UNISON members have voted to accept the Huntercombe 2017 Pay and grading scheme.
Voting in the ballot was as follows:
Voting to Accept 63.4%
Voting to Reject 36.6%
Members in GMB and RCN have also voted in favour of the new pay and grading scheme and Huntercombe management have been notified that the joint trade unions have agreed to the scheme.
Job Grade Confirmation & Appeals
You will soon receive a letter from your employer that confirms which grade your current job has been allocated to and which salary point on the new pay scale you will move to. It is important that you take time to review the job description and job evaluation profile that have been used to determine your assimilation to the new pay and grading system. Management should make these available to you.
If you believe that your job is different to the one that has been used for your assimilation you can submit an appeal and ask for it be reassessed. Please note that you must submit your appeal in writing to your HR Business Partner within 10 days off receiving your notification letter. Your local UNISON representative will be able to sup-port you in doing this.
If you decide to submit an appeal you will need to identify the key areas where your current job differs from the job description that has been used to determine your new grade i.e. are there important duties and responsibilities that you carry out that are not in the job evaluation job description.
Back Pay
If you are entitled to a pay increase as a result of moving onto the new pay and grading scheme it will be backdated to 1 April 2017. Hopefully it will be paid in the January payroll. In the event that you submit a grading appeal and the appeal is upheld, you will receive backpay to 1 April 2017 on the increased amount once this is confirmed.
Salary Spine Progression
If you are not at the top of the grade you have been assimilated to, you will be able to move up the spine points in your grade until you move onto the top point.
Before 1 April 2018 your line manager will carry out an appraisal with you to determine whether you have met the requirements to move to the next spine point. The requirements are:
- You have had an annual appraisal – it is the responsibility of management to ensure that this happens and UNISON will support ap-peals from members if progression is denied because management have not held an ap-praisal.
- You must have completed all mandatory and statutory training and any other continuous professional development that you may have agreed with your line manager.
- You must have attended supervision regularlyin line with Company policies.
- You must not have any outstanding perform-ance issues relating to live disciplinary warn-ings, notified competency warnings and live absence management warnings.
In the event your manager advises you that he/she has decided not to approve your progression to the next spine point and you believe that this decision is unfair, you can appeal against it. Your local UNISON representative will be able to ad-vise you about this.
Red Circles
If you are in the unfortunate position of being red circled because your current pay is above the top of the grade that you have been assimilated to, your pay will not increase until the top of the grade has caught up with your current pay level. Members in this situation should discuss with their line management whether training and sup-port can be made available to enable them to be considered for promotion to a suitable higher graded post when one becomes available.
Annual Cost Of Living Increases & RP Allowances
Going forward, each year the joint trade unions – UNISON, GMB and RCN – will conduct pay ne-gotiations with Huntercombe management to seek increases to the pay spine to reflect cost of living increases. Any agreements reached will be effective from 1 April each year.
As part of those negotiations we will also raise with management the level of the RP allowances that staff in some of the Huntercombe sites re-ceive to address recruitment and retention prob-lems. It is important that members keep in touch with their local UNISON representative to ensure that they are as involved as possible in the de-velopment of the annual pay claim