To never want to work in a job with fixed payscales

[Middlelanehogger]

I read threads on here about (mostly government/civil service/adjacent) jobs with fixed payscales, like teachers, nurses, NHS admins, civil service etc.

I work in the private sector where you get paid depending on what you personally do in your role. (And yes, a bit based on what you personally asked your boss for in the negotiations, but at least it's marginally in your control.)

I just can't comprehend how people can deal with it. Just read a post about how Band Whatever senior teachers only get £10k more than juniors, why, "because that's the banding". So you either suck it up or quit, there's no "ask for a £10k pay rise" or however much would make it worth it to you?! This isn't how you get to market clearing rates!

I mean yes, if there is option C where it's a banded job and you both get paid £60k then obviously take that one.

But if a woman's goal is to minimise the gender pay gap she should take option A over option B

As people have said you've overestimated how much more you're likely to be paid in a non-banded job. But also you're ignoring that pay is part of a culture rather than standalone. People don't necessarily chose where they work based on the presence or absence of payscale but it's part of a wider package that does determine where they feel most comfortable. A lot of people (including me) would rather work somewhere that values equality and transparency, which they might see as encouraging a more communal and collaborative approach. A lot of other people would be much more individualistic and want somewhere that rewards and encourages competition between staff, which they might see as encouraging individual excellence. Neither is inherently right or wrong. Ultimately both systems have pros and cons, which is why both private and public use a mixture of both in practice. Very few private companies have their lowest paid staff negotiate their own salary (minimum wage is a pay band!). Most public sector employers do have a different system with more discretion for their very most senior employees.

This was the same in my old job, don't suppose the organisation starts with I by any chance?

It doesn’t, but I wonder if that organisation was also an ALB?

That was to @1offnamechange

Just like anyone else. You keep an eye out for higher banding jobs and go for them.

I started in the NHS at band 4 when I was 24, hopped up to band 5 after six months, then to band 6 two years later and band 7 a year after that. Been a band 7 for several years now and it's looking unlikely I'll ever get to an 8 as those aren't the sorts of roles I fancy doing but I'm happy enough with sitting at the top of a band 7 on (soon to be) 50k doing a job I adore.

And if the person next to me isn't doing their job to the standard expected, that's between them and their manager to resolve.

I much prefer paybands. I'm happy knowing that everyone doing the same job with the same tasks and required knowledge is paid the same. That nobody is paid extra just because they had the confidence or know how to ask for more in the interview.

Or is the right race, or is attractive, or isn’t old, or went to the right school, let’s face it extra pay often is a result of bias and favouritism not “confidence”

yes it was! I was part of a graduate scheme, onboarding took about 6 months in total (between job offer and actual start date, the application part was 8 months more with about 5 different stages!), which seemed ridiculous to me at the time but after I'd worked there for a while actually felt quite fast compared to some other processes...and after all that loads of people in my cohort dropped out the first day once it was revealed that in all those 14 months nobody had ever got around to mentioning that those incremental scales they'd advertised the whole way through were non-achievable and you'd stay on the bottom entry point for as long as you were in that role!

People on here always recommend the CS and ALM and there are a lot of advantages but it's not the amazing fair employment beacon it thinks it is.

This is also true of most of the public sector. Where I work pay is so tight now that they fill roles with apprentices, doing the job of a qualified, experienced member of staff under the guise of 'training them up'. So the remaining experienced staff have no support professionally as they're required to train up apprentices that should be their peers sharing the workload. Most of these apprentice contracts are 18 months so they leave after that as there's no permanent vacancy for them. And the cycle begins again. But its cheap, so councils like it.

I recently interviewed for a post on the civil service, and passed the interview at the highest grade advertised (not narrowly either). But it was part of a brigaded campaign and someone else scored higher than me at the higher grade. So they offered me the top of the grade below instead - having already ascertained that I was definitely skilled and experienced enough to do the higher grade version of the role.

That is definitely trying to cheap out and underpay someone. I know (from previous experience in too low a grade in the same department) that they’d give me the higher grade work anyway because that’s what happens. And I’d end up stuck at the lower grade, knowing I was underpaid, and pissed off with them about it all.

As it is my current pay is already at the top of the higher grade range for that department, and I was only really interested in gaining the flexitime and improving my pension over the crappy private sector nonsense I have in this job. But it’s not worth a very substantial pay cut to know they’re underpaying me.

Nonsense really. I said they could put me on the waiting list but, frankly, they should just rank the people they want (they obviously wanted me more than the candidates who passed at the lower grade or they wouldn’t have asked me first) and pay them what at the level they’re working at.

This kind of crap is widespread in the civil service in my experience.

