GoCardless is a fintech company headquartered in London, and with additional sites spanning Australia, Europe, and the US. As a cutting-edge business dedicated to providing seamless bank payments, they sought a new HR platform to deliver an enhanced employee experience. Specifically, the team looked for an HCM that could automate their HR processes, improve data accuracy, integrate with their tech stack, and increase efficiency. They found all that and more with Bob.
Spotlighting pay transparency and the gender pay gap
GoCardless is a company that walks the talk. For them, DE&I isn’t just a concept or a tick box, but a social responsibility that they are committed to as part of their “people proud” philosophy. As such, GoCardless is dedicated to full pay transparency and closing the gender pay gap.
As a UK-based company, GoCardless is not legally bound to pay transparency. However, they believe that being transparent around pay is instrumental for attracting and retaining talent, and ties into their strategy of being an open and transparent organization.
As part of this initiative, GoCardless advertises new roles along with their associated pay range so that it’s clear to prospective employees what the pay structure will look like. GoCardless uses Bob’s Compensation module to store salary bands for all positions in the company, ensuring fair pay across the board. Similarly, all of GoCardless’ people have full transparency around their salaries and the company’s pay philosophy, which is based on skills, experience, and budget.
GoCardless believes that this transparency is instrumental to their success. Dora Kocur, GoCardless’ VP of Operations and Total Rewards, explains, “We want to be transparent about pay. This helps with career progression as our people understand their comp ratio and what they need to do to increase their salary. We also saw that this helps with retention as they can see their potential pay rather than looking for another job to increase their salary.” Dora continues, “Salary bands give our managers a tool for managing performance because if someone is performing really well, they will be rewarded with a salary increase faster than someone with average performance.”
Bob has been instrumental in achieving this level of pay transparency at GoCardless. Choosing to roll it out in stages, Bob’s flexibility enabled GoCardless to initially make the salary bands accessible to managers only. Once they were ready to launch the full pay transparency program, they seamlessly changed the permissions, providing full visibility to everyone across the organization.
Addressing gender equality at GoCardless
GoCardless is also on a mission to close the gender pay gap. Dora explains, “Our main goal is to have an inclusive and thriving workforce. Closing the gender pay gap is not about ticking a box, it’s more about how we cherish differences, how we make sure that people thrive at work, are engaged, and bring the best of themselves.”
GoCardless has developed various programs focused on gender equality, including Propel, a program that supports women in advancing to leadership roles. In 2024, 14 women from GoCardless participated in the program, gaining essential skills and insights into becoming leaders.
When it comes to hiring, GoCardless uses inclusive, bias-free language when advertising new jobs and is making a conscious effort to hire more women, particularly in male-dominated functions. In their 2024 financial year, 48 percent of new joiners were women, and they’ve seen a three percent increase in women working in their product development team, a statistic of which they are very proud.
Championing a people proud approach
GoCardless is a people proud company that believes that putting their people first drives better business results. This approach to their people was clearly demonstrated when they returned to working in the office following the COVID-19 pandemic and set about redesigning their workspace, realizing that their people were now coming to the office to collaborate rather than sitting at their desks as they had before.
This people proud approach is also showcased in the way GoCardless manages their people and makes strategic decisions for their organization. They revisit their people strategy every year, looking at trends and data from Bob. As Dora explains, “Our people strategy evolves each year. We examine trends, we look at what we need to do in terms of our people and what our people want. We use different data points and also look at the market.”
GoCardless believes that learning and development are key to employee satisfaction and retention. To upskill their people, they run various programs, such as their learning week, which promotes learning, development, and internal mobility. Last year, GoCardless offered 30 percent of its roles for internal mobility, providing opportunities for their people to grow within the organization.
Dora is dedicated to this people proud philosophy in everything she does, “People proud means building a workforce where everyone can thrive and a culture where people feel included and can bring the best of themselves to work every day.” The people at GoCardless couldn’t agree more.
Main takeaways
- Bob’s Compensation module helped GoCardless roll out pay transparency, boosting retention and trust.
- With Bob, GoCardless replaced spreadsheets with automation and a single source of truth.
- Seamless integrations with tools like Slack and Greenhouse increase efficiency across the business.
