleagues.

It also means developing a much more rounded portfolio of skills. Previously, reward strategy was about being as least as good as your competitors - now we are starting to look at what can we do that is different.

We find companies out there that have new ideas that we can go and talk to, to be unique in what we do. It’s more than just keeping up with the pack.

What has been your greatest achievement in reward?

At Travis Perkins, my biggest achievement has been putting together a very strong benefits brand. That’s meant working tightly with colleagues to help them understand what that means for them and how it can best meet their needs.

We are continually looking at our benefits approach with a particular focus on what will benefit the majority of colleagues. Often, if you look at a company’s benefit investments it tends to be inversely proportionate to the minority, spending a lot of money on PMI and car benefits.  

But actually the group who would probably get the most value out of the benefits package is the one where we tend to spend the least time. We are trying to invert that and leverage as much as we can that makes a difference to our lower paid colleagues’ working life.

There are also a couple of achievements in my last role, before I came to Travis Perkins, I was the reward lead for a logistics company that went through a big merger.

There was no reward function, so we set one up from scratch across 52 countries. It was important to get the infrastructure right, to build a good reward process on that foundation - quite a challenge across different languages, cultures and approaches.

What do you see as the biggest challenge in reward at your company?

It is about keeping the balance between making your reward offering relevant and how to leverage as much value out of that as you can in a time when markets are tight and business is tight. You have to really demonstrate a return on investment with everything you do.

I think that is where the creativity comes into it. We have to look at how we can develop and deliver certain functions that are of value to the company and our colleagues, but be mindful of the economics of doing that.

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