There is an approximate 11% gender pay gap in the CS, it's higher in some departments. This is lower than UK-wide gender pay gap of approx 15%. So whilst banding might help to ensure equity of pay (I.e. People doing the same job being paid the same regardless of gender), it doesn't eradicate this issue of the gender pay gap. This is because men are still likely to be more represented in the higher paying jobs on the CS and get the higher bonuses.

worse than that my private sector job is consultancy and all the clients are public sector.

I know the day rate my company charges for me. And it’s more than twice what the department would be paying a civil servant at the relevant grade. The department I’m in - and the one that offered me the grade below - are literally awash with consultants and contractors doing jobs that should be done by actual civil servants. It’s not time-limited and when one consultant or contractor finishes a new one starts - a pattern that repeats over years.

It’s such an incredible waste of public money to operate in this way.

@ThinksALot its also because men are often more able to keep switching jobs than women.

Apart from anything else applying for civil service jobs takes ages and every single job seems to ask for idiosyncratic stuff. The processes are ridiculous and mean that people have to learn how to successfully apply for civil service jobs as a unique skill - and then relearn it for the next grade again.

People with caring responsibilities are less likely to have the time to spend on this crap, and are more likely to be women.

And it’s more than twice what the department

actually, it’s very nearly 3 times. and that’s discounted because they’ve contracted me for a year. Sure, they would have the on-costs and don’t pay for my holidays at all, but that wouldn’t triple the civil service salary. Or even close to it.

I’m at the top end of the main pay scale in teaching so am stuck unless I apply for upper pay threshold which I don’t want to do as it will mean more responsibility and evidence gathering to prove I’ve met the criteria. And even then it’s at the discretion of the headteacher to see if I get it. However I know that’s my choice. I’d rather have a work/life balance. When I was abroad at international schools pay scales weren’t fixed so I was paid actually according to my years of experience rather than a fixed pay scale which was vastly more than the UK. Like teaching in UK schools but the last 2 year international job I had enabled me to get my deposit for my flat in London which I never would have got had I done continuous UK teaching. I bought on my own without help from family etc.

Plus only just realised how good the teachers pension is - I’m determined to keep paying in for the next ten years or more because I missed years whilst I was abroad.

But lots do want to move into these roles. It is much easier to recruit a deputy head than a classroom teacher at the moment.

But teachers and nurses increase their pay (sometimes significantly) by taking on extra responsibility. A mainscale teacher with 20 years experience is ultimately doing the same job, with the same challenges, level of responsibility and competencies required as one with 5 years experience - the pay differential between the two people doesn’t need to be over £10k.

True but I don't really care about the difference between a teacher with 20 years vs 5 years experience (this kind of tenure-based banding is very strange to me) but in principle, the difference between a brilliant teacher and a mediocre one is worth more than £10k to me, yes.

What criteria do private schools use to determine which teachers to hire?

Ok so it’s performance that’s your issue not longevity, which is what your opening post talked about? Because junior/senior implies longevity.

“I just can't comprehend how people can deal with it. Just read a post about how Band Whatever senior teachers only get £10k more than juniors, why, "because that's the banding".”

With performance it has a ceiling though. If I’m doing the same job with the same level of responsibility as someone else, even if I’m exceptional at my job and they’re adequate, there’s only so much extra pay that difference merits, and I don’t agree that should be over £10k. I could be the best local government accountancy assistant in the world, but it doesn’t mean my value to the organisation I work for is twice that of an adequate local government accountancy assistant because ultimately we’re doing the same job even if one is doing it better than the other.

I’m not sure teachers in private schools have significantly better teaching abilities, they just have different cohorts and different (fewer) challenges to deal with.

What criteria do private schools use to determine which teachers to hire?

Friend has just got a job at a top private school. They have pay bands, and there are extra payments for things like being head of department or housemaster/mistress. Plus, on top of a very nice salary (my background is IT in big corporates, so far from the breadline,) there's free accommodation. The hiring criteria was qualifications and experience. While you don't have to have a BEd or PGCE in the private sector, they do count.

I think what really counts is transparency, on both pay and bonuses. Public sector pay bands do help with that, but there's no reason why private sector couldn't be transparent about their pay. It'd be the quickest way to reduce gender pay gaps. There's plenty of evidence that negotiating pay tends to work against women and minorities, and the private sector employers who are aware of how poor their pay gaps are don't want to make the details public.

The other thing thst I think would help with progression is having technical and managerial streams, be it teaching, nursing, IT or any other field. In far too many industries, people come in for their technical abilities, but get to a point where the only way to progress is to go managerial - and that doesn't suit everyone. Being good at teaching or programming or whatever doesn't automatically make you a good manager. Some organisations now have separate paths which mean you can progress while remaining in the job for which you were originally employed.

I know some people in investment banking where pay often depends on what the last person in your job was on. If they were on 100k plus that is what they got even if they had less/different experience because they didn’t want to lose the budget - but that often meant if you didn’t receive an ‘excellent’ development review the following year you were sacked.