Salary appraisal (OFR/S and SEKO)

Contents on this page:

• Before the salary appraisal
• During the salary appraisal
• Follow-up of the salary review

Staff appraisals are to be followed-up by offering a salary appraisal before the next salary review. As a manager, you are to evaluate your employee’s skills and performance and you must provide well-reasoned explanations for your assessment. It is therefore a very important part of your work to make informed and objective assessments of employee performance and their ability to deliver results.

There is a subjective element to every assessment you make: the more systematic your assessment is, grounded in the general factors that influence salary, the easier it is for the employee to understand.

Below are some things to think about when conducting a salary appraisal.

Before the salary appraisal

Follow up on what was agreed in the previous appraisal. Present concrete facts about the employee’s efforts. Present documentation from the previous meeting you and the employee had. Have you been clear about what the employee was to do to raise their salary?

Go back to the notes from the staff appraisal. What were the goals for the previous period? What agreements were made? Have the goals and agreements been fulfilled? If not, why not? What has been successful? What has been less successful? How do the University’s overall goals impact the employee? Which individual goals must be reached for the next planning period? Give the employee a list of relevant questions before the meeting.

Also make sure that you and the employee have access to the University’s salary policy, factors that influence salary and the documentation that you and the employee completed together during the staff appraisal and that describes the employee’s individual goals. If any aspects are unclear, it is a good idea to discuss these before starting the salary appraisal.

Present information about salaries, salary ranges and what requirements are placed on the role (i.e., what are the requirements of the role, not how the employee has performed their work duties). Information about statistics can be found in Kuben. The HR officer at your faculty or division can provide additional statistics and comparisons, both internal and external.

During the salary appraisal

The aim of the salary appraisal is to be able to discuss the employee’s efforts and other relevant factors that impact salary. The salary appraisal is not a negotiation over a new salary. The best opportunity for the employee to influence their salary is in the daily performance of their work. As a manager, you should aim to ensure that the employee experiences the salary appraisal as objective and constructive, even if they are not satisfied with the assessment as a whole.

Without mentioning money, or specific salary demands, the salary appraisal is a chance for the employee to demonstrate their performance, i.e. how they have carried out their duties as a result of the staff appraisal. The salary appraisal then forms the basis for future salary-setting. What is of interest for the salary appraisal is the whole salary, not the raise in salary.

The salary level should be based on the University’s salary policy, factors that influence salaries and the salary statistics. If the employee is doing a good job and already has a good salary, it is not a given that this is to lead to a high salary increase. As manager, you value the duties an employee carries out and their performance. No employee is guaranteed a particular raise.

Follow-up of the salary review

You are to offer a follow-up meeting for all employees after the salary review in which you, as salary-setting manager, explain the results of the employee’s new salary. This is essential for the link between work results and salary development to be meaningful. A positive and less positive salary development must be justifiable.

The follow-up meeting is not a negotiation. As manager you are the one who sets the salary.