Sasha Brenner

Recruited by the CPO into a newly created global position on the HR Leadership Team. Responsible for compensation and benefits at all levels across the organisation. Achievements and experience: • Led on the creation of a new levelling framework for head office roles in conjunction with People Directors and external consultants. Engaged Senior Leadership Team, resulting in understanding and buy in to overall concepts and rationale. • Reviewed all existing global mobility cases. Subsequently formalised global mobility processes and created new policies. Worked in partnership with People Directors internationally and external tax advisors to oversee and advise on all new global mobility cases. • Delivered updates and presented proposals to the Senior Leadership Team in all areas of reward; including pay reviews, bonus, gender pay gap and service recognition. • Successfully implemented pay awards and bonus payments for all levels across the organisation. Simplified and streamlined processes and communications. • Met and consulted with the RBA Union to reach agreement on pay and benefits for store-based employees. • Wrote RemCo papers and participated in all RemCo meetings. Supported with the appointment of new external RemCo advisors. • Took ownership of reward related actions and queries ahead of the separation of the High Street business from WHSmith. • Provided counsel on all executive reward matters and had responsibility for writing reward related communications for executive offers, retention plans and changes to remuneration. • Implemented processes to strengthen governance over UK hourly pay rates and ensure compliance and consistency with decisions over grades and salaries. • Supported the Company Secretary with the delivery of annual LTIP grants and ongoing review of the structure of the plans. • Led a project team to design and implement a new global service recognition policy and programme.

Lead on reward and benefits for the UK and Italy including salary reviews, bonus payments, payroll, well-being, long term incentives and executive compensation. Responsible for international mobility and HR data, reporting and metrics. Following the merger of Unibail-Rodamco and Westfield, lead for the UK and Italy on the analysis and integration of the HR systems (Workday) and the review and harmonisation of the global grading framework. Supported on wider HR activities as required and was the direct point of contact for reward related matters for the Senior Exec team. Achievements and experience: • Successfully delivered the pay review and bonus payments within four months of joining the business and for subsequent years, including during lockdown. • Reviewed and updated grades for all roles in the UK and Italy following the implementation of a global grading framework. Subsequently communicated grades to management teams and employees and presented the new framework to the business. • Built knowledge of the new global international mobility policy, including payroll and tax implications, and ensured it was rolled out and adhered to in the UK. • Developed and managed the overall process for Furlough including calculations, employee communications and Government claims. • Lead on well-being activities in the UK, including continual messaging, advice and guidance throughout lockdown. • Developed new internal processes to ensure IR35 compliance. • Designed and implemented new online benefits portal, working with external consultants and utilising Darwin technology. • Took the lead on headcount planning and budgeting processes, working with Senior Exec team to ensure accurate forecasting within overall global headcount constraints. • Played a key role in the project management and delivery of the redundancy process during the Pandemic. Developed the end to end process, conducted consultations and ensured all payments were tracked, communicated and paid accurately.

Reward role expanded to include Europe region(>1,000 employees across Equifax UK & Ireland, TDX: newly acquired company and Iberia). Successfully managed the benefits harmonisation for TDX (c400 employees) and implementation of the online benefits portal. Worked with the Global Reward team on a number of compensation initiatives and lead a project with the international reward team to price all international roles and review and re-design the international grading structure.

Responsibility and accountability for all reward related activity including sales incentive plans, salary benchmarking and grading, pay increases and the maintenance, reviews and communication of benefits and total reward statements. Also HR Business Partner to the Marketing, Business Development and Personal Solutions teams; supporting directors, people managers and employees in the areas of recruitment, performance management, conflict resolution, manpower planning and learning and development. Achievements and experience: • Conducted a review of recognition schemes and subsequently launched a new employee awards scheme with improved communications and simplified, consistent and transparent processes • Managed the annual review, design and roll out of the sales incentive plans. Positive feedback received from the HR and Sales Directors regarding improvements to engagement and communications • Successfully managed the design and implementation of pensions auto enrolment and communication of the changes to the Lifetime and Annual Allowances.

One of 27 people who successfully applied for a position at LOCOG through Sainsbury’s secondment programme. Recruited into the reward, policy and OD function. Responsibilities included project managing the staff ticketing programme, the development and cascade of Games time HR policies and processes, the maintenance and communication of staff benefits and bonus payments, being the key contact at LOCOG for the TUC and ACAS and communicating the redundancy plans to all staff. Also worked closely with contracting companies to ensure their HR policies and processes were aligned with LOCOG’s requirements and applicable for the Games. Role at Games time was Workforce Operations Manager at the Athletes Village, with responsibility for planning and providing operational HR support to and training a workforce of c8,000, including paid staff, volunteers and contractors.

Approached and recruited internally, following success in previous Reward Manager role. Remit included management of the company car scheme, bonus schemes, relocations, discount, private healthcare and expenses. Role has responsibility for all the benefits budgets (c£12million) and the content and maintenance of HR policies.

Recruited into the reward team in a leadership capacity to manage the reward strategy and pay for all retail based roles, from Store Managers to Sales Assistants. Responsible for managing and implementing all retail pay reviews, maintaining and communicating reward policies and ensuring that pay rates and processes were aligned with legislation (e.g. Equal pay and National Minimum Wage).

Recruited into the Group Reward function and subsequently involved in developing and implementing leading reward policies. Role involved designing and implementing bonus schemes, salary benchmarking, salary reviews, conducting salary surveys and job evaluations (trained in Hay), overseeing company car and fuel card policies, administering pension and share schemes.

Approached by the business to join the newly formed Pricing team and subsequently involved in developing and driving forward the high profile competitive pricing project. Initially only a 3 month, part-time secondment but requested by manager to stay with team and promoted to a full time project management role.

Recruited on to the graduate scheme and worked with a variety of clients including Cadburys, Vizzavi, Perot Systems and the Construction and Industry Training Board. Assisted with and successfully managed projects on a number of HR areas including flexible benefits design and implementation, compensation reviews, employee consultation, recruitment and selection, competency framework design and implementation, talent management and role profiling.