Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs
Reward Advisor
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Bristol, London, Newcastle-upon-Tyne, York
Job Summary
Role Summary
As a Reward Adviser, you will play a key role in supporting the delivery of an effective and professional reward service across the Defra Group. This is a varied and rewarding position, offering the opportunity to develop specialist knowledge of Civil Service pay and reward while working closely with HR colleagues, managers, trade unions, and wider business stakeholders.
You will be responsible for coordinating a range of activities that underpin the work of the Reward team. This includes managing the reward mailbox, providing policy-based guidance, escalating complex queries where appropriate, and supporting the review, maintenance, and publication of reward policies and guidance. You will also manage the team SharePoint site, contribute to the development of a new online reward hub, maintain key logs and records, and support effective planning through ownership of the team workplan.
The successful candidate will be an organised and proactive individual with experience supporting teams within an HR environment. They will possess excellent written and verbal communication skills, strong attention to detail, and the ability to manage competing priorities while delivering high-quality outcomes. A good level of numeracy and confidence working with data is essential, alongside extensive experience using Microsoft Office applications, particularly Excel.
Strong interpersonal skills are key to success in this role, as the postholder will build and maintain effective working relationships with a wide range of stakeholders. They will be a self-starter who takes ownership of tasks from initiation through to completion, demonstrates resilience in a fast-paced environment, and contributes positively to continuous improvement activities.
This role offers an excellent opportunity for someone looking to build a career within HR and reward, developing expertise in reward policy, pay frameworks, and wider Civil Service HR practices while contributing to meaningful outcomes across the organisation.
Job Description
As the Reward Adviser, you will be flexible and resilient. You will play a key part in our service through the management and coordination of multiple activities that underpin the wider objectives of the team.
Typically You Will Be Responsible For:
- Overseeing the reward mailbox, providing policy-based guidance or, where queries are complex, ensuring they are correctly allocated and managed.
- Supporting the review of reward policies and publishing them on Content Cloud, the organisation’s data sharing platform.
- Managing the team SharePoint site.
- Developing and implementing a new online hub for all our reward policies and updates.
- Developing and managing logs for higher starting salaries and allowances.
- Owning and maintaining the Reward team’s workplan.
- Providing team support, such as attending meetings to capture notes and actions, generating ad-hoc reports, conducting research, etc.
You will work across the range of Defra group, interacting with HR colleagues and managers and others in the business, including the trade unions. You will gain a good knowledge of Civil Service pay and how this links to other areas of HR. This is a dynamic and varied role that will provide the right person with a great opportunity to further their career within HR/reward.
Person Specification
The successful candidate will need to demonstrate the essential criteria as noted below:
- Experience of supporting a team within a HR environment
- Strong written and verbal communication skills
- A good level of numeracy
- Strong organisational skills and the ability to manage differing priorities
- Must be a starter/finisher with good accuracy and attention to detail
- Good interpersonal skills to manage effective working relationships
- Extensive experience of using Microsoft Office products, particularly Excel
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Behaviours
We'll assess you against these behaviours during the selection process:
- Working Together
- Changing and Improving
- Communicating and Influencing
- Making Effective Decisions
We only ask for evidence of these behaviours on your application form:
Working Together
Benefits
Alongside your salary of £34,765, Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs contributes £10,071 towards you being a member of the Civil Service Defined Benefit Pension scheme. Find out what benefits a Civil Service Pension provides (opens in a new window).
- Learning and development tailored to your role
- An environment with flexible working options
- A culture encouraging inclusion and diversity
- A Civil Service pension with an employer contribution of 28.97%
- Up to 30 days annual leave plus bank holidays
Artificial Intelligence
Artificial intelligence can be a useful tool to support your application, however, all examples and statements provided must be truthful, factually accurate and taken directly from your own experience. Where plagiarism has been identified (presenting the ideas and experiences of others, or generated by artificial intelligence, as your own) applications may be withdrawn and internal candidates may be subject to disciplinary action. Please see our candidate guidance (opens in a new window) for more information on appropriate and inappropriate use.
