Director of Rewards

About Wells Enterprises

Wells Enterprises, a Ferrero company, is one of the largest ice cream manufacturers in the United States and the maker of well-loved brands including Blue Bunny, Halo Top, Bomb Pop, and Blue-Ribbon Classics and today Trolli, Butterfinger 100grand, Baby Ruth, Nutella and Kinder Bueno. 

Wells Enterprises is a 2 billion company employing 4.000 employees, across 4 production plants and 2 main hub locations, Chicago and Le Mars. Guided by innovation, quality, and a people-first mindset, Wells is committed to delighting consumers and developing exceptional teams.

As part of the Ferrero Group, Wells combines its strong U.S. heritage with Ferrero’s global standards of excellence, offering a unique opportunity to grow within a dynamic, values-driven, and international environment.

At Wells, our people—and their experience—sit at the heart of our ambition. 

The role

In alignment with Group Strategies, Policies, and Guidelines, the Director of Rewards is responsible for designing, building, developing, and delivering Reward Programs that will attract and retain talent that will drive Ferrero’s global objectives across Wells. This is a hands‑on role for a builder who can turn strategy into simple, attractive and understandable programs. The role will report directly to the Senior Director Reward & Personnel Administration & Compliance.

The Opportunity

You will lead the local implementation of our global Rewards strategy, ensuring compensation and benefit programs and tools are competitive and aligned to business priorities. You’ll engage local teams around Wells Ferrero objectives supporting the rewards harmonization within the Ferrero Group. You’ll provide clear and timely business information, tools, communications support/advice and inspiration to the local personnel in Rewards.

What You’ll Do

Reward (Compensation) Program

• Implement the local compensation plan and manage Group Reward programs, in alignment with Group Rewards guidelines.
• Responsible, along with the Sr. Director, for the design, development and deployment of local Reward polices and ad hoc programs such as, but not limited to, Sales Incentives, Short Term Incentives, Retention plans, Benefits plans, 401k plans etc., in alignment with Group Principals.
• Monitor and analyze local market trends and evaluate external competitiveness to drive local rewards strategies. 
• Act as the local focal point for Reward related topics (including systems) providing consultancy and expertise to Group/Local stakeholders and sharing best practices. 
• Contributes to the Reward digitization process.
• Ensure Compliance to all relevant laws and practices including adherence to federal, state and local regulations. Adherence to company Union Contracts. 

Benefits Program

• Implement benefits programs including medical, life insurance, prescription, vision, dental, short/long term disability and retirement plans.
• Ensure competitiveness of plans and develop future benefits packages.
• Responsible for local Benefits Administration.
• Responsible for leave design, implementation and management of leave plans to support business strategy. 
• Broker and vendor management.

Job Evaluation

• Point of reference for the Group in local job evaluation of new and revised positions.
• Audits: evaluate jobs internally to ensure wage and salary rate recommendations are following federal, state and local regulations (FLSA, DOL etc.).
• Responsible for keeping updated job descriptions tracked and ensuring consistency.

Analytics

• Provides detailed analysis on internal and external equity and provides reports as requested by P&O leadership, P&O Business Partners or Line Managers.  
• Contributes to definition and monitoring of KPI’s and the P&O Dashboard, along with assisting with data as requested for negotiations.

Budget Management

• Ensure compliance with the local and Group budget guidelines.
• Apply the proper budget methodology to calculate the merit increase budget to determine/respect the overall salary and benefits spending.
• Works with the Sr. Director to monitor performance and prepare reports to Group and local leadership for budget adherence for Compensation and Benefit programs. 

Expatriated Management

• Implements Group’s expat policy, being the local point of reference for expat-related technical topics.
• Handles compensation related topics with external stakeholders and payroll team.

Knowledge Management and Project Management

• Conducts regular Reward training sessions for P&O to ensure awareness and transparency of Reward policies and practices for both Group and local.
• Carries out Group projects in his/her area of responsibility as well as local projects to ensure proper and consistent implementation. 
• Evaluates the department for consistent improvement opportunities and leads projects to implement initiatives for improvements. 

Human Resources/Team Management

• Accountable for managing people assigned, ensuring a management system based on values, diversity & inclusion, competence development and empowerment.
• Promote proper communication and cascade through the line managers to the teams.
• Recruits, manages, motivates, coaches and develops own team.

#LI-LN1

What You’ll Bring

• 10+ years in Compensation and Benefits administration with 5 years of management experience.
• Bachelor’s degree in human resources or human services field.
• Proficient with Microsoft Office suite: High level utility of Microsoft Excel and PowerPoint required.
• Ability to effectively read, analyze and interpret information, summarize and present data to leadership. 
• Demonstrated success managing cross functionally.
• Experience with educating others on complex concepts.
• Fluency with digital workplace platforms; comfort with data, KPIs, and dashboards.
• Strength in understanding and implementation of regulatory compliance actions.
• Executive presence, excellent writing/storytelling, and strong project leadership across functions and levels.

Director of Reward - Wells Enterprises
Company: Wells Enterprises (a Ferrero company)
Location: Chicago, IL (Hybrid/On site) with periodic travel to key sites
Functional Area: People & Organization (P&O)

The base pay range for this position is $161,980 to $223,654 annually.  Actual compensation will be determined based on experience, qualifications, and other job-related factors permitted by law.  This pay range represents the anticipated salary for this position at this time.