APUC

NorthgateArinso Reward Solutions create a fair and transparent job and pay structure at APUC (Advanced Procurement for Universities and Colleges) in Scotland.

The company

APUC (Advanced Procurement for Universities and Colleges) Limited is the procurement centre of expertise for Scotland’s universities and colleges. APUC’s mission is to support the embedding and consistent application of good procurement practice within Scotland’s further and higher education institutions, and to increase significantly the sustainable value for money from institutions’ procurement expenditure through the provision of advanced procurement services.

The challenge

APUC had identified that the organisation lacked a clear structure for people to see how their careers and salary could develop. The company wanted to make sure that a visibly consistent and fair job and pay structure was in place.

The solution

In order to support the planned job evaluation and pay modelling exercises, APUC looked at a number of products and NorthgateArinso’s Compensate Job Evaluation and Pay Modeller solutions seemed most suitable. Both solutions are the latest versions of NorthgateArinso's proven job evaluation and pay modelling technology that draws on 30 years’ experience of delivering pay and reward solutions.

The benefits
• Fairness and transparency of the job evaluation and pay modelling processes.
• Comprehensive reporting capability to support transparency and decision making.
• A comprehensive suite of software solutions and accompanying consultancy, training and helpdesk support for a smooth process.

A fair and transparent job evaluation process

The evaluation exercise involved every employee at APUC, with most of them holding senior roles as procurement professionals. One of the first steps in the process was a review of job descriptions.

“We felt that staff would very likely be routinely carrying out tasks that weren’t included in their job descriptions,” explains Dee Denholm, APUC’s HR Manager. “It was also likely that some tasks included in a job description weren’t in fact being carried out by the post holder, for example if tasks had evolved onto other people.

“So we arranged for all post holders with the same job title to meet as groups with their line managers. At the meetings, the actual job duties were reviewed against the job description, enabling us to update the job descriptions.

“It worked very well to interview post holders in groups as it meant there could be discussion to reach a consensus, rather than getting different results for the same post.”

With the job descriptions up to date, the rest of the evaluation process could take place. This included forming an evaluation panel with representatives from across the company, all of whom received training from NorthgateArinso on Compensate Job Evaluation and the job evaluation process in general.

The evaluation process assigned scores to each role that accurately reflected the demands of roles and their value to the organisation. It was important to take subjectivity out of the evaluation process as far as possible, so evidence from the job descriptions was provided for each aspect of the evaluation. This ensured that accurate information was fed into Compensate Job Evaluation and gave the panel confidence that the results would be robust.

Compensate Job Evaluation's questionnaires helped to ensure that factual rather than subjective information was input, as Dee explains: “Compensate Job Evaluation gave us a framework for the evaluation process. It meant that information couldn’t be skipped and ensured that the right questions were asked to gather information on all the factors that were part of the evaluation process.

“The reporting tool within Compensate Job Evaluation was another important feature. It allowed us to validate all the answers and prompted us to check any apparent discrepancies in the results.

“The reporting tool also enabled us to provide comprehensive information to our Chief Executive, with the results clearly shown. He asked lots of questions and we were able to answer all of them because we had excellent information available, and because we had confidence in the result of what had been a stringent process.”

The reporting capability of Compensate Job Evaluation also meant that every employee could see their job grade in the new structure, as well as how their job descriptions had been used for the evaluation.

Indeed, when the results of the evaluation were communicated to staff most of the queries received were about what the factors meant, rather than questioning the accuracy or fairness.

Pay modelling

Once the job evaluation process was complete, the next step was to carry out a pay modelling exercise. The APUC team assessed the value of the contribution of each role to the company and used NorthgateArinso’s Pay Modeller solution to create a new pay grade structure.

Pay Modeller is a much more efficient alternative to using spreadsheets, which has traditionally been the way to carry out pay modelling exercises. It is a sophisticated tool that incorporates detailed financial forecasting functions, letting users create ‘what if’ scenarios to assess the impact of different scenarios.

Dee says: “Pay Modeller proved to be a powerful tool that enabled us to create a proposed new grading structure that we could present to our pay policy group for approval. It provided us with plenty of modelling options so we could instantly assess the cost implications of each scenario. Once again, it supported the decision making process and provided excellent transparency.”

Continuing value and support

Job evaluation and pay modelling shouldn’t be one-off exercises of course, and APUC will continue to review their job and pay structures.

“We will be using Compensate Job Evaluation and Pay Modeller on an ongoing basis,” says Dee. “Very soon after the initial exercises were completed we used Compensate Job Evaluation when creating two new posts. We will continue to have confidence in the fairness of our job structure.

“We will no doubt continue also to draw on support from NorthgateArinso because one of things we especially liked about using both Compensate Job Evaluation and Pay Modeller was the service we received. The blend of consultancy, training and helpdesk support was excellent and helped us to get the most from the solutions - and from the job evaluation and pay modelling processes themselves.”

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