As a rule, in most organizations, employees working in the same positions are assigned equal pay. But at the same time, another trend is growing: progressive employers introduce different wages for workers in similar positions. This is the so-called grade system. What are the pros and cons of such an innovation? Does it contribute to the productivity of workers? Does it violate Russian law? We will answer these and other important questions on the topic in the article.
What is it?
A trend is evident: the grading system is gaining momentum in Russia. Its main point is that the size of salaries within an organization is not fixed for employees holding the same positions, working in a similar specialty. The salary in this case is a certain range within which the wages of each worker vary. Its value depends on which grade the employee belongs to. But before considering these issues, it is worth understanding the terminology.
What is a grade? This word is derived from English. grade - "step", "level", "class".
Accordingly, the grader system is the establishment of several degrees of wages for workers in the same specialty / position. At the same time, on each grade (from the starting to the highest), its minimum wage level is set within the overall size.
Rates or grade?
At some points, the system has tangible similarities with the tariff. After all, both of them are based on hierarchical grading of posts within the same organization. The difference is that tariffs are set based on the complexity of the job assignment performed by employees. And grades are a more common system. Here, for the appointment of a salary, a whole range of factors is taken into account - the qualification of the worker, the responsibility of the work, mistakes made, etc.
The grader system contributes to building a career not only through career advancement, but also within its own grade. To achieve a salary increase, you do not need to wait for a promotion. Only a higher grade is needed. When it is received, even lower-level workers can receive a salary more than their own leaders.
This is another significant difference between the grader approach and the tariff approach. At the last position they line up in a strict vertical. You can achieve an increased salary only with promotion on the career ladder.
Legality of the system
Grad - is it legal? To answer this question, we turn to the current Russian legislation.
In Art. 3 of the Labor Code of the Russian Federation, it is said that it is impossible to restrict one’s own employees in rights, to provide them with benefits, based on the origin, gender, language or other qualities of a citizen that are not related to business.
In paragraph 10 of the resolution of the Plenum of the Armed Forces "On the Application by the Courts of the Russian Federation of the Russian Customs Code" No. 2 (2004), it is explained what exactly is meant by domestic law by business qualities. This is the ability to perform their labor functions, based on a range of personal and vocational qualifications.
The following applies to personality:
- Health status.
- Professional experience.
- Available education and so on.
Professional qualifications are the following:
- Profession.
- Specialty.
- Qualification and so on.
Civic attitude
As practice shows, not all workers believe that grades are fair.In particular, it is outrageous that, under similar, identical working conditions, different employees receive different wages. Many workers find this discrimination.
At the same time, legal claims use Art. 22 of the Labor Code. It says that equal work should be paid equally by employers.
Dispute Resolution
But at the same time, one must not forget that the establishment of the official salary is still the right of employers. As an objection to labor disputes, employers use Art. 132 of the Labor Code of the Russian Federation. Salary, according to it, is determined not only by the time of labor and the complexity of the work, but also by the qualification of the employee. This is what allows employers to set the size of the salary for their employees individually.
Also, various amounts of remuneration may be due to excellent experience (which implies excellent business qualities). And this is historically not considered discrimination.
Based on the foregoing, the grader system does not appear to be discriminatory. But it depends on which grade is installed. Valid is a system based on the business qualities of employees.
System advantages
The advantages of the grader system have already been evaluated by the leading global corporations in Western Europe and the USA.
In particular, the following is a plus:
- Each employee is directly interested in improving their work skills.
- The grader system is a good alternative to anti-crisis measures such as staff optimization by reducing it. Grades are regarded by employees not so negatively.
- At its core, the grader system is transparent. Each of the employees clearly and well knows why a colleague receives less / more than the rest of the team.
- Each of the employees clearly sees the prospects of his career growth. The employer can clearly see the value of each worker and his relevance to his position.
Cons of the system
But the introduction of a grader system in an organization leads to a number of minuses:
- Extensive training is needed. In particular, this is the formation of a workers' loyal attitude to the new system, constant analysis, study of existing posts, correlation of the real professional experience of employees with them. Also, in many cases, in order to avoid a subjective approach, when appointing initial salaries, it is necessary to resort to the services of third-party specialists, which leads to corresponding additional expenses.
- If the grader system is implemented with violations, then it itself can turn into a demotivating factor. For example, if employees negatively assess their business qualities.
- If the results of assessing the professional qualities of some employees led to a decrease in their wages, then they, who were not informed in advance about the peculiarities of the grader system, can contact the State Labor Inspectorate and the judiciary, regarding this as discrimination.
System implementation
The transition to a grader system (and its initial establishment during the establishment of the organization) must be correctly formalized in accordance with the law. But the difficulty here is that the Russian Labor Code does not specifically regulate the procedure for securing wages based on grading. However, it can be deduced from the general provisions of labor legislation, understanding of the global grading system.
