Reward Specialist needed at FirstRand Corporate Centre

Job Summary

• As a member of the Group Reward function Partner with business to design, implement, and monitor total reward including salary management, benchmarking, long-term and short-term incentives, and employee benefits policies. Ensure compliance with governance frameworks, statutory requirements, and best practices, while supporting strategic reward initiatives.
• Support reward leadership by preparing and coordinating all governance documentation and reports required by the various Remuneration Committees (Remco), including managing the FirstRand Annual Remuneration Report.

Are you someone who can:

• Support the annual reward review (ARR) process which includes salary, bonus, and share awards.
• Conduct market benchmarking and job evaluation to maintain competitive and equitable pay structures.
• Support the Group Head of Reward with benchmarking and managing Executive and Stratco remuneration.
• Analyse remuneration data for trends (e.g., pay disparities) and prepare reports for governance committees, including Remco.
• Participate in and provide input to industry salary surveys to inform pay decisions.
• Contribute to the development and implementation of reward strategies and incentive schemes.
• Draft remuneration papers for review and approval by senior management and Remco.

Governance, Compliance & Remco Submissions

• Ensure adherence to King V principles, Companies Act, and internal remuneration policies.
• Prepare, coordinate, and submit all required documentation and reports for Remco meetings, ensuring accuracy, completeness, and alignment with governance standards and Remco requirements.
• Supports the compilation, review, and submission of the FirstRand Annual Remuneration Report, ensuring it meets all Remco, Board, and regulatory expectations.
• Support Group Finance with the directors’ emoluments disclosers in the Annual financial statements, including footnotes and audits.
• Ensure all Remco submissions are delivered within required timelines
• Maintain up-to-date knowledge of Remco requirements and proactively adapt submissions and processes to reflect any changes.
• Monitor audit findings and implement corrective actions in reward systems and processes, reporting progress to Remco as appropriate

Policy & Advisory

• Advise business units and HR partners on fair and responsible pay practices.
• Recommend reward and recognition strategies and oversee approved implementations.
• Keep abreast of legislative changes, industry trends, and best practices in reward governance.
• Maintain knowledge on relevant legislative amendments, industry best practices and internal compliance procedures and requirements.
• Ensure remuneration practices comply with the King Code and Companies Act through robust systems and procedures and review them regularly in response to regulatory changes.
• Educates other members of the groups remuneration teams and make suggestions for improvements.
• Networks and participates in specialist risk forums where required.
• Resolve salary and benefit related queries, advising stakeholders as appropriate.
• Support and guide business units on reward plans, budgets, processes, and policies, consulting as required to support insight and implementation.

Collaboration & Stakeholder Management

• Build strong relationships across HR, Finance, and business units to ensure seamless reward delivery.
• Provide accurate and reliable business intelligence to support decision-making.
• Deliver customer experience excellence in own service delivery aligned to Organisational values and service standards.
• Creates solutions to support human capital business partners as well as the business units to ensure that pay practices are fair and responsible in line with the FirstRand Remuneration policy and philosophy
• Improve business decisions by providing accurate and reliable business intelligence to ensure effective alignment of remuneration to policy
• Review existing processes and suggest innovative ideas to improve and streamline processes to drive efficiencies.
• Maintain up to date knowledge of local and global trends in reward through research and active engagement with industry bodies such as the South African Reward Association (SARA)
• Works closely with the employee benefits team to understand group benefits for the purpose of providing guidance to human capital as well as business when necessary.
• Support junior team members through the preparation of reports and other documentation for submission to remuneration committees, in support of negotiations and effective decision making.

You will be an ideal candidate if you have:

• Minimum Bachelor’s degree in finance, preferably accounting (CA) or related fields such as Stats or economics.
• CA (SA) accreditation will be advantageous
• 3 to 5 years’ experience in Reward or Finance
• Strong analytical skills and ability to interpret compensation data.
• Advanced Proficiency in Excel, HRIS systems, Compensation benchmarking tools
• Knowledge of labour laws, remuneration and compliance standards
• Experience in preparing governance submissions for Board or Committee review, and managing annual remuneration reporting processes, is highly advantageous