How Brightmine helped the National Deaf Children’s Society transform its compensation design
The latest Brightmine data reveals deals collected in a matched sample analysis are worth less than that awarded to the same employees a year ago
About National Deaf Children’s Society
On a mission to reach every deaf child and family in the UK who needs support, the National Deaf Children’s Society is a UK-wide charity dedicated to removing barriers for deaf children and young people.
In April 2023, the non-profit organisation launched a transformative five-year strategy, “Every Moment Counts”, channelling its resources into the early years to offer more support to deaf children under the age of five. To support that mission, the organisation went through a complete organisational re-design.
Moving from a traditional, hierarchical model, the charity embraced a flatter, agile operating model. The model aimed to eliminate bureaucratic barriers and streamline decision-making processes ensuring that the right expertise is in the right place at the right time, with customer needs at the heart of all decisions.
Name: Kate Taylor
Title: People Product Lead
Organisation: National Deaf Children’s Society
Industry: Charity
Region: UK
How we helped
A transparent, adaptable framework that accurately benchmarks compensation
Enhanced employee confidence in fair compensation commitment
Strengthened a foundation for long-term talent retention and organisational growth
The challenge
Aligning compensation with a new organisational design
With the new strategy and organisational model in place, the National Deaf Children’s Society needed to create a fair and accurate compensational framework to support their new model and change in organisational structure.
This shift came at the perfect time. As Kate Taylor, People Product Lead at the National Deaf Children’s Society, explains:
“We were long overdue an extensive salary benchmarking exercise, and there have been frustrations amongst our staff base about that and whether salaries were competitively benchmarked to the market.”
However, as the organisation restructured, it recognised the necessity for a bespoke and adaptable pay system that could support its unique operating model.
“We knew that we needed something bespoke and flexible. Whatever we designed needed to complement that in order to ensure that it bedded in properly and allowed us to deliver our strategy,”
As such, the National Deaf Children’s Society made the executive decision to focus on the pay and rewards framework in-house. However, with no internal rewards specialist capabilities, they faced the challenge of designing a comprehensive system that met their evolving needs.
The Brightmine solution
A tailored compensation strategy
That’s when the National Deaf Children’s Society turned to Brightmine, formerly XpertHR, to support them with their compensation planning. After attending a Brightmine Compensation Planning (formerly Cendex) webinar.
“I was very impressed with the insights that Compensation Planning could provide to an organisation, particularly as the National Deaf Children’s Society wanted all live data. You know in the that moment you are getting relevant, accurate data.”
Initially registering for the benchmark of role capability and the review pay solution, the National Deaf Children’s Society carried out an extensive benchmarking exercise on all its staff salaries. By utilising these insights, they found that, in fact, they were already paying their workforce competitively in comparison to the charity sector. In fact, the insights revealed that 70% of staff were already at the median point of the benchmarked pay scales.
However, to grow further, they recognised the need to not only maintain competitive salaries but also enhance their entire compensation structure to ensure it aligned with their organisational goals and provided a solid foundation for future growth.
To do this, they needed a solution to support them in building their pay scales. Reflecting on the decision-making process when selecting a solution that will support them during this process, Kate shares,
“It really came down to the flexibility — the ease of use — particularly if you’re building pay scales. It needs to be easy to use so you don’t get stuck in and make mistakes. But it was also crucial to have access to live data, providing us with up-to-date information that accurately reflects what’s happening in the economy…”
That’s where they expanded their investments into Brightmine Compensation Planning to utilise its user-friendly interface, real-time insights and expert consulting offerings.
Implementation & results
Crafting a framework for the future
Working closely with Brightmine, the National Deaf Children’s Society implemented a tailored compensation framework that provided transparency and adaptability. The focus was on creating a system that would not only benchmark pay accurately but also incorporate internal factors, such as employee voice, performance and organisational goals.
The National Deaf Children’s Society involved staff in co-producing the framework, conducting extensive surveys to understand their perspectives on pay and benefits. Demonstrating their commitment to their employees, after reviewing the sentiment and Brightmine compensation insights, the National Deaf Children’s Society decided that they were going to start each of their pay ranges from the charity sector median, a well-regarded benchmark of competitive pay.
Testament to their strong company culture, they invited all staff to an in-person meeting to share the news of the new organisational structure and pay structure.
“We felt it was such an important message to deliver. That would be a great opportunity to bring everybody together to have that collaborative space, but also really be able to show how our pay framework linked with our strategy,” shares Kate. “It is an important message for us to be able to deliver to our staff that we wanted to retain and recruit the best people to deliver our strategy for us.”
Positive changes and enhanced engagement
Collaborating with Brightmine and implementing the new pay and reward framework led to significant positive changes within the National Deaf Children’s Society.
With the transparent, competitive framework strengthening employee confidence in the organisation’s commitment to fair compensation, the National Deaf Children’s Society saw a notable rise in employee engagement scores across the organisation.
“We surveyed staff just before we embarked upon this project, and the engagement levels were good. We couldn’t necessarily complain about them, but there were areas that we wanted to improve upon. And we have since surveyed staff again, and we’ve seen a marked increase in our engagement scores across the board.”
The new pay structure also led to a strong alignment with the National Deaf Children’s Society’s strategic goals. The agility provided by Brightmine meant the National Deaf Children’s Society could respond swiftly to changes, ensuring their compensation remained competitive and fair while supporting organisational growth.
“It’s great to be able to just dip in and have a look to see what market insights are saying,” Kate confesses. “I quite regularly look into the pay reports to see where those median terms of pay increases are going to.”
A partnership for success
With the support from Brightmine Compensation Planning, the National Deaf Children’s Society has built a competitive, transparent, and adaptive pay structure that aligns seamlessly with its new organisational model and strategic goals.
By leveraging live data and customised pay structures, this well-reputed non-profit organisation, enhanced employee engagement, built trust, and created a foundation for long-term talent retention and organisational growth.
Through this partnership, the National Deaf Children’s Society transformed its approach to compensation, embodying its commitment to serving its community’s needs and investing in the well-being and development of its dedicated workforce.
As Kate beautifully sums up, “It was a journey for us.” One that illuminated the path forward for the organisation, enabling them to better serve the deaf children and families who rely on their support.
National Deaf Children’s Society
“I was very impressed with the insights that Compensation Planning could provide to an organisation, particularly as the NDCS wanted all live data. You know in the that moment you are getting relevant, accurate data.”
Kate Taylor
People Product Lead
