Head of Reward

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Head of Reward

As the Head of Reward, you will hold a pivotal position within our HR Senior Leadership team, where your expertise will directly influence our strategic direction.

Contract: Permanent  

Working hours: 35 hours per week is full time. Where possible, we are open to considering part time/flexible working patterns. Please let us know in your application your desired working pattern.

Salary: From £93,000

Reporting to: Chief People Officer

London docklands

Our permanent hybrid policy sees us all working at least four days across a fortnight in the office.

As a key member of the HR Senior Leadership team, you will contribute valuable insights and perspectives outside the realm of reward.

The role will have responsibility for leading a reward, benefits, and payroll team to deliver cultural change that is directly aligned to the contribution our people make to the service and to its commitments.  

Key responsibilities:

• Providing strong, visible, and confident leadership and direction as part of the HR senior leadership team and to your own team
• Shaping, delivering and implementing a total reward framework that forms part of the wider people strategy and reshapes our employee offer where necessary.
• Being the subject matter expert for reward and benefits
• Using analysis and insight to influence our pay and benefits offer and understand what matters to our colleagues.
• Ensuring an efficient and compliant payroll function
• Embed our new reward strategy and progression framework, offering insight on how to equip managers to undertake their role and utilise all of the flexibility, they must recognise our colleagues in a skill-based reward approach.
• Developing and implementing the annual reward cycle including pay review,

executives pay review and benefits review.

• Continually reviewing the reward strategy to ensure our pay and benefits fit with our strategic requirements and are competitive with the external market
• Ensuring our commercial partnerships deliver value for money and maximising contract value in terms of both core and additional services
• Building effective relationships with stakeholders across the organisation including the finance and communications teams to deliver a successful annual pay review cycle
• Building confidence with our Remuneration and People Committee through engagement and excellent technical, written, and verbal skills
• Manage the end-to-end process of delivering Board level papers relating to annual pay, bonus and benefits matters which allows confident and informed decision making
• Building the capability and continuous improvement of the reward and payroll teams
• Delivering on your own objectives in line with our values and working collectively with the HR team to contribute to our commitments as a whole

To be considered for this role, you’ll need to show us that you’ve got the skills and capabilities. You’ll have to meet the following minimum criteria:

Minimum Criteria

• Experience in a Head of Reward (or equivalent) level leadership position, who can demonstrate ability to actively contribute to a SLT outside the realms of a Head of Reward position.
• A proven track record of implementing and managing reward frameworks.
• Understanding of HR systems and platforms (preferably Workday), leveraging them to transform the employee experience and improve our processes and governance. 
• Have a collaborative approach to leadership, with the ability to inspire and engage teams.

Desirable Criteria

We would also like you to have the following skills:

• The ability to challenge the status quo and use own initiative, creativity and breadth of thinking to recommend changes.
• Conflict resolution and negotiation skills that can be applied to situations involving senior leaders and the executive
• Excellent written and verbal skills together with the ability to back this up with internal and external analysis and insight
• The ability to recognise key dependencies and interdependencies across HR and other key stakeholders and to work closely with your peers to deliver the people strategy

Why Financial Ombudsman Service?

We are a values led organisation. Our values define our culture, influence our decisions, and underpin our vision and strategy.  They set out how we play our PART through Purpose, Ambition, Respect and Trust. You can learn more about our values here: https://www.financial-ombudsman.org.uk/who-we-are/aims-values

We also offer an attractive, competitive salary and flexible benefits to suit our people. Here’s a list of some of the many benefits and perks you can get for working with us:

• 25 days holiday entitlement, with the option to buy extra or sell days
• Generous pension
• Employer provided benefits such as Private medical insurance, virtual GP, Critical illness cover, Life assurance cover, to name a few
• Choice of voluntary benefits including Technology scheme, Cycle to work scheme, Will-writing service amongst others
• Employee Assistance Programme
• Extensive opportunities for personal and career development
• Fully equipped on-site gym open 24 / 7 (London office only)
• Extensive Well-being resources including on-site therapists (London office only)
• Beautiful and bright London office looking over the Thames and near to mainline stations
• Our employee led networks do fantastic work in educating and raising awareness across a range of experiences and support us in being an inclusive employer and a great place to work. You can get involved, too!

How do I apply?

• To apply, please upload a current CV, it would be great to hear more about you and how you feel you would contribute to our HR SLT in this position , so please do also submit a supporting statement (no more than 500 words) if you wish to do so.

Applications need to be submitted by 23:50 on Thursday 15th May 2025

Successful candidates will be invited to a telephone call with a member of the Talent Acquisition Team.

Due to high application numbers this advert may end earlier than the date specified, so please don't delay and apply now!

A full job profile is available on request and will be provided to candidates shortlisted to the first stage of the assessment process.

We’re proud to be an inclusive employer

We view diversity as fundamental to our success and welcome applications from underrepresented groups across all communities.

We’re committed to being a great place to work– attracting and developing people from the widest possible range of backgrounds. We want everyone to perform at their best and feel able to be themselves. We understand that if we’re diverse and inclusive, we’ll better understand different perspectives, which is fundamental to our job resolving financial complaints.   

We welcome applications from Black and other ethnic minority candidates, and female candidates, for all positions and particularly so for senior leader positions as they are under-represented within the Financial Ombudsman Service at this level.

We are proud to be a Disability Confident Leader. This means that we will put disabled candidates entering under the scheme through to the next stage of the recruitment process should they meet the minimum criteria for a role. A minimum criterion needs to be measurable from reviewing a candidate’s CV/supporting statement. Exceptions may apply if due to the volume of applications we are not able to interview all eligible candidates who qualify under the scheme. If you would like to speak to a member of our team about any reasonable adjustments you need, please email [email protected] and let us know your preferred method of contact.

Find out more

Check out below channels to find out more about everyday life at the Financial Ombudsman Service – and don’t forget to follow us while you’re there!

• LinkedIn: Financial Ombudsman Service
• Our careers page: https://www.financial-ombudsman.org.uk/who-we-are/join-us

Good luck with your application!