Salary setting – requirement and competence assessment.

Salary is the most important motivation factor

The level of an employee's salary, despite other things often said about what motivates people, is one of the most important motivation factors. At least when it is experienced as unfair and/or the salary setting procedure is perceived as "haphazard" or has become a monotonous routine.

The salary setting principles must be easily understood by employees

Good salary setting must meet following criterions, important for both the employer and the employee:

• The salary shall reflect competence, skills, performance and market value.
  Competence is here defined as the qualities and skills that are essential in a certain professional role. In our system we include following factors in the term competence: formal training, experience, co-operation, problem solving, independence, ability to handle large scope of different assignments, decision-making ability, leadership, ability to handle physical and psychological strain.
  
  
• The salary level shall be based on a comparison between the requirements for the work role and the competence and performance of the employee.
  
  
• The salary shall be in accordance to the present market for the work role / roles and it shall be perceived as fair.

• The salary level increase over time shall follow the employee's increase in competence and performance, as being assessed in a clear and fair way. Different work roles shall be possible to compare against each other with respect to requirements and corresponding salary interval.
  

Salary setting can be coupled more clearly to competence and performance

PsykosyntesForum offers consulting and training within the area of competence assessment and salary setting. We base this on a computerized tool KRU (Pronounced "Crew" but is actually an acronym for the Swedish name Kompetens & Roll- Utveckling, Competence & Role Development). With this tool the salary setting manager can define role- and job descriptions, make competence assessments, set salaries, make listings and statistics.