“Cord really appreciates the support that EMA has given over the past year.  It is very encouraging having the support of an organisation like EMA to bring another perspective and their wealth of experience into our sector.  This has had a particular impact on our review of rewards and benefits.

Working with EMA has had a positive impact on our staff and our methods of working.  We are sure that both organisations are benefiting from this relationship and long may it last.”

“EMA produced accurate and informative benchmarking information, tailored to our needs, within very tight time scales, we will use them again.” 

“We work regularly with EMA for insight into the housing sector’s pay and benefits landscape. The information we receive is useful for our business planning purposes and we are reassured that we have expert insight and knowledge to feed into our decision making.”

“We have used EMA to carry out staff terms and conditions reviews since 2006. I have found them a good company to work with, being professional in their approach and producing for me clear well-researched reports for the Board to consider. As a smaller association we have been pleased with both their value for money and the quality of their advice.”

“St Basils, works with young people, aged 16-25 who are homeless or at risk of homelessness. We provide a range of prevention, early intervention, accommodation and support services in the West Midlands. Our young people are supported by more than 250 staff who are dedicated employees who also at times face their own challenges. As an organisation we believe it is essential to support the development and health and wellbeing of our staff.
Ian Robertson was recommended to me when I was looking to work with someone on a new reward strategy. We tendered the work to two other organisations too, and asked them to come and present a proposal to the Senior Leadership Team at St Basils. The decision was made to work with Ian and EMA as we felt that straight away he understood our business, and was realistic in his proposals.

The Senior Leadership team has started working on a new reward strategy, with Ian fully involved along the way. He presented solutions within a very short period of meeting with us, which take the nature of our business and the affordability into consideration. We are now at the stage, where we are fairly certain of how we want to proceed, and again will be utilising Ian’s skills to help us introduce our new model.
I would recommend Ian Robertson from EMA for all the reasons above, and will continue to work with him on future people strategies.”

“Southdown engaged EMA for two projects during 2021, a benchmarking exercise of pay and terms and conditions for Exec and Heads of Department and the recruitment of a new Director. For both pieces of work we were really impressed by the quality and individualised nature of the service received from EMA. In selecting a consultancy agency, we initially sought recommendations from across our sector to undertake the benchmarking exercise, with EMA, alongside a number of other smaller agencies receiving positive endorsements. We were keen to try out some different suppliers than the normal larger firms, looking for a more bespoke and tailored approach. The decision to go with EMA was based on their speed and of initial response, as well as their knowledge of the sector and existing database of comparable information. The subsequent service we received was of a high standard and delivered within a tight timescale set by ourselves. We particularly appreciated, as a supported housing and care and support specialist provider, that they were able to provide data for both the housing and charitable sectors.  Based on the success of the benchmarking exercise, we subsequently used EMA to oversee the recruitment process for a new Executive level role of Director of People and Culture. EMA undertook all stages of recruitment up to recommending the final candidates for interviews. Once again, we were impressed and reassured by the tailored and pragmatic approach that they undertook, Ian Robertson from EMA taking time to fully understand the specific vision we had for the new role and the type of individual who would be the best fit for Southdown. We did successfully appoint from a large pool of talented and skilled applicants, with candidates also feeding back on their positive experience of being supported by EMA.”

“We worked with ema to undertake an executive and colleague pay and terms and conditions review. ema’s extensive knowledge of the housing sector gave the Board and myself the confidence that their advice would allow us to make decisions about pay and terms and conditions which ensured colleagues are rewarded fairly for the contribution they make to the success of Trent & Dove.”

“EMA conducted an organisational review of our salaries in October 2018 for us and we were very happy with the quality and outputs from this piece of work.  The analysis undertaken was very useful and informative this affected circa 600 colleagues.  Since this piece of work we now use EMA on a regular basis to undertake all are salary market review benchmarking when job descriptions change and have incorporated this into our remuneration policy.  I would have no hesitation in recommending EMA to undertake work in this area.  I am also happy to talk our approach through in more detail and how we worked on this project with EMA.”

“We invited EMA to undertake a pay review of The Barnet Group (TBG). It is important to the Group that levels of pay are appropriate, balancing risk and reward and are in line with business objectives; and to ensure that pay and conditions are consistent within the overall context of TBG’s remuneration strategy.

I consider EMA to be an excellent company to work with, being professional in their approach, flexible and producing clear well-researched reports for our Executive management team consider.

Ian fully understood our business and the challenges that we faced offering breadth of knowledge and expertise and always delivering quality reports, within our tight deadlines.

We would have no hesitation in using EMA again”