Remuneration Matters.
Thursday 18 June | 9.00am - 1.45pm
Via Zoom
Remuneration Matters 2026 is a one‑day virtual summit for senior leaders navigating one of the most complex pay environments Aotearoa has faced in decades. With budgets constrained, expectations rising and scrutiny intensifying, remuneration decisions now sit at the centre of organisational risk, trust and performance.
Across seven practical, plain‑English sessions, the summit explores what will matter most in pay over the next five years—and what leaders need to be paying attention to now. You’ll gain a clear picture of the current remuneration landscape in New Zealand, how organisations are adjusting total remuneration strategies, and how to make credible pay decisions when “just paying more” isn’t an option. The programme tackles the realities of pay equity after the reset, the implications of growing pay transparency, and the emerging role of AI in remuneration decision‑making.
The summit includes a candid conversation on the pay issues that genuinely keep decision‑makers awake at night.
Designed for CEOs, board members, HR and reward leaders, Remuneration Matters 2026 offers insight, perspective and practical guidance to support smarter, more confident pay decisions in a highly constrained and evolving environment.
This summit is proudly sponsored by:
Programme
| 9.05am | Beyond 2026: Strategic Remuneration & Benefits for the Evolving Workforce Cathy will also help you to understand the top challenges HR professionals are facing and discover how organisations are adapting their total rewards strategies to attract, retain, and motivate their workforce in the years to come. |
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| 9.35am | Beyond One-Size-Fits-All: Designing a Total Rewards Strategy that Fits This session explores how to create Reward Principles that reflect your organisation’s values and priorities, and how those principles can guide the development of a Total Rewards Strategy that truly fits your organisation. We’ll also cover how to take a fresh look at your current rewards and remuneration approach. Where do you start? What should you review first? And what quick improvements can make a real difference? Through practical examples and simple ideas, this session will help you identify opportunities to strengthen your total rewards offering and ensure it supports both your people and your organisational goals. |
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| 10.15am | Implementing a new remuneration structure Omima Alsafwani, People and Culture Director at Flo and Frankie Omima will present Flow and Frankie's implementation of a new remuneration structure |
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| 10.45am | Pay Equity After the Reset: What Leaders Need to Know Now This session provides senior leaders with a clear, plain‑English understanding of the current pay‑equity environment, what remains high‑risk, and where organisations still need to act proactively. Drawing on real‑world experience, it moves beyond theory and government policy settings to show how analysis and practical policy can genuinely address equity - and where the limitations of those approaches lie. Douglas will walk through the Genesis approach to pay‑equity analysis as a working example of what good practice looks like, sharing learnings from across the sector. The session will also tackle the hardest equity challenges to solve: those anchored in career choice and occupational segregation - such as pilots versus cabin crew, or generation control engineers versus contact centre staff - where structural workforce patterns make simple fixes elusive. It will help leaders understand how pay‑equity considerations should shape remuneration strategy, workforce planning and long‑term cost management. |
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| 11.15am | Time to take a Break |
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| 12.00pm | AI and Remuneration: A Practitioner Perspective Takeaways from Andrew’s session: A practical framework for thinking about AI in reward - The “super intelligent graduate” mental model — how to direct, validate and amplify AI outputs with your own expertise, rather than being directed by them. Real examples of where AI adds value — and where it fails - Concrete “have done” use cases from executive compensation and people analytics: what worked, what went wrong, and what the data — and the human — had to do. A starting point you can act on this week - A simple, low-risk first step for any reward practitioner: how to pick ONE problem, experiment deliberately, and build confidence without over-committing. |
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| 12.40 pm | What Keeps Us Awake at Night: A Leader’s Conversation on Pay Join a panel of experienced leaders for a candid conversation on the remuneration challenges organisations are grappling with right now. From the questions they are asked most often to the issues that keep them awake at night, this session will explore the realities of managing pay in a complex environment - while giving participants the chance to raise their own burning questions. |
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| 1.10 pm | The Future of Pay in Aotearoa: What Will Matter Most in the Next Five Years |
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| 1.40 pm | Wrap up and Close
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With thanks to our sponsor