‘Spark Pay’ raises prospects for front-line roles

‘Spark Pay’ raises prospects for front-line roles

Spark has made a commitment to a higher wage economy by introducing a benchmark that ensures all staff are paid a fair, competitive salary above minimum pay levels.

The company’s new ‘Spark Pay’ scheme means all non-commission based full-time employees will earn at least $40,000 salary - plus company benefits including a generous monthly Spark account credit as well as life, income and trauma insurance (which combined equate to over $2,500 value annually).

Front-line commission based roles that earn a lower base salary will have the ability to earn an average of $42,000 - more if they outperform their targets – along with the $2,500 in company benefits.
Spark currently employs more than 5000 full- and part-time staff and has an annual payroll bill of about $500 million. While Spark has always paid above the minimum wage, the new Spark Pay policy has benefited over 250 employees who have received pay increases over the past two years to bring them up to the new level.

Spark’s General Manager of HR Danielle George says Spark has in recent years overhauled its employment practices and has been working towards this solution for a while, to ensure the company attracts the best talent to serve its customers and contributes to a fairer society.

“We’ve looked at what other companies have done or are doing, but decided our best approach was to talk to our own people, listen to them and figure out what works best for them – and the company. As one of the largest technology employers in New Zealand, we believe it’s vitally important that our people are paid at a level which recognises the complexity of our industry, yet is at a level for us to remain competitive.

“We want to do the right thing for our people and to attract the best people to a career in Spark: if that sets a standard that encourages others to follow, that’s got to be a good thing for New Zealand.
“Our ambition is to make Spark one of the best employers in New Zealand. Average performance isn’t going to get us there: we want our people to be “better than average” and therefore we’ve tried to come up with innovative ways of rewarding, recognising and compensating our people.

“We have revised our entire value proposition, exploring how we can best deliver base pay and meaningful benefits – all designed to meet the needs of a very diverse workforce. Given the speed of change within our industry, we’ve also done away with cumbersome, drawn out traditional performance appraisals and have moved to a world where we want all our people to have a regular one-on-one meeting with their boss or team leader. It’s radically changed the speed with which we operate, and it’s greatly improved the quality of the discussions we have with our people.

“This is about being a responsible employer – we will always look to do better, but this is our way of helping transform New Zealand into a higher wage economy.”

Spark has already initiated discussions with its suppliers to adopt a similar position within their own industries.

-ENDS-

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