Practice 04
Total Rewards Architecture
By connecting compensation, benefits, incentives, recognition, and employee value proposition, we help organizations build reward systems that support both people and business objectives.
Who it's forExecutives, boards and HR leaders who own pay decisions.
01 —Business challenges
Sound familiar?
- Pay feels unfair or hard to explain.
- Two people in similar roles are paid very differently.
- Offers are negotiated case by case, with no structure to refer to.
- The benefits budget grows each year, but no one can say what it buys.
02 —Approach
Six stages, the same every time
Every engagement moves through the stages of the Architecture Chain, so you always know where the work stands.
Diagnose
Find where the chain breaks, with evidence, before proposing anything.
Define
Agree the principles, scope and decisions the design must respect.
Architect
Design the structure, roles, measures or rewards, layer by layer.
Quantify
Cost the design and test it against budget and market data.
Govern
Set the policies, owners and decision rules that keep it working.
Implement & evolve
Roll it out with an owner, a first step and a date; then review and adjust.
03 —Scope
What the work covers
- Set the reward philosophy: where to position pay, and why
- Build the grade and salary structure from evaluated jobs
- Compare pay with market data and test the cost
- Review allowances, benefits and incentives
- Write the policies and governance that keep pay consistent
04 —Deliverables
What you receive
Reward philosophy
A short statement leaders can use to explain pay decisions.
Grade and salary structure
Grades, ranges and the rules for moving through them.
Cost model
What the new structure costs now and over the coming years, with options.
Reward policies
Pay, allowance, benefit and incentive policies, with their approval rules.
05 —Outcomes
What changes afterwards
- Every pay decision can be explained with the same rules.
- Offers are made within a structure, not by negotiation alone.
- The reward budget is known, planned and defensible.
06 —Engagement models
How we can work together
Advisory
Regular sessions with your leadership or HR team to test decisions, review designs and unblock work you run yourselves.
Best when your team has the capacity and wants a second opinion.
Defined project
An agreed scope, deliverables and dates, from diagnosis to an approved design and a plan to implement it.
Best when the question is clear and a decision is due.
Embedded support
We work inside your team for a set period, alongside the people who will run the design after we leave.
Best during implementation, or when internal capacity is short.
For this practiceUsually a defined project. Annual pay reviews can follow as advisory support.
08 —Book
Talk to us about Total Rewards Architecture
Tell us what is happening in your organisation. We will reply with a suggested first step.
- You describe the situation in a few lines.
- We meet for a first conversation.
- You receive a short proposal: scope, deliverables and dates.