Salary Negotiations - Procedural Overview

This section provides a summary of the procedures used in the Salary Negotiations System. It is intended as an overview to familiarize you with the functions you will perform.

Initial Procedures

Before using the Salary Negotiation System:

1. Confirm that the last payroll has been processed for the current fiscal year.

2. Generate the Salary Schedule table report option to review the salary schedules currently being used in Human Resources. These schedules provide the basis for setting up pay increases in the Salary Negotiations' Maintain Schedules option.

3. Review rate information for scheduled and non-scheduled employees by running the Employee Payroll Information report. This report provides complete information on employees' payroll settings and pay rates.

Scheduled Increase Procedures

The following procedures apply to employees whose pay rates are determined by their salary schedules. While you can perform the procedures in the order shown, usually you will be switching between options as you set up your increases, analyze the projections, and make adjustments.

1. Use the Maintain Schedules option to define increases for the steps and ranges in the salary schedules in your Human Resources database. The increases, which can be entered as dollar amounts, percentages, or a combination of the two, are stored in negotiation schedules.

2. Develop projections for the new year and up to nine future years using the Scheduled Salary Projections option. This option creates new salary schedules by applying increases from negotiation schedules to existing salary schedules. You can also use this option to simulate the effects of autostepping employees to the next steps on their salary schedules.

3. Run the Auto-Step Employees option to advance selected employees to the next steps on their salary schedules in the "live" Human Resources database. This option applies new salary schedules and calendars to pay rates.

Non-Scheduled Increase Procedures

The following procedures apply to employees whose rates are determined by their Pay Rate records rather than salary schedules. As with scheduled increases, you can enter and process the increases in the order shown, but in most cases you will be using the first two options several times before completing the process.

1. Define pay increases in the Non-Scheduled Salaries option by identifying a job class then entering an increase amount, increase percentage, or a combination of the two.

2. Use the Projections item to calculate and review the increases entered in the Non Scheduled Salaries table. This option simulates the projections without affecting employees' Pay Rate records. The resulting report compares current pay rates with those projected.

3. Use the Increases item to perform the final calculations and apply the increases to Pay Rate records in your "live" Human Resources database. Review the report generated to determine if any changes need to be made to the Pay Rate records.

Final Procedures

The following procedures should be performed after you create your increases in Salary Negotiations and before you process the first payroll of the new year.

1. Use the Job Class table option in Human Resources to assign new salary schedules to the appropriate job classes. If your fiscal and calendar years differ, you can also assign the calendars created in the initial procedures.

2. If your increases are correct, use the Update New Year Rates option in Human Resources to update employees' pay rates with the new salaries and apply new pay dates, paid-to-date balances, and contract limits. This also clears payout information for contracted employees.

3. Use the Employee Pay Rates option in Human Resources to review the information in employees' Pay Rate Information pages. You can also use this option to adjust the pay rates as needed.