Selection Process Details
This vacancy is using Success Profiles (opens in a new window), and will assess your Behaviours, Strengths and Experience.
Application Process
As part of the application process, you will be asked to provide a CV and a 500 word personal statement.
Further details around what this will entail are listed on the application form.
You will need to complete 250 word statement on the following behaviour:
- Working together
Sift
A sift will be conducted against your CV, personal statement and behaviour statement.
Sift and interview dates to be confirmed.
Should there be a large volume of applications, we will sift on personal statement initially. Candidates will then be either progressed to a full sift or progressed straight to interview.
Interview
If Successful At Application Stage, You Will Be Invited To Interview, Which Will Be a Blended Interview Assessing The Behaviours Listed Below:
- Changing and Improving
- Communicating and Influencing
- Making Effective Decision
Strengths are tested at interview stage. The strengths tested are not shared before the interview.
Interviews will be held via MS Teams and are expected to last for 60 minutes. You will receive a link to join the interview, sent to the email address you provide on your application.
Further Information
Location
As part of the pre-employment process for this post, successful candidate(s) will be able to agree a contractual workplace from those locations listed in this advert. The agreed contractual workplace is then the substantive and permanent place of work for the successful candidate(s).
Where the location is ‘National’ the successful appointee should discuss and agree an appropriate contractual location in line with both Defra’s location policy and site capacity, prior to proceeding with pre-employment processes.
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The agreed amount of time spent at a workplace for this post will reflect the requirement for Civil Servants to spend at least 60% of their working time in an organisation workplace with the option to work the remaining time flexibly from home. Working time spent at a workplace may include time spent at other organisational locations including field-based operational locations, together with supplier, customer or partner locations. This is a non-contractual agreement which is consistent with common Civil Service expectations.
Travel costs to non-contractual workplaces will be subject to departmental travel and subsistence policies. Travel costs to contractual workplaces are the responsibility of the employee.
The successful candidate is required to carry out all their duties from a UK location, and cannot do so from an overseas location at any time. Defra includes the core department, APHA, RPA, Cefas and VMD.
Salary
New entrants to the Civil Service are expected to start on the minimum of the pay band. The internal roles rules apply to existing Civil Servants, i.e. level transfers move on current salary or the pay range minimum, transfers on promotion move to new pay range minimum or receive 10% increase. Either case is determined by whichever is the highest.
Reserve List
A reserve list may be held for a period of 12 months from which further appointments can be made.
Merit Lists
Where more than one location is advertised, candidates will be appointed in merit order for each location. You will be asked to state your location preference on your application.
Childcare Vouchers
Any move to DEFRA from another employer will mean you can no longer access childcare vouchers. This includes moves between government departments. You may however be eligible for other government schemes, including Tax Free Childcare; for further information visit the Childcare Choices website.
Reasonable Adjustment
If a person with disabilities is put at a substantial disadvantage compared to a non-disabled person, we have a duty to make reasonable changes to our processes.
If you need a change to be made so that you can make your application, you should:
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Contact Government Recruitment Service via defrarecruitment.grs@cabinetoffice.gov.uk as soon as possible before the closing date to discuss your needs.
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Complete the ‘Assistance required’ section in the ‘Additional requirements’ page of your application form to tell us what changes or help you might need further on in the recruitment process. For instance, you may need wheelchair access at interview, or if you’re deaf, a Language Service Professional.
Accessibility
If you are experiencing accessibility problems with any attachments on this advert, please contact the email address in the 'Contact point for applicants' section.
Visa Sponsorship Statement
Please take note that Defra does not hold a UK Visa & Immigration (UKVI) Skilled Worker License sponsor and are unable to sponsor any individuals for Skilled Worker Sponsorship.
Near Miss
Candidates who are judged to be a near miss at interview may be considered for other positions in Defra which may be at a lower grade, but have a potential skills match.
Criminal Record Check
If successful and transferring from another Government Department a criminal record check may be carried out.
In order to process applications without delay, we will be sending a Criminal Record Check to Disclosure and Barring Service on your behalf.
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