Salary review

Salary revision 2024/25 regarding Saco members 

What do salary-setting talks mean?

Nowadays, all Saco members at SLU (except the doctoral students) have wage-setting talks (LSS). It is the parties common starting point with the support of the central agreement RALS that the model with salary-setting talks shall be applied to all SACO members. It is the employee and manager together who best can assess results and performance based on the content of the work, which is why the salary is best set in a dialogue between them.

SACO's agreements, both centrally and locally, are numberless - agreements in which the parties have not stated the size of the pay settlement or individual pay increases. Therefore, it should not be a situation that the salary-setting manager discusses % or pots in conversations with the employees. You should discuss salary!

If the salary-setting talks end in disagreement, will apply local negotiations. These negotiations are including a review of the dialogue that has been carried out between the manager and employees and the salary level .

The parties (Saco-S and SLU) agrees that in cases where an employee does not want to participate in a salary-setting talk, the head of department/equivalent unilaterally decides the new salary. Failure to respond to the manager's invitation or book the offered opportunity for an interview also counts as if the employee not wanting to participate.

It should also be pointed out that the head of department/equivalent can make a larger adjustment of salaries that are incorrect, but do so "outside the revision".

Doctoral students salary development is governed by the doctoral students' salary-ladder, which is also reviewed and renegotiated at this time of revision. Doctoral students do not have salary-setting talks. Veterinarians doing residential studies are handled as doctoral students.

Salary level

Salary setting shall be used to meet the university's goals, in order to recruit, motivate, develop and retain employees with such skills as are needed in the short and long term.

Salary must be set on a factual basis such as responsibility, the degree of difficulty of the tasks and other requirements associated with the tasks as well as the employee's skills and results in relation to the organisations goals.

The parties agree that salary and salary level should be discussed. Increases in % and "pots" etc. do not belong in the discussions here.

The salary should be individual and differentiated.

For the process to work, a regular dialogue between manager and employees is required.

The parties also agree that the university's financial situation should be taken into account in the work with the salary revisions. Each faculty and department / equivalent must therefore, in the assessment of new salaries, be based on its financial conditions, current salary picture and salary structure.

Salary-setting talks this year

The audit model Salary-setting conversation is based on the manager and employee having two talks and a follow-up after a reflection period.

Talk 1 is a dialogue about results and performance based on the content of the work and about the current salary situation.

Talk 2 is a follow-up conversation where the manager presents his proposal for a new salary. This happens at the earliest after all "Talks 1" have been completed.

If manager and employee agree, the salary is determined in that conversation, in connection with both signing the form Agreement on new salary. If the employee wants to have some time to think about it, he can submit the form within, for example, a week. In some cases, it may be necessary to have a talk 3 to agree on a new salary, but usually it can be enough with a confirmation of how the employee stands.

Saco members have the opportunity to declare their disagreement. The issue of a new salary is then deferred to a negotiation between Saco-S at SLU and the personnel department and head of department/equivalent. In this negotiation, it is tested that the conversations have been carried out according to the agreement of the parties, that the assessment of the work carried out and performance has taken place in a correct way and that there have otherwise been no formal errors.

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The content of the conversations and the necessary preparations

Both the salary-setting talks and the salary talks must constitute a dialogue about the employee's work performance, achieved goals and the current salary situation. The purpose of the talks is for the employee to understand on what grounds the salary is set and what he can do to influence his own salary development. In order for the conversation to be good, it is required that both the employee and the manager have prepared by thinking through how the employee has performed in relation to the activities goals during the past year. The document Criteria for evaluating performance is available to support both during the preparation and during the talk.

The evaluation criteria are intended as a basis for discussion. Depending on the tasks and the goals of the activities, the criteria can be weighted differently, for example, the ability to cooperate can be decisive in some businesses, while initiative and judgment are most important in others. If a department/section decides to weight the criteria or add criteria, employees must be clearly informed of this early in the audit period. Such a change should not only affect some selected employees. The starting point is that all employees must be aware of what their performance will be measured against at the next audit opportunity.

What characterizes a good conversation?

• A mutual dialogue where both parties can speak.
• A clear motivation of the manager for the assessment of salary and performance which is made.
• An opportunity for the employee to submit their views on managers assessment.
• A clear information from the manager what the employee needs to improve  or develop in order to positively influence their salary development.

NOTE! Take the time to think through the salary offer you have received. Do not sign directly during a talk.

The final agreement should be made when the manager has had all his talks at the department.
It gives the employer the opportunity to possibly adjust the salary after the first talks without the total salary picture being locked due to that there are already agreements.

Salary-setting conversations involve a direct dialogue between you as an employee and your salary-setting manager.