Wages, or ‘Wage Scales’ as they are referred to, consist of a grouping of ‘steps’ that an employee can usually progress through when certain specifications have been achieved. e.g. hours worked, length of service, anniversary dates, etc.
Wage Scales are used to hold the exact value of an employee’s wage and to maintain a historical record of the changes to these wages over time.
Scales are linked to units which are usually union agreements. If a scale is the same for more than one unit, the system allows you to apply the scale to both units as separate independent scales. This allows you to later modify one scale without affecting the other.
Wage scales may be created and updated through the Maintain Wage Scales/Steps (ISWS) form.
The scales/steps are created on this form and then applied to jobs, positions, and assignments. Typically, the scale is defined at the job level, and is overridden, as necessary, at the position or assignment level.
For example, a job at step 1 of the scale pays $16.00/hr. However, due to the additional certification level of a new employee, an override is entered on the assignment form and the employee starts at step 3, $18.00/hr.
Steps are typically numeric, from 1….9999. If preferred, however, steps may be created with a more meaningful coding structure, such as “start”, “apprentice”, “1 year”, etc. In this case, the system assigns sequence numbers to the steps in order of their logical order within the scale.
Within a scale, the history of rate changes may be maintained through the use of multiple effective date records. When an agreement is finalized, the scale/step changes may be made far ahead of time and applied to the employee when convenient. Update programs, described later in this manual, apply the rate changes to the job, position, and assignment records of the employees.
