Promotion / salary band dispute

[thislittlefishswims]

My organisation has gone through a corporate restructure recently.

During this process we have lost 2 members of our team, and 2 junior members have been promoted to a more senior level.

The role we've been promoted to has an existing salary band which all other members of the team started on when they were promoted to or started in this position with this title we all share.

Now myself and a colleague being promoted are being told that although we will share the same title, and responsibilities as the others we will not be on the same pay band as them.

Meaning we will get a small increase from our current salaries but essentially remain in the pay band from our previous more junior position, which no longer exists due to the restructure.

The difference between the offered increase that the start of the band is about £3000pa.

I guess I'm looking for advice from anyone who has experienced similar or perhaps works in HR?

If there is a preexisting salary band associated with a specific title, should all people working in this capacity not all be on the same pay grade?

What reason have you been given? With the salary structure your employer has, is there an accompanying policy setting out how these decisions are made?

Basically the only reason we have been given is that they have to cut costs.

There has been no new policy that I have been made aware of...

I don’t mean a new policy, I mean existing policy or any documentation around the salary structure. A pay policy, a reward policy, anything around pay?

I'm not sure to be honest, our usual annual pay rewards are performance based. But I've never seen any information regarding promotion related increases.

As far as I have been aware, and in the case of my colleagues, people who've been promoted into this role had their salaries bumped up to the bottom of the existing pay band.

Also, during my interview for this position I was assured that if I received the promotion I would be bumped up to the pay band associated with it.

For what it's worth, my manager thinks it's ridiculous and unfair but HR seem to be calling the shots.

I'm not after information about pay increase, more about where is it set down that this particular role is in x salary band, and is it set down anywhere how it is decided what salary band a role is in?

It's unlikely to be HR. Your salary will come out of your department budget, so it will be no skin off HR's nose for you to be paid in line with the salary band. If your department is trying to cut costs in its budget, that is more likely to be the reason, although there's little point having salary bands with roles assigned to a band, if simple budget pressures are all that is needed to pay someone less than the band minimum.

Each role in our organisation has a performance framework that they use to recruit for a specific position. In that framework it states an associated salary band.

During the interview & consultation process we were given the framework and told the salary band that we would be on should we be offered the role.

Except now they are not honouring that, they are offering us less and citing budget cuts.