About us
We are probably the longest-serving husband and wife team in reward - and we're still talking!
EBRS is an independent consultancy specialising in practical pay, job evaluation and job profiling, pay structures and job architecture.
We work mainly with housing associations, charities and smaller organisations, helping clients make well-evidenced decisions without making things more complicated than they need to be.
The team is deliberately small. That means our clients work directly with the people doing the analysis, challenging the evidence and developing the recommendations. We get to know the organisation, understand what it is trying to achieve and tailor our approach accordingly.
We combine market data, structured role analysis and many years of reward experience with a healthy dose of professional judgement. Technology helps us work efficiently, but the conclusions and advice remain ours.
Small by design
Being a small specialist consultancy shapes the way we work.
There are no layers of account management or teams being swapped in and out of a project. Karl and Alison remain closely involved from the initial conversation through to the analysis, recommendations and, where needed, implementation.
Between us, we bring complementary skills: strategic and practical reward advice, detailed role assessment and market analysis, employee research and plenty of experience of turning complicated pay issues into workable solutions.
And the photographs? All of the pictures across the site are ours too!
Want to talk through a pay or reward issue?
You’ll speak directly to the consultants who would work on your project.
Meet our consultants
Karl Ellis
Karl is Director and our Lead Consultant.
A Chartered Fellow of the CIPD with 30 years' experience in HR, he has worked extensively in pay and reward across the public, private and not-for-profit sectors.
Before establishing EBRS in 2009, Karl led pay and reward work within the HR consulting arm of Smith & Williamson. He previously worked for Lloyds Banking Group, initially as an HR Business Partner specialising in policies and projects and later coordinating C&G's annual salary review.
Karl particularly enjoys getting underneath a reward problem and finding a solution that works for the organisation. He is equally at home developing pay frameworks and advising leadership teams as he is building the spreadsheets and models that bring the options to life.
If he’s not in the office, Karl is likely to be on a golf course, rummaging in a record shop, on a long walk, or reviewing and photographing a gig somewhere!
Alison Ellis
Alison is Director and our Reward Specialist.
She specialises in job evaluation, job profiling and salary benchmarking, undertaking much of the detailed role assessment and market analysis behind our projects.
Alison also manages employee reward surveys and helps facilitate focus groups, and particularly enjoys getting to know the people and organisations we work with.
She has a Postgraduate Diploma in European Business Administration and previously worked in a range of financial services organisations, giving her a practical understanding of how pay and reward decisions are experienced by employees as well as how they look on a spreadsheet.
Away from work, Alison enjoys spending time with family and friends, live music and keeping up with the latest Zumba routines!