What is a compensation and benefits manager?

Every company, regardless of the industry, should strive to provide its employees with attractive salaries and access to the appropriate benefits or perks. Although various factors matter when choosing a job offer, salary and fringe benefits are always high on the list of priorities and attract top talents to the company. It is the responsibility of a compensation and benefits manager (C&B) to make sure this is constantly the case. What does a compensation and benefits manager do? Read our article and find out.

Compensation and benefits manager – table of contents:

1. What does a compensation and benefits manager do?
2. What are the responsibilities of a compensation and benefits manager?
3. Summary

What does a compensation and benefits manager do?

A compensation and benefits manager is responsible for developing and implementing compensation plans and benefit packages. Every compensation and benefits manager should know the market value of the given position (which may be inferred from market research, while taking into account the required education, experience, hard and soft skills, etc.). On this basis, they should establish a salary range, which will not only satisfy the candidate, but also be realistic (given the company’s financial capabilities) and competitive. This requires developing appropriate criteria for evaluating salaries for a given position.

Compensation managers ensure that the remuneration policy is in line with current labor legislation, which requires keeping track of any changes and adapting to them by modifying the developed policy. Also, salaries must be constantly adjusted to what the competitors are offering, economic conditions and the company’s situation. What is more, compensation and benefits managers are responsible for ensuring fair and accurate salaries, especially when team members vary in age, gender or experience.

Calculating benefits, such as additional vacation days, health insurance, medical package, gym membership, training subsidies and layette payments – is an equally important duty of a compensation and benefits manager. Adjusting benefits to the employees’ needs and the company’s financial capabilities must also be preceded by appropriate analysis, observation of market trends and comparison with competitors.

What are the responsibilities of a compensation and benefits manager?

However, developing a compensation strategy for a given position is not enough. A compensation and benefits manager is also often involved in recruitment processes – especially when a candidate has already been selected and needs to be presented with a specific offer.

Then, the role of a compensation and benefits manager is to provide a solution that would be in line with market conditions, and simultaneously tailored to the employee’s skills and experience, as well as their duties and the place their job holds in the company’s structure. Therefore, it’s not enough to set a salary range for a given position, but to make it realistic and keep both parties happy (the final salary can be either lower or higher).

Depending on the size of the company, a compensation manager can either create the aforementioned programs alone, implement them with the help of recruiters, hiring managers and other people working in the internal HR department (in the case of smaller companies), or have their own team focusing only on the compensation and benefits policy (in the case of companies with hundreds or thousands of employees).

Summary

A compensation and benefits manager plays a very important role in the company’s success. A properly planned compensation policy – both in terms of regular payments, as well as planned pay rises, bonuses for additional achievements or commissions – makes people respond to job offers more willingly and feel appreciated for what they do. All the tasks carried out by compensation and benefits managers aim at attracting and retaining the best talents in the organization, which is essential nowadays as employees build the company’s competitive advantage.

Read also: AI in recruitment.

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