Designing and implementing effective rewards programs is both an art and a science, requiring a balanced understanding of market dynamics, business priorities, and employee needs and preferences.

Dave Ascott, Head of Reward UK at the global aerospace leader Airbus Defence and Space, shares his experiences of managing rewards across wide-ranging industries.

Drawing from a background spanning consulting, coaching, and in-house roles, Ascott offers a candid perspective on navigating challenges, seizing opportunities, and continually innovating to craft rewarding employee experiences. 

Could you briefly describe your background and journey into rewards? 

I started my career after school in the tax division at Deloitte, working in domestic and expatriate tax. However, tax didn’t wholly interest me, so I made the transition into Deloitte’s newly formed rewards consulting practice. Working on global mobility and expatriate packages before moving into UK rewards consulting, I helped the firm build up its UK rewards practice from the ground up alongside partners from a competitor firm.

After 10 years, I wanted more hands-on experience running rewards programs, so I went in-house, first at BAE Systems and then Britvic. After taking a break to do sports coaching, I came back into rewards as an independent consultant in 2013, doing stints at various companies including head of rewards roles at the Post Office and now at Airbus Defence & Space.  

I enjoy the challenge of the reward work. You often hear about the importance of having that particular experience within financial services and in the public sector, especially in recruitment. I once wondered why that was the case, but having worked in both, I firmly stand by rewards for facilitating success in recruiting, retaining and attracting talent. 

What are some key differences in managing rewards for Airbus vs other companies you’ve worked for? 

The space sector has very specialised engineering skills that are quite scarce in the labour market, with fewer candidates than other industries, like banking. There may only be a couple engineers in the world with highly niche expertise. This makes attracting and retaining talent challenging. 

You have to manage expectations carefully when bringing people in at higher salaries, so you don’t create salary anomalies and spiralling wage costs across the business. Market dynamics with Brexit, such as the "Great Resignation", have made recruitment even more difficult.

What were some initiatives you led during your time at the Post Office?

The Post Office was losing £200m per year and needed major change to break even. My role was to help enable this business transformation through rewards initiatives. We brought a lot of external private sector hires into what had been more of a traditional civil service culture.

The pay scales were very different to the traditional civil service pay scale, so I designed new reward frameworks, grading structures and pay scales to support the changes. 

Where do you see the biggest opportunities today to improve rewards programs?

With high inflation and cost pressures, companies have limited budgets to increase salaries across the board. The focus for many is on better communicating the existing total rewards package - highlighting benefits beyond just pay that help attract, motivate and retain people.

Flexible and hybrid working has also become a big focus area for many companies since COVID-19. Employees value work-life balance and schedule flexibility as much as financial incentives today.

How do you ensure rewards are equitable across different roles and levels in the organisation? 

We use extensive market benchmarking data from Willis Towers Watson to align our rewards frameworks from top to bottom against market comparators. We also gather informal feedback from candidates interacting with our recruitment team to find out what other companies may offer. Ongoing analysis of our own pay distributions, exit interviews and more, provides internal insights to address any hot spots.

Our recruitment team will often feedback from prospective candidates about why they’ve turned down a role, because another company are providing more. Or, they might say we’d love to join you, but you’re not providing this particular scheme or benefit. You hear on the grapevine anecdotally about what can happen in the market, just through good communication with your HR colleagues.

Which rewards tend to be most underutilised by employees in your experience?

Pensions are often not fully utilised, especially by younger demographics focused on saving for a house deposit rather than long-term retirement planning.

Other voluntary benefits like share schemes are essentially free money but still not taken up by 100% of employees. Store discounts and cashbacks can also lack awareness and so the usage and popularity of this is often dependent on specific retailers.

What metrics do you look at most closely to determine if a rewards program is successful?

On the attraction side, feedback from candidates who have turned down job offers provides useful insights into any gaps in the rewards offering. For retention, exit interviews indicating what proportion leave due to compensation versus other factors is important.

Generally, however, I believe rewards programs have to be tailored to business strategy and budget realities rather than chasing metrics alone.

What most excites you about working in rewards?  

I’m motivated by the amount of change I can drive in this function and the impact on business performance. Once the basics of a rewards program are running smoothly, I tend to look again for potential improvements that can be made. I’ve been lucky to work at companies that give me a blank sheet of paper to come up with new ideas.

Bringing external perspectives, analysing internal data, talking to candidates and employees - there are always opportunities to refine and optimise rewards programs. I thrive on that continual change agenda.