Any University HR people around - I have a question about job offer negotiation?

[NigelDebster]

I have been offered a non-academic job at a University. I would be moving from contracting to permanent so am taking quite a hit on the pay although the pension is good. I wanted to negotiate a 4 day week on the same pay as a way of offsetting the lower salary but have been told they can only offer compressed hours which doesn't favour me as they woud still be getting the same hours. I was also told there was no possibility of increasing the annual leave from 25 days.

I wanted to ask if there is ever any leeway on benefits in the HE sector or is it all agreed with unions and therefore non-negotiable.

Working in HE I haven't seen increased leave or reduced hours at same pay being given. Re annual leave most also have extra days of closure so that might count as additional leave to you.

I am not in HR by the way but manage a team.

Universities are notoriously tight on all pay except at top management level. There's wiggle room in the private sector but not so much in education. Could you use similar skills in a business that has more leeway on pay?

No way you'd get additional annual leave - that wouldn't be fair to others (and in a unionised environment no one would dare - rightly so imo).

Clearly there's flexibility over working pattern, plus the decent pension.

All you can do is argue to be placed at a higher salary spine point due to your experience (which is the same thing as asking for the same salary for a reduced FTE - and if they've said no to that then they've made their best offer).

OP You do understand that contractors get paid more to offset lack of job security and access to employer pension contributions? You're being completely unrealistic to expect a university employer to compensate you for stepping into a permanent salaried role. As a Pp said, your best bet is to ask for a higher spine point in recognition of the skills/experience you can bring to the organisation.

The lack of flexibility isn't so much about union agreements, they will just be taking a commercial decision as to what you're worth.

You 100% won't get additional leave. That would cause carnage with the unions.

You could negotiate a spine point or 2 up maybe, saying you have the experience as you have been doing the role. You have to understand that temp roles are paid a premium as its not the same T&Cs as a permanent role.

Thanks all for the comments. Of course I totally understand the salary would be nowhere near what I can earn as a contractor which is why my question was about flexibility around other benefits. I've been offered the top of the scale so no room for manoeuvre there either.

You won't get anything else on the benefits. It is so unionised that it would honestly cause a massive issue if people were to find out. Where I work, people on different grades get different holidays and that has caused massive issues so they are harmonising it all (rightly so!) If the unions found out they were offering additional holiday to one member of staff they would demand it for all.

You’re becoming salaried but thought you could be paid 4 days for the same pay! Wow. Unless you are in 1 of about 4 institutions, most of the sector is tightening its belt significantly. Very occasionally there is a market supplement added to very specialised roles if they have struggled to recruit. You can often buy additional leave. Is your leave allowance inclusive of bank holidays and closure days because if so it is a little bit low for the sector.

I’ve always worked at unis, and done recruitment, and no way you’ll get this. Occasionally they will pay a market supplement but for very specialist and very hard to fill roles - usually top academics who will bring in grants, attract students etc. you’ll get closure days on top of AL, usually 6-7 a day year around Easter and Christmas. The sector is struggling right now. You need to go to private sector if you want to negotiate like this.

The point is that the real value of salary + ni contributions + pension + generous sick pay and death-in-service policies + job security means that the total value of your reward for service is actually pretty similar to the headline pay rate you are getting as a contractor, without any of these extra concessions you are trying to negotiate.

Jobs in HE have gone through a rigorous process to ensure equal pay for work of equal value. Aside from some jobs getting a market scarcity weighting if it's simply impossible to recruit to the job without a higher pay grade, you cannot negotiate a higher salary unless you redefine the job to have a higher level of responsibility - and that's not usually possible because the university requires someone to do the job in the job description, not a significantly different job that could be assessed for a higher pay grade.

From my knowledge of academia I would take the compressed hours whilst knowing that you'll be unlikely to need to do them. No one monitors working hours at my Uni , plenty work from home 2-3 day/week. You could easily do normal hours on the 4 days & no one would know.

Not a HR person bit worked in HE for a decade.

In my experience they are generally pretty inflexible about stuff like this. The budget and weighting of workload/ responsibilities will have probably been approved by a couple of layers of management before it was even seen by HR.