Options if employer changes job description?

[CheeseandTrees]

My employer has sent our team updated job descriptions that have increased the level of responsibility but not our pay. What options do we now have?

They say there is a two week consultation period where we can raise concerns but based on every other change they've made, I'm sure concerns will be dismissed and they'll go ahead with whatever they want.

It depends on what system your employer uses to determine pay - a formal job evaluation/grading system, job families, spot rates etc. But with any of these it's perfectly possible that responsibilities increase but not pay, particularly if it's low level/basic work that's been added or a higher volume of work rather than higher complexity or accountability, or a different type of work but that can be done by someone with the same skills/experience/qualifications. Most job evaluation systems work on some kind of points/band based system and have variation within each band, so for instance if 'Band 1' is 50-100 points you could get jobs at either end of that spectrum that still fall into 'Band 1'. And a job that was initially Band 1 with say 51 points could have quite a bit added but still score only 99 points so still be Band 1. So it really depends on the specifics of what it is they are changing and why, and how that fits into the overall context of your job e.g. if 95% of your role is exactly the same but they've added some responsibilities for the other 5% that's different to the other way around. In theory if these changes are really significant such that it would be a fundamental change to your contract of employment then your consent to make the changes is needed or it could potentially be an unfair dismissal situation but in reality the law does recognize that businesses/employers need to reorganise and do things differently from time to time and so these cases can be hard to win and I personally wouldn't rush to be trying to take legal action. Plus of course if you or your colleagues have been employed less than 2 years you really have very little recourse anyway.

Are you in a union - if so they would be my first port of call for advice. Look on your work intranet or handbook if you have one for information about how pay and grading are determined and base your response on this. I wouldn't be so certain that complaints will be totally dismissed since they are bothering with a consultation period the whole point of which is to at least respond to concerns. You may for instance be able to request a formal/HR review of the new job description's grading and pay, or at least a written explanation of why they don't believe the pay should change. It might be useful before you put any kind of response in to think about what outcome you would like to achieve and how best to get there e.g. is it just higher pay you want or is it reassurance/support on how to undertake the new tasks or a restructure/reword of how they've expressed the new responsibilities (would it make more sense for these new responsibilities to sit with just one or two team members rather than being spread amongst everyone in which case you might have a better argument that those one or two should have a pay rise to compensate, OR if it's more basic/low level tasks that are the new things would it make more sense to hire a lower level/assistant type person to do them - basically try and think of solutions, if your only desired outcome is for nothing to change then you're likely on a hiding to nothing.

As above - there is no legal correlation between pay and reponsiblities, so unless an employer has their own system, they can change job descriptions and not pay. In the end, if you think you can get better pay for the responsibilities, then you leave and get it. Theoretically, if you had two years employment you could hold out and claim unfair dismissal if they enforced the change. But I doubt that you would win. Job descriptions are rarely contractual, there are always easy defences around the needs of the business, and in the final analysis a tribunal cannot say that XXX tasks = YYY pay because they have no say in setting pay for work over and above minimum wage claims. So I wouldn't be holding out any hope for a tribunal / other legal claim on this - and if you don't have a union / the union can't convince them otherwise, the general answer will be suck it up, get another job, or take industrial action to support your position.

Thank you both. I assumed that would be the case. I've been there for 6 years and it's an increase in responsibility which previously sat with more qualified colleagues. Essentially the buck will now stop with us rather than them. While we do have bands, I don't think there's a clear cut definition of the grades. People doing a similar type of job in a different department were moved up a band last year without any changes to job descriptions. Unfortunately our team is much much bigger and I don't think they'd be prepared to lose that much money. I'll try to think of solutions.