I learned the hard way that you will never be able to remember this time next year, the reasons for the pay review decisions that were made this year.  It's just not possible.  I read somewhere that a daily to-do list is usually 6-12 items long.  So even in a month you will have done something like 120-240 things that will get in the way of you remembering the pay review decisions.  In my view, the best thing to do, is record the decisions that were made so that you can find them next year. 

The difficult thing is deciding what is important.  I work on the basis that the standard stuff should already be recorded

• who the review applies to
• when the review takes place
• who owns the decision making (board, leadership team, managers etc)
• how much the budget is
• how the budget will be distributed
• the rules for pay progression
• the principles that apply

That leaves the non-standard stuff.  Here is what I would record and why:

Exclusions - those groups/individuals who are excluded from the pay review, and why.  This is fairly easy if, for instance, you have groups of staff that are reviewed at different times in the year, or if those people who started within a certain timeframe are excluded.  Be careful though that decisions for exclusion fit within your principles, are objective and are relevant.  For instance, if you don't explicitly have performance related pay, there may be an issue with excluding someone because the manager thinks they perform badly and so shouldn't get an increase - What evidence is there for withholding the increase? Does that fit with your policies and procedures?  Other exclusions might be TUPE staff where their pay is set by a different process, or groups of new starters who were brought in on pay above the usual starting rate.

Partial Awards - those who are not getting the full increase because.....(?)  Again - be sure you have an objective reason.  If you have market-related pay you might be giving those paid above market less of an increase but you will need to make sure you have uptodate evidence to support that decision.   Or, someone is already paid outside their pay scale and so is getting a reduced increase to bring them back in line.  (Don't forget the dratted performance issue!).

Be very aware that unless you have sound, objective reasons, for your exclusions and partial awards, you could be heading down the unlawful withholding of pay route, without realising.

Additional Awards - those who are getting more than the standard, which could be for many reasons:

• market/recruitment allowance - those people whose pay sits outside the pay band for recruitment reasons (again, make sure you have uptodate and relevant market data to support this), and make sure the principle is applied fairly to everyone doing those roles
• additional duties allowance - those who are taking on additional work (not related to their current role) and therefore are being paid more
• secondment allowances - those who are seconded to another role and receive an additional allowance to take them to the relevant pay level for the seconded role
• other allowances - e.g. first aid / tools / cars etc - what is the allowance for, how much is it, when is it reviewed.

Be aware here that additional pay, if not applied consistently, will probably cause other issues. 

In general, I would record who (is affected), how (much is the salary impact), what (is the unusual situation), why (have we made the decision we have), when (did it start/should it stop/will it be reviewed again), where (does the decision sit).

Honestly, whilst it all seems like a bit of a pfaff, doing it now (and as you go along in future) will save you loads of time later.  When I worked in-house I used to fairly regularly refer back to the pay review spreadsheet to find out why someone was paid differently

One other thing - all of these need communicating to the affected employees and you will probably want to get managers involved in that.  Look out for my next post on that specific topic.