Compensation, Benefits and Reward is a specialist area of HR, and seemingly similar vacancies can require very different expertise.
One employer may need someone with excellent UK benefits experience. Another needs international Reward exposure. Another requires sophisticated compensation, benchmarking, bonus and share-plan knowledge.
Once several specialist requirements are combined, the available candidate pool can become considerably smaller.
What expertise do you genuinely need?
Before going to market, examine the brief carefully.
Do you need experience of:
- compensation
- benefits strategy
- salary benchmarking
- bonuses and incentives
- share plans
- international Reward?
Then determine which are genuinely essential.
A candidate may have extensive Benefits expertise but limited Compensation exposure, or strong UK Reward knowledge without international experience.
Very few candidates will necessarily be equally strong across everything.
Is the brief realistic?
Ask whether international experience is essential.
Are share plans genuinely a must-have?
How strategic is the position?
What must the person know immediately?
Could any specialist knowledge be developed after appointment?
The longer the essential list becomes, the more targeted the search will need to be.
Does the salary reflect the expertise?
Two jobs carrying similar titles can require very different levels of specialist knowledge.
Salary should therefore reflect scope, technical expertise, international responsibility, strategic ownership and level of influence rather than title alone.
If candidate salary expectations repeatedly sit above the budget, that is useful market information.
The answer isn’t always to continue searching. Sometimes the brief, salary or both need reconsidering.
This is where market insight can be particularly useful. Bond Williams works with employers on salary benchmarking to help establish whether salaries and benefits are aligned with the level of expertise they are trying to attract.
Read our guide to salary benchmarking
What attracts established Reward professionals?
Strong candidates may value scope and ownership, strategic influence, interesting Reward challenges, flexibility, career progression and the overall package.
For someone already established in a good role, the opportunity needs to be worth moving for.
And that doesn’t necessarily mean salary alone. The overall benefits package and employee proposition can influence attraction and retention too.
Read more about benefits, attraction and retention
Bond Williams’ specialist HR recruitment team combines established networks, proactive search and market insight to recruit Reward, Compensation and Benefits professionals. These are also specifically listed among the specialist roles recruited by our HR division.
Finding Reward expertise difficult? Talk to our HR Recruitment Specialists at Bond Williams.
