Compensation and Benefits Strategy

Compensation and Benefits Strategy is a five-day senior reward course delivered by Mars Training Centre in London, Geneva, Dubai, and New York — designed for reward directors, heads of compensation, and senior HR leaders accountable for the design and governance of pay, benefits, and incentives.

Reward is one of the largest items on most operating budgets, one of the strongest signals of organisational values, and one of the most visible drivers of fairness, engagement, and retention. It is also one of the most technical areas of HR, combining market data, job architecture, finance, tax, regulation, and behavioural psychology. Reward leaders are increasingly asked to make pay decisions defensible to remuneration committees, employees, regulators, and the public.

Across five focused days, you will work through the building blocks of a modern reward strategy: job architecture, market benchmarking, base pay, short- and long-term incentives, benefits, executive reward, and pay transparency. The programme is delivered by senior practitioners who have led reward functions through pay restructures, listings, and remuneration-committee cycles.

What You Will Learn

• Design a reward strategy that aligns with corporate strategy and culture.
• Build and maintain a defensible job architecture and grading structure.
• Conduct market benchmarking and interpret survey data critically.
• Design base-pay structures, ranges, and pay-progression rules.
• Evaluate short-term and long-term incentive designs for senior populations.
• Design benefits programmes that match the demographic and the budget.
• Apply executive-reward principles, including the role of the remuneration committee.
• Manage pay transparency, gender pay reporting, and pay-equity analytics.
• Communicate the reward strategy clearly to employees, line managers, and the board.

How You Will Benefit

You will leave with a complete, defensible reward playbook for your organisation, and a Mars Certificate of Completion.

Your organisation will gain a reward leader who can defend pay decisions on technical, ethical, and commercial grounds, and who can build a reward system that pays for the right outcomes at a sustainable cost.

Who This Programme Is For

This programme is designed for:

• Reward Directors and Heads of Compensation and Benefits
• Heads of Total Rewards
• HR Directors with reward in scope
• Senior Reward Managers preparing for director-level roles
• Executive Compensation specialists
• Senior HR Business Partners advising on reward
• Finance leaders with HR reward in scope

The seniority floor is head of department and above. The programme is delivered in person over five consecutive days, and delegates receive a Mars Certificate of Completion.