| Detail | For this role |
|---|---|
| Department | Human Resources |
| Level | Senior management |
| Reports to | Chief Human Resources Officer |
| Direct reports | Compensation and Benefits Manager, Compensation and Benefits Executive |
| Experience | 12 to 16 years in HR or finance, with 7 or more years in compensation and benefits |
Head of Compensation and Benefits job description template
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Job title: Head of Compensation and Benefits
Department: Human Resources
Reports to: Chief Human Resources Officer
Location: [City], [office, branch or site]
About the role
The Head of Compensation and Benefits decides how a company pays its people and what it offers beyond salary. The role owns grades and salary ranges, the annual increment and variable pay cycles, benefits such as group health insurance, and the rules that keep pay fair and within budget. It reports to the CHRO or HR Director and works closely with finance. A good head of C&B can explain every pay decision with data and keeps the wage bill predictable for the CFO.
Key responsibilities
- Define the pay philosophy with leadership, including the target market position for each job family and the split between fixed and variable pay.
- Design grades, salary ranges and CTC structures that keep basic pay plus DA at no less than half of total remuneration.
- Choose salary benchmarking surveys, match jobs to survey roles and price hard-to-fill positions against the market.
- Build the annual increment budget with finance, set merit matrices by rating and position in range, and run the cycle to closure.
- Design sales incentive and variable pay plans with business heads, and approve payout calculations before release.
- Manage group health, term life and personal accident insurance, including renewals, claim escalations and benefit communication to employees.
- Approve above-range offers, retention bonuses and counter-offers under a written exception policy.
- Oversee ESOPs or other long-term incentives where they exist, including grant lists and vesting communication.
- Model the cost of statutory changes, such as the new wage definition, on PF, gratuity and bonus, and present the impact to the CFO.
- Run a yearly pay equity review by gender, grade and tenure, and correct unexplained gaps in the next cycle.
Requirements
- MBA or PGDM in HR or finance
- Graduate in commerce, economics or statistics
- A reward management certification or a CA background is an advantage
- 12 to 16 years in HR or finance, with 7 or more years in compensation and benefits
KRAs and KPIs for a Head of Compensation and Benefits
Key result areas for the appraisal form, each with a KPI you can measure every month or quarter.
| Key result area | How to measure it |
|---|---|
| Increment cycle | Increments approved and paid on the committed date, within 0.5 percent of the approved budget |
| Market competitiveness | Critical roles priced within the target range in the latest salary benchmark |
| Offer exceptions | Above-range offers below 10 percent of all offers each quarter, each with documented approval |
| Pay equity | No unexplained pay gap above 3 percent between comparable men and women in the same grade |
| Benefits renewal | Insurance renewed before expiry with the premium change inside budget; claim escalations closed within 7 days |
| Incentive accuracy | Incentive payouts released on schedule with no recalculation needed after release |
Skills and tools
Tools used day to day: Advanced Excel, Salary benchmarking survey data, HRMS salary data, Power BI or Tableau, Insurance broker portal, ESOP administration software.
Reporting line and career path
Next roles: Chief Human Resources Officer, HR Director, Vice President HR
Interview questions for a Head of Compensation and Benefits
- How would you build a merit matrix for a 9 percent increment budget?
- Our basic pay is 35 percent of CTC. How would you work out the cost of moving to the new wage definition?
- A key engineer has an offer 40 percent higher elsewhere. What do you check before recommending a counter-offer?
- How do you decide which salary survey to buy and which roles to match?
- The group health premium has gone up sharply at renewal. What options would you put to the CFO?
- How would you test for a gender pay gap without exposing individual salaries?
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What does a head of compensation and benefits do?
A head of compensation and benefits designs and runs the company's pay system. That covers grades and salary ranges, CTC structures, the annual increment budget, variable pay and incentives, group insurance and other benefits, and exceptions such as above-range offers. The role balances market competitiveness, internal fairness and cost.
What skills are needed for a compensation and benefits role?
Strong Excel and financial modelling come first, followed by job evaluation, salary benchmarking and incentive design. Knowledge of Indian statutory pay rules, such as PF, gratuity, bonus and the Labour Codes wage definition, is essential. Senior C&B roles also need the ability to explain numbers simply to leaders and to keep salary data confidential.
How does the Labour Codes wage definition affect salary structures?
Under the Code on Wages, basic pay plus dearness allowance must be at least half of total remuneration. Allowances above that line are added back to wages, which raises the base for PF, gratuity and bonus. C&B teams restructure CTC so that the basic and DA share is compliant and the added cost is budgeted.