Salary-setting appraisal for Saco members and non-organised employees

Content on this page:

• Determining and justifying the new salary
• Staff appraisal is a prerequisite for a fair salary-setting appraisal
• Assessing skills and performance – and justifying your judgement
• Preparing for the salary-setting appraisal
• Conducting the salary-setting appraisal
• Salary agreement on new salary in Primula
• Enhanced dialogue

Determining and justifying the new salary

For those of your employees who are members of Saco-S or are unorganised (i.e. do not belong to any of the contractual organisations Saco-S, OFR/S or Seko), new salaries are determined through so-called salary-setting appraisals.

In the appraisal, you as a manager conduct a dialogue with the employee about their performance, results and salary. You must justify the new salary in relation to job content and performance, in relation to the organisation's objectives.

Depending on how the dialogue is conducted, the salary review may consist of one or more discussions. For example, you can divide the dialogue into a conversation about job content, performance and results and a conversation in which you present and justify the employee's new salary.

Staff appraisal is a prerequisite for a fair salary-setting appraisal

In the appraisal, the objectives to be achieved by the employee during the financial year are decided and evaluated in the appraisal interview. Therefore, it is important that what is decided in the appraisal is documented. 

The documentation makes it easier for you to justify the new salary to the employee, as you have the opportunity to link performance and results to set goals and reduce the risk of misunderstandings between you and the employee.

Read more about staff appraisals

Assessing skills and performance – and justifying your judgement

As a manager, you should evaluate the employee's skills and performance and justify your judgement. It is important to make well-founded and objective assessments of the employee's work efforts and ability to achieve results.

Systematic assessment based on the factors influencing salary

There are subjective elements in every assessment, but the more systematically you make your assessment based on the common salary influencing factors, the more likely it is that the employee understands how you have reasoned and assessed his or her performance. 

Read more about salary influencing factors

Preparing for a salary-setting appraisal

Follow up on what you and your employee have agreed on

This applies to staff appraisals as well as other regular dialogues. Produce concrete facts about the employee's efforts and documentation from previous meetings with the employee. Have you been clear about what the employee should do to increase their salary? Go back to the documentation from the staff appraisal.  

• What were the objectives in the previous period?
• What agreements were made? Have objectives and agreements been achieved? If not, why not?
• What has worked well? What has worked less well?
• How do the overall objectives of the university affect the employee?
• What individual objectives need to be achieved for the coming planning period?

Give the employee a list of relevant questions before the meeting.

Salary policy programme, factors affecting salary and documentation from the staff appraisal

• Before the meeting, make sure that you and the employee have access to the University´s salary policy programme, salary influencing factors and the documentation from the staff appraisal that describes the employee's individual goals.
• If there are any uncertainties, it is a good idea to discuss them before the meeting.

Data on salary, salary range and requirements of the position

• Obtain information on salary, salary range and the requirements of the position itself. 

Information on statistics can be found, for example, in the Cube. Your organisation's HR function can provide additional statistics (both internal and external) and comparisons. 

Salary structure and salary ranges

• Check with your HR function so that you know whether the university wishes to make any changes to the pay structure, for example, in the current salary review.
• Report to your HR function if you see that any of your employees or groups of employees have a salary position that is not appropriate in relation to their work content. 

Conducting the salary-setting appraisal

The salary-setting appraisal is not a salary negotiation. It is a meeting conducted in the form of a dialogue where the purpose is to discuss and evaluate your employee's work content and performance, and which is an evaluation of the performance review.

Keep in mind that you should not talk about an increase in SEK or per cent, but that it is the salary in relation to work tasks, performance and salary level that is of interest. If the employee does a good job and already has a good salary, it is not self-evident that this should lead to a high salary increase.

The employee's ability to influence the salary

The employee's ability to influence their salary is based on their performance in their daily work, and it is in the ongoing dialogue with you as a manager that they have the opportunity to show their performance – that is, how they have performed the tasks that you agreed in the performance review should be performed.

As a manager, you should aim for the employee to be satisfied with the salary setting dialogue even if they are not satisfied with their new salary or the salary level as such.

Salary level for the new salary

The salary level shall be based on the University´s salary policy programme, the salary policy factors and the desired salary level for Lund University. No employee is guaranteed a certain increase.

For the link between work performance and salary development to have an impact, it is important to be able to justify the motives behind the salary level. It must be possible to explain both favourable and less favourable salary development. It is you as a manager who evaluates job content and performance.

Read more about salary setting

Salary agreement on new salary in Primula  

After completing the salary setting interview (with employees who are members of Saco-S and with non-organised employees), you as a manager must send a digital salary agreement on the new salary to the employee, through the Primula salary setting module.

The employee sees their salary agreement in Primula under "My page" and the heading Salary agreement. The salary agreement contains information about the new full-time salary and when it applies from.

Members of Saco-S must respond to their wage agreements by clicking "Approve" or "Disagree". If the employee does not agree with the wage setting, a comment/explanation must be given in order for the agreement to be sent off. If the employee for some reason cannot respond to his/her salary agreement through Primula, the manager or administrator can respond for the employee by agreement. It is logged in the system who has responded for the employee.

Employees who are unorganised do not have the opportunity to respond to their salary agreements, as they are information about the manager's salary setting.

Enhanced dialogue

Enhanced dialogue means that the manager and employee meet again together with a representative of Saco-S and HR.

The purpose is to reach a consensus on the process and, if necessary, to help the parties, manager and employee, to a better dialogue. The aim is not to change the salary announced by the salary-setting manager. Therefore, an enhanced conversation is guided by the parties' desire for a better dialogue, and should not be used as an attempt to influence salary setting.

Enhanced dialogue can only be offered to members of Saco-S, not to unorganised employees.