“Reward and performance is all about understanding people.” says Jenny Craik. In this episode of The People Agenda podcast, host Chris Howard is joined by experienced HR leader Jenny Craik, who shares insights from her career in reward and performance at organisations like HSBC, Standard Chartered and Barclays.
Jenny talks about what it really takes to succeed in the world of reward, highlighting that it’s not just about technical expertise, but also about understanding people. She offers practical reflections on building influence, managing change, and staying relevant in an evolving landscape.
How do you break into and succeed in reward roles today?
Jenny believes to succeed in reward HR leaders need to combine technical understanding with strong interpersonal and critical thinking skills. While tools and AI are changing the way we work, how can we keep the human touch? Jenny suggests that we:
- Focus on core skills: analytical thinking, attention to detail, and listening
- Learn from experienced professionals through observation and questions
- Build foundational knowledge in data, models, and reward structures
- Develop understanding of behavioural science and human motivation
- Use AI as a tool but validate outputs with critical thinking and an AI structured framework
What are the biggest challenges in a reward career?
The most difficult challenges involve high-stakes decisions, stakeholder tension, and managing people dynamics. According to Jenny, HR leaders can avoid these challenges by:
- Making decisions with real human impact
- Navigating conflicting priorities between executives, boards, and stakeholders
- Managing emotionally charged topics like pay, fairness, and value perception
- Leading diverse teams with different perspectives and working styles
- Maintaining resilience and objectivity under pressure
What makes a career in reward meaningful and rewarding?
The most rewarding part of this work comes from making a real impact on people and seeing tangible change across the organisation. Reward has a direct influence on employees’ experiences, which makes the work feel meaningful day to day. In some cases, the consequences can be deeply personal. “We make decisions that are going to change somebody’s life,” Jenny says, this highlights the emotional weight that often sits behind pay, benefits and fairness decisions.
There’s also a lot of value in coaching and developing future leaders, as well as gaining broader perspectives through international experience. Jenny notes that designing policies that genuinely improve people’s lives, and then seeing that reflected in employee feedback and engagement data, is what makes it especially worthwhile.
How do reward professionals balance business and people priorities?
Success comes from aligning commercial outcomes with employee experience through strong partnerships, especially with finance. Reward sits at the intersection of cost and value and must be able to:
- Build mutual respect and curiosity with finance teams
- Understand business performance, investor expectations, and strategy
- Use data and evidence to support reward decisions and proposals
- Develop clear business cases for people initiatives
- Combine data with storytelling to influence decision-making
What is the future of the reward and performance function?
The future of reward lies in strategic partnership, enabled by AI to provide personalised employee experiences. While administrative tasks will reduce significantly, the need for human skills in navigating emotive issues and challenging business leaders will increase. Jenny notes that the profession must adapt to increasing transparency and a shift toward skills-based compensation models.
If you want to hear the full conversation and dive deeper into these insights, listen to this episode of The People Agenda podcast. It’s packed with real-world perspective you won’t get from theory alone. If you want support on how to build an effective reward strategy check out our Reward and performance services page to learn more.
