Pay scales and contract positioning

The Pay scales & positioning tab describes, for each fiscal year, the salary classes and their range, then shows where each contract sits within its range. This article explains how to build the pay scale, assign contracts and read the positioning. It is intended for HR and payroll teams.

Before you start #

• The “Pay scales & positioning” permission opens the tab at the Access level (pay scale and indicators); the Execute level allows configuring the pay scale and the grade mapping, assigning contracts and seeing named salaries. By default: Execute for the Administrator, HR Manager and Payroll Manager roles.
• The fiscal year must exist in Multi-year & funding; otherwise the tab asks you to create it there to set its pay scale.

Amount conventions #

Pay scale amounts are annual, gross, at 100%, in the module currency. Each contract’s salary is compared on the same basis:

• fixed salary: the monthly salary at 100% multiplied by the number of salaries paid (13th and 14th included);
• hourly salary: the hourly rate multiplied by the weekly reference hours (those of the position, failing that the department, office or company) and by 52 weeks;
• bonuses are not included.

The tab reads the salaried contracts current on a given date: today for the current fiscal year, 31 December for a past one, 1 January for a future one. External contracts and draft records are not included; a parallel employment counts on its own.

What the page shows #

• Positioning within ranges: for each active class, the minimum, median and maximum band; each dot is a contract, in red if it falls outside the range.
• Outside the range: the contracts to regularise, from the largest gap to the smallest, marked “Below minimum” or “Above maximum”. The named list is reserved for the Execute level; at the Access level, only their number is shown.
• Pay scale: the table of classes (class, reference function, minimum, median, maximum, market, number of steps, headcount).
• An orange box flags contracts that are not counted: with no class, assigned to a class missing from the pay scale, or with no comparable salary.

Building the pay scale #

Adding a class #

1. Choose the fiscal year then click Add a class.
2. Fill in the Code (unique within the fiscal year, 20 characters at most), the Reference function (optional), the Minimum, Median and Maximum (in increasing order) and, if you wish, the Market median.
3. Add steps if needed with Add a step, or Space evenly for evenly spaced steps between the minimum and the maximum. Each step must stay within the range and not be lower than the previous one. Without steps, the class is a simple range.
4. Leave Active class (open to assignments) switched on, then click Save.

The icons on each row of the table edit or delete a class. A class to which contracts are assigned during the fiscal year cannot be deleted: deactivate it instead. A step in use cannot be removed.

Copying a pay scale #

When the fiscal year’s pay scale is empty, Copy another pay scale takes over the pay scale of another fiscal year (the previous year by default). Enter an Increase (%) if needed: each amount (bounds, market median, steps) is increased by that percentage and rounded to the unit. Codes, functions and active state are kept.

Mapping grades #

Grade mapping links each grade of the organisation to a class. Each choice is saved immediately. This mapping is used to pre-fill the assignments of contracts with that grade, from one fiscal year to the next.

Assigning contracts #

1. Click Assignments. The dialog lists contracts with their grade, class, reference salary and position; filter with the search box or Without a class only.
2. Click Assign (or Edit), choose the class, the step and the Effective date, then save. The assignment runs until the next one; an assignment on a date that already has one replaces it.
3. To go faster, Pre-fill from grades proposes a class for contracts with no class whose grade is mapped, and the step whose amount is closest to their salary. Untick those not to write, then click Write N assignment(s).

Pre-filling never touches a contract that is already assigned. It writes on the fiscal year’s reading date (today, 1 January or 31 December). Remove assignment deletes the dated assignment shown: the previous assignment, if any, becomes current again.

In the employee’s profile #

When the module is active, the Salaries page of the profile shows the Pay scale class card for the current year: class, step, reference salary, compa-ratio and position within the range, with the assignment date. It is visible to people who can read this employee’s base salary; the Assign or Edit button only appears at the Execute level of the “Pay scales & positioning” permission.

Saving a base salary outside the class range shows an out-of-scale warning, never a block.

Good to know #

• While the module is active, the salary ranges of grades (organisation reference data) are held by the module’s pay scale: they can no longer be entered there.
• The effective date offered by default is today; to assign in the pay scale of a future fiscal year, choose a date in that year, as the class is checked against the pay scale of the effective date’s year.
• Only active classes are offered for assignment and pre-filling.
• The “Pay scale positioning” system report provides this data in People Analytics.