Developing a Pay and Grading Structure for a Charity
Tenovus (www.tenovus.com) is a cancer charity, based in Cardiff, whose aim is to prevent, treat and find a cure for cancer.
The Client
Tenovus offer support, advice and treatment for cancer patients, information on cancer prevention and funding for research to improve the outcomes for people with cancer in Wales - particularly in the more rural areas.
For the year 2009-10 Tenovus had an income of £7.4m and employed approximately 230 staff, 52 of whom were based centrally, with the remainder based across 65 retail outlets through Wales and the South West.
The Brief
Tenovus had recently reviewed their organisational structure and were concerned about possible inconsistencies in staff pay which had arisen partly as a result of having a diverse workforce and partly from an ad hoc approach historically to salaries during recruitment.
The brief was to develop a pay and grading structure that was:
- easy to use
- consistent
- recognised equal pay for work of equal value
- transparent
- flexible
The Board of Trustees and Senior Management Team felt that to ensure a completely objective approach, in which each role was evaluated purely from the description of that role and in no way influenced by knowledge of how the role was performed by the incumbent, an external consultant would be appointed. It would also reinforce to staff that the grading is based on the role and not the individual.
SFM recommended Tenovus undertake a non-analytical job ranking scheme. The rationale being that, although Acas recommend an analytical job evaluation as the best defence against equal value claims, having reviewed the Annual Report and accounts, SFM Consulting advised that implementing a full analytical job evaluation would involve a significant financial investment which was out of alignment with other expenditure. SFM Consulting was appointed in May 2010.
Tenovus had recently reviewed their organisational structure and were concerned about possible inconsistencies in staff pay which had arisen partly as a result of having a diverse workforce and partly from an ad hoc approach historically to salaries during recruitment.
The Delivery
The project consisted of the following stages:
- A review of the staff database by sex, role and salary to identify any potential inconsistencies and inequalities.
- A review of all the job descriptions to create 10 grades covering all roles and responsibilities across Tenovus. Once the grades were created the job descriptions were re-reviewed and each role graded.
- A review of the staff database by sex, role and salary to identify any potential inconsistencies and inequalities.
- A review of all the job descriptions to create 10 grades covering all roles and responsibilities across Tenovus. Once the grades were created the job descriptions were re-reviewed and each role graded.
A grading structure was launched to all staff in December 2010.
Client recommendation:
Due to the vast experience of the consultant in developing pay and grading structures across the public, private and third sectors, SFM were appointed to undertake a similar project on behalf of Tenovus. The experience and ideas generated from these projects would enable us to develop a structure that was not only suitable internally, but would also enable us to maintain our competitiveness in the external market.
What SFM delivered:
Stage 1 involved reviewing the staff database by sex, role and salary to identify potential equality inconsistencies that may exist.
Stage 2 included the review of all the job descriptions, creating grades into which these could be categorised then reviewing the job descriptions in detail to categorise each role.
Stage 3 involved reviewing the market for similar roles and identifying the salaries at which these roles were being paid.
Stage 4 utilised all the information gathered to establish the grade boundaries and to identify any anomalies within the structure.
The results:
The resulting structure met our brief perfectly, it is simple, easy to use and provides a great flexibility for us to recognise additional responsibilities that are undertaken as well as exceptional performance.
It was imperative that we appointed an external organisation to review the job descriptions and present recommendations on the hierarchy to ensure this was done fairly and objectively. Rationales were presented on the recommendations which enabled the Senior Management Team to value each role and its contribution to the delivery of the corporate strategy.
LinkedIn recommendation from Client
Zoe Grainger, HR Manager Tenovus posted the following recommendation on LinkedIn December 8, 2010.
Top qualities: Great Results, Personable, High Integrity. “Sarah has a fantastic understanding of her subject area and delivers this in such a user friendly way. She has no fear in saying what is required which highlights her faultless professionalism and integrity. Sarah listens to the needs of her customers and delivers exactly what has been briefed. A service deliverer that cannot be faulted...very reasonable fees too!!”