Head of Compensation and Benefits Jobs
In the modern company, competition to land the best talent is almost as prized as it is to win market share in the sector. It has long been recognized that employees’ contributions to a company can make or break it, and that employees who feel undervalued – rightly or wrongly – will soon start looking elsewhere. It is the head of compensation and benefits’ job to use pull factors such as salaries, bonuses, pensions etc. to attract and retain employees.
The role requires a strategic mindset, as employees’ motivations change as they serve more time at a company and climb its ladder. A programme of review and assessment will need to be put in place or maintained, and liaison with employees’ managers will help guide the compensation and benefits decisions for individual employees. Essentially that will mean making cost-benefit analyses for each employee and rewarding them appropriately. While the role might be overseeing a compensation team in larger companies, in smaller ones, the task may be all down the head herself or himself.
The skills required
A strategic, analytical mindset is a key asset in the role of head of compensation and benefits. You will be assessing the value of employees but you also have a hand in motivating them through the use of perks and other incentives. As compensation is an expenditure to a company – and often its largest outgoing – the role will require a sense of balance, honest, unemotional assessment of an employee’s worth to the company. Reporting to the board, you will need to justify the compensation and benefits you decide on, and evidence of your case will need to be presented to get approval.
Experience in working with benefits and compensation at a management or executive level will be an important asset for this role. You must be able to demonstrate a deep understanding between employee motivation, productivity and profitability and how they interrelate. Evidence of schemes and initiatives you have previously put in place to that end will also be of great benefit.
Head of Compensation & Benefits Jobs in Oxford
The county town of Oxford and famous throughout the world for its university, Oxford is actually a thriving, self-contained city with a diversity of industries not directly related to its county status or education sector. It has been a successful city for so long that its architecture spans the millennia, and since much of the most important buildings were churches, it got the name “city of dreaming spires”.
Without doubt the university and its related activities (bars, cafes, hotels, shops, theatres etc.) is the key single employer of the city, and the university heritage also plays into its thriving tourism industry. All this contributes to the thriving nature of the city, which is busy all the year round.
But a major industry just to the south east of the city centre is car manufacturing, at the Cowley BMW plant, home of the new Mini. The plant used to be the Morris Motors plant during the First World War, and this attracted a railway and other communications to serve it. During World War Two the plant made training planes for the RAF. After the war mergers and acquisitions changed the company to BMC, then British Leyland, Austin Rover, the Rover Group and finally BMW (but locals still call the factory Morris’s).
With a thriving, ever changing population and various high-tech and heavy industries, Oxford often throws up Head of Compensation & Benefits positions to help oil the wheels of commerce. It’s certainly an exciting place to live and work.
Popular locations
Find Head of Compensation and Benefits Jobs with Cast UK
Throughout the UK, hundreds of companies are looking to fill executive and management level HR jobs, and thanks to Cast UK’s diligence and reputation, many of them come to us first to help them find their ideal person.
Similarly, thousands of managers and execs are at any time looking to take the next step in their careers and do something about their own compensation and benefits by moving to a company that can really reward their experience and ideas. Does this sound like you? Call us today on 0333 121 3345.
Contact us