Greater Anglia:On Track for Live Salary Insights

Greater Anglia runs over 1300 train services per day to 133 stations across Essex, Suffolk, Norfolk, Hertfordshire and Cambridgeshire. Between April 2022 and March 2023 Greater Anglia customers took over 66 million journeys and travelled 2.88 billion passenger kilometres. The company relies on HR DataHub for flexible, on-demand benchmarking of salaries across 600 management positions.

Broad-Gauge Surveys 

Reward & Engagement Manager Pip Southwood is responsible for managing compensation and benefits for around 450 non-unionised Greater Anglia management roles. Before adopting HR DataHub, she relied mostly on traditional benchmarking tools to source salary market-averages for ad-hoc benchmarking requests throughout the year. 

But many of these tools, such as annual salary surveys, were far too broad to pinpoint meaningful data for niche rail industry roles like Station Manager or Train Driver Manager, which account for a large proportion of management jobs. 

To sense-check the pay of Managers effectively and set correct salaries for new (and less common) job titles, Pip needed a source of up-to-date salary insights that was comprehensive and fully reliable.

‍

Pip needed a benchmarking solution that:

• Was easy to use and translate to hiring managers.
• Offered credible, evidence-based insights for niche roles.
• Helped her to identify internal equity issues quickly.
• Supported faster, more effective decision-making for both new roles and salary reviews.

With limited resources and only one direct report, efficiency and accuracy were critical.

‍

“Using HR DataHub was as simple as searching for ‘Train Station Manager’ and I instantly got all of the results I needed. I thought, "This makes our job so much easier.” *Pip Southwood, Reward Engagement Manager, Greater Anglia

‍

From the get-go, Pip found that HR DataHub made easy work of comparisons between Greater Anglia’s salary data and the market-averages for equivalent positions in competitor employers. 

Even where subtle differences in job title or responsibilities obscure significant pay differentials, the platform lets Pip’s team quickly drill into job descriptions, build realistic real-time comparisons and find reliable benchmarks. 

Collected from over 30 million datapoints and updated daily, the breadth and depth of HR DataHub means that plenty of live pay data is always available, even for the most unusual job titles or roles specific to the rail sector. 

‍

Evidence-Driven Pay Conversations 

‍

*“HR DataHub gives me real confidence in my decision making. It makes my pay conversations more productive, especially where it’s harder to agree salaries without the backing of solid evidence.”

‍

Before HR DataHub, Pip and her colleagues found that some internal salary negotiations could be challenging without the backing of credible benchmarks. Pay discussions could easily revert to subjective comparisons with the salaries of colleagues of a similar level and result in unintentional bias. 

Now, thanks to HR DataHub, Pip and her team feel more confident in making pay recommendations that are fully justifiable and supported by impartial evidence. 

For any salary negotiation, they can easily defer to accurate salary comparisons on a role-by-role basis, both with competitor companies and across the rail industry as a whole.

Pip used HR DataHub’s benchmarking functionality to:

• Compare real-world job descriptions and market salaries for specific rail positions.
• Back up salary recommendations with credible external data.
• Quickly surface and address pay discrepancies across the organisation. 

‍

Fast Results & Simple to Learn  

*"HR DataHub saved us a significant amount of time. The fact that you can just use one tool and put the job title in and then just look around from there. It’s just so simple.”

‍

Time is precious, especially for Pip and her relatively small team who deal with the pay for hundreds of Managers, on top of the benefits and pensions needs of circa 2800 employees across the organisation.

‍

So when Pip started using HR DataHub, she immediately appreciated its easy functionality, finding the platform quick to learn and intuitive to use. 

‍

Every day its easy search capability and instant results save the team precious time. Instead of the painstaking analysis of surveys and lengthy manual research, Pip and her colleagues get the insights they need in just a few mouse clicks. 

‍

For Pip, the impact of HR DataHub was immediate and measurable:

‍

Time Saved: HR DataHub eliminated the need to scour recruitment websites or dig through generic data. Pip now gets to market-aligned insights in minutes, not hours.

‍

Credibility Gained: Armed with concrete data, Pip felt more confident in conversations with strong-willed hiring managers, able to justify her recommendations with objective evidence rather than personal judgment.

‍

Equity Identified: The salary data provided made it easier for Pip to quickly spot pay discrepancies, sparking conversations that may not have happened without the clarity HR DataHub provided.

‍

For organisations with complex roles and lean HR teams, HR DataHub proves that benchmarking doesn’t have to be burdensome. With the right tools, it can make strategic decision-making easy and drive real change.

‍

When asked if she’d recommend HR DataHub to others, Pip didn’t hesitate:

“Just go for it.”

Ready to take the complexity out of pay benchmarking?

Join organisations like Greater Anglia who are using HR DataHub to drive fairer, faster, and more informed reward decisions. Book a demo today and see how live salary insights can transform your approach.