Most of these systems are installed, developed in the following stages:
- Collection of data on the positions and employees occupying them.
- Analysis of the information collected at the first stage, assessment of business qualities of individual employees, complexity of official tasks, etc. Such an assessment is aimed at identifying factors that somehow influence the receipt of the highest and lowest wages.
- Comprehensive work on the development of a grader system adapted to a specific organization.It starts with the distribution of factors affecting the salary, on a scale of significance. It is important to understand that one and the same factor in relation to different posts may have different significance. Then comes the study of average market salaries in the labor market for specialists in the same positions as company employees. Then, all the collective agreements and contracts operating in the organization are studied. Then, groups of grades and salary ranges for workers are determined.
- All identified factors are checked for discrimination.
- The design of the grader system is taking place.
- The working team gets acquainted with the installed grades system for signature.
- The current salary system is critically evaluated, examined to identify inaccuracies, "dead" factors. Such work is carried out after some time using the grading system.
- Corresponding changes are made to acts aimed at improving the system, ridding it of unnecessary factors, discriminating conditions, and so on.
Establishment of factors
It is important for the employer to compile a correct list of factors affecting the establishment of salaries within the grader system. First of all, he should be guided here by the Russian legislation.
According to Art. 132 of the Labor Code of the Russian Federation, the salary of employees is determined taking into account the following:
- Qualification.
- The complexity of the tasks.
- The amount of time spent on work.
- Quality of work.
It is also important to pay attention to Art. 22 of the Labor Code and paragraph 2 of the Resolution of the Plenum of the Armed Forces No. 2. Factors affecting the size of the salary are also the following:
- Work experience in a specific specialty or position.
- Worker education.
- The health status of the employee.
- Profession, specialty area.
The employer has the right to choose factors that matter in his organization. Usually, their general list is compiled, which includes certain criteria for evaluating the performance of employees:
- The quality of knowledge.
- The duration of the experiment.
- The complexity of the work.
- Level of responsibility.
- The presence of production risk, etc.
Design a new system
The Labor Code of the Russian Federation does not introduce a unified design algorithm for a grader system in an organization. Therefore, employers rely on general provisions of the law on similar issues. The implementation of the system is based on the signing by the head of the relevant local act - the order. The document must contain the following information:
- Details of the employing company, the name of the act, the stamp "I approve", a heading that reflects the essence.
- General provisions: the number of grades, the requirements for each level, the procedure for calculating wages for each of the classes assigned to employees, the conditions for moving to the next level (grade), etc.
- Time of entry into force of the act.
- The procedure for amending the document, the cancellation of its provisions.
- Mark on approval of the act with the trade union or other representative association of workers.
- Applications For example, a table with criteria for each grade, a journal with signatures of employees, indicating their familiarization with the contents of the document, etc.
Payroll procedure
With the introduction of the grader system, the procedure for calculating salaries also changes:
- A questionnaire is compiled with factors affecting the salary, common to all workers.
- Allocation of the highest and lowest salary values for each of the posts.
- Calculation taking into account the identified factors of the maximum and minimum points for workers.
- Dividing each of the scores into intervals. Each such segment is a grade.
- Setting the size of s / n. With regard to the lowest grade, the minimum set of determining factors guarantees the average market salary. And already in relation to each of the subsequent levels, the salary will increase by a certain% or monetary value.
Scoring
The wage level of each employee, respectively, depends on the number of points awarded to him for the totality of certain factors. For example:
- Education (score). Minimum (1), secondary (5), highest (10).
- Experience (score). Up to 6 months (1), 1-3 years (5), more than 5 years (10).
- Responsibility (score). For his own actions (1), solving tactical problems (5), solving strategic problems (10).
- Adverse labor factors (score). Not available (1), reimbursable health risk (5), hazardous working conditions (10).
Other concepts
It is worth separating the system we examined from the following:
- "Grade Hover." This is the name of the car. "Grad Wall Hover" - an SUV equipped with a modern all-wheel drive system, dressed in a body made of high-strength steel. Its engine power is 150 liters. with. "Grad Vol Safe" - another version of the Chinese SUV. It was produced from 2001 to 2009.
- "Grade PV". One of the terms that are used when playing computer games. Indicates the update of the appearance, equipment of the character.
- Part Grade. The name of the electronic catalog of various spare parts for passenger cars.
- S-Grade in Dzerzhinsk. This is one of the window suppliers.
- Upgrade (upgrade). Modernization of computers or software. Also called the improvement of the appearance, technical characteristics of the car.
We have figured out what constitutes a grading system of remuneration, which is being implemented in Russian organizations. You know its pros, cons, stages of implementation, development of a system for accruing salaries, its dependence on scores and other determining factors.