WCVA

Challenge

WCVA sought support to strengthen its pay and progression framework, ensuring it remained fair, transparent, and reflective of the organisation’s values and commitment to Welsh language and culture:

• Their existing pay and progression structure needed a comprehensive review.
• They wanted to make their approach to pay more transparent, fair and consistent.
• Their benefits package needed testing against market standards with opportunities for enhancement.
• Their competency framework required review to ensure it was supporting the needs of WCVA appropriately.
• As a Welsh organisation, they needed to ensure their culture and the importance of the Welsh language were reflected in any new framework.

Solution

Our approach involved carefully structured steps to address WCVA’s unique requirements:

1. Discovery Phase

We began by conducting a number of workshops with different teams at WCVA to get varied perspectives on certain aspects of the project.

Firstly, we held an in-depth discovery workshop with the people team to understand current practices. Following this, our reward consultants facilitated a reward strategy and principles workshop with senior leadership—this was crucial for gaining buy-in and establishing a foundation and clear direction for the project.

We also organised focus groups with employees and consulted with staff representative groups.

All of these collaborative meetings supported our work in completing comprehensive benchmarking of pay levels and benefits against relevant market data

2. Options Development

The next significant step in the process was to present WCVA with an initial paper outlining options for changes to their pay structure.

Our consultants recommended adding more spine points to create clearer progression pathways for employees. We also designed a new contribution framework to set clearer standards of what is expected of roles at different levels of responsibility and use these definitions to guide different people processes.

All of these options aligned with WCVA’s organisational values and strategic objectives.

After presenting these options to senior leaders, we proceeded to test them with the wider organisation. We gathered feedback that helped shape the final recommendations, ensuring buy-in from all stakeholders.

3. Communication Strategy

Next, our team developed a complete pay policy and guidance document using WCVA’s branding to help the changes land effectively with employees. During this section of the project, we demonstrated our understanding of their organisational language and context—creating materials that WCVA could readily use to communicate changes to their team.

4. Inclusive Engagement

Conducting several rounds of engagement properly captured elements of equality, diversity and inclusion. This ensured the Welsh language was meaningfully incorporated into the framework, reflecting WCVA’s commitment to bilingualism and cultural identity.

Our consultants maintained regular communication with stakeholders to address concerns and incorporate feedback throughout the project.

5. Implementation Support

Finally, we delivered a workshop during a senior leadership team away day, focusing on how the framework could be applied to wider aspects of the business.

This, alongside comprehensive training to ensure their understanding, supported the transfer of ownership to the WCVA HR team.

The main outcomes for us at this stage of the project were:

• Implemented the changes at pace while maintaining quality and attention to detail.
• Supported the communication of changes to all employees, which was received positively

Outcome

Our collaboration with WCVA delivered several meaningful results:

• The discovery phase revealed a strong level of engagement and goodwill from employees.
• We identified that employees particularly valued the wellbeing focus within the organisation.
• We created more structure around WCVA’s already positive culture.
• We developed a framework that honoured their Welsh heritage and language requirements.
• We established a strong foundation of trust with the client that allowed for constructive, challenging and productive conversations throughout the project.
• Successfully transferred ownership of the framework to the internal team, leaving them well-equipped to manage it going forward.
• We continue to support WCVA and the wider charity sector.

The project successfully delivered a pay and benefits framework that was more transparent, fair, and aligned with WCVA’s values, while enhancing their position as a steward of best practice within the voluntary sector in Wales.