About the Role:
The Senior Manager Total Rewards serves as the strategic lead for Total Rewards within the Automotive and Retail Divisions of the organization. Covering approximately 14,500 employees across 14 countries, this role focuses on translating group-wide reward frameworks into locally relevant practices that drive talent attraction, retention, and performance. Responsibilities include overseeing divisional compensation, executing annual reward cycles, managing benefits and compliance, providing strategic Total Rewards advisory, and utilizing analytics for informed decision-making. Success in this role requires strong collaboration with HR Business Partners, business leaders, and the Total Rewards Transformation team, ensuring rewards strategies align with divisional and group objectives. Key success factors include achieving audit compliance, maintaining pay equity, and ensuring internal stakeholder satisfaction.
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What You Will Do:
Divisional Compensation Delivery
- Apply and administer the Group-wide salary structures, grading frameworks, and pay ranges across the Automotive and Retail Divisions.
- Manage divisional pay decisions, exceptions, and anomalies within approved governance.
- Act as the first point of escalation for compensation queries from divisional HR Business Partners and business leaders.
- Ensure internal equity with less than 5% anomalies annually.
- Achieve positive feedback from HR Business Partners and business leads on reward guidance.
Annual Reward Cycle Execution
- Execute the end-to-end annual salary review, promotion, and bonus cycle for all Automotive and Retail employees.
- Provide financial modelling, budget variance analysis, and scenario planning to support cycle decisions.
- Ensure fairness, transparency, and timely delivery across all geographies using Group tools and processes.
- Achieve 100% audit compliance on cycle outputs.
- Deliver cycle reporting and dashboards within agreed SLAs.
Benefits Administration & Local Compliance
- Manage the annual renewal, vendor relationships, and day-to-day administration of employee benefits within divisions.
- Implement benefit designs set by the Total Rewards Transformation function, adapting for local regulatory requirements.
- Ensure 100% compliance with labour law across all operating countries.
- Resolve benefit queries and escalations within agreed SLAs.
- Achieve employee benefits satisfaction score of 80% in engagement surveys.
Strategic Total Rewards Business Partnering
- Serve as the primary Total Rewards advisor to Automotive and Retail HR and business leaders.
- Provide expert guidance on reward implications of business decisions.
- Ensure reward input is present in over 90% of material people-related decisions within both divisions.
- Participate actively in divisional workforce planning forums.
- Deliver timely and accurate reward advisory on all structural changes.
Divisional Reward Analytics & Reporting
- Utilize analytics tools and data infrastructure to generate divisional insights on compensation effectiveness.
- Deliver regular reporting to divisional HR and business leaders to inform decisions.
- Complete pay equity and gender parity analyses biannually using Group tools.
- Confirm dashboard adoption by divisional HR and business leadership.
- Escalate data quality issues to Total Rewards Transformation within agreed timelines.
Governance, Policy Adherence & Compliance
- Ensure all reward activity operates within the Group-wide governance frameworks, reward policies, and compliance standards.
- Support internal and external audits of divisional reward practices.
- Flag policy gaps or local regulatory changes to the Transformation team.
- Resolve audit findings within agreed SLA.
- Achieve zero governance breaches on divisional reward decisions.
HRIS Data Integrity & Process Adherence
- Ensure all compensation and benefits data within HRIS systems is accurate, complete, and up to date.
- Adhere to system processes and configurations established by the Total Rewards Transformation team.
- Escalate system issues or data anomalies through the appropriate channel.
- Maintain HRIS compensation data accuracy at over 98%.
- Ensure all employee data changes are reflected in HRIS within agreed timelines.
Required Skills To Be Successful:
- Strong working knowledge of compensation structures, benefits administration, and pay cycle management.
- Proficiency in SAP HR, SuccessFactors, MS Excel (advanced), and PowerPoint.
- Ability to use analytics dashboards and reporting tools.
- Strong stakeholder management and communication skills.
What Qualifies You For The Role:
- Master's degree in HR, Business Administration or a related discipline (MBA preferred).
- 15+ years of progressive Total Rewards / HR experience in multi-country operations.
- Professional certifications (GRP, CCP) are an advantage.
- Proven track record of reward delivery and HR business partnering at scale (8,000+ employees).
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