Salary Bands

tonia · March 2005

Hello Forum! It's been a while! Ok.. I was wondering if anyone could share .. if you use salary bands and how often do you update them? Do you review them 1 x a year or every 2 years? When you do review them, what % are you using? Any comments would be great! GO SPRING!!

Don D · March 2005

I assume you're talking about pay grades and their ranges. We do an annual salary/wage survey and update them following that. No way to share all that stuff in an email or here. It's a month long process of labor and love (yeah, right), followed by a month of hibernation. The percent increase that may (or may not) result is based entirely on what the surveys reflect is going on elsewhere in our labor market area. Nothing is automatic. The last maximum increases within the grades was 3.5%. We give NO raises automatically. The maximum percent available can be attained during the performance review process.

Unless one works for the government, salary/wage increases are not automatic.

atrimble · March 2005

... but not all government workers get automatic salary/wage increases. x;-)

-Abby

Don D · April 2005

But, isn't it true that if a class, range, group or category gets a raise, they all get the same raise, regardless of performance? It's been awhile since I was in government.

atrimble · April 2005

Now, I don't want to be caught speaking for all government agencies ( x0:) ), but for us, pay adjustments depend on the reason behind the increase. We have Merit increases for which we evaluate annually, but we do not have COLA increases; our merit increases are based on the individual's performance. On the other hand, every two to three years, we do a wage/salary survey and typically discover we need to make adjustments compared to others in the "industry." We do usually base this type of increase on job class or category, but not pay range, as ranges include not just duties but experience and longevity. If we increase the rate of pay for a class, everyone in that class gets a comparable increase, regardless of performance. So in that sense, you're right.

Of course, we're a local governmental entity without too many taxpayers breathing down our necks at the end of each fiscal year. We pretty much do what we want or need to, within the confines of federally-assigned (and reviewed) budgets and laws. Not like a city or county or State Department of Conservation or...

I have heard about State employees getting automatic 3% pay increases each year, but that about bankrupted the Missouri government system, so the voters changed all that.

-Abby

Dutch2 · March 2005

Our annual increase amount is set by our Board of Directors. We also have a min and max salary range set for each job position. It is my responsibility to review these salary ranges every 2 to 3 years and make a recommendation to the COO and CEO if I feel increases are needed in these ranges.
I search city, county, state and even national COLA numbers and any other information I can find to gather as much good data as possible.
We also have a very active group of HR folks in the county that work very well together and this helps with the porcess.
If you do not have a city or county professional HR group, I suggest you consider making a few calls or emails to your local counter parts and see if they are interested. We officially meet once a quarter for a business lunch with a special topic and maybe a speaker and have special meetings if needed. Such as when a new million sq. ft distribution center came to town not to long ago. Plus we do not hestitate to contact one another when special circumstances
come up. Couple of us got together a few months back and helped the Chamber of Commerce rewrite their employee handbook.
Good luck...

AJ SPHR · April 2005

We use salary bands instead of the traditional salary grading structures and we review and update them annually. We gather competitive market data for structure adjustments and also look at average pay for jobs within the bands as compared to market to see if any additional adjustments need to be made. We increased our bands 2.9% for 2005.

Salary Bands

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