Pay Awards

The Pay Awards feature in Every HR allows users to add their pay scales, pay additions and pay deductions to one ‘pay award’. This supersedes Every HR’s previous ‘pay modelling’ functionality and has also been implemented at trust level.

Once a pay award is submitted, all employees will have the values of any associated pay scales, additions or deductions updated in line with any changes you have made. Before submitting your changes, you can save a draft version of your new pay award and preview the changes to check everything looks to be correct.

You can find all these features on the Pay Awards page within the Admin area on Every HR. If you are creating pay awards at trust level, a similar page exists within the MAT Admin area of Trust Overview.

To use pay awards your school or trust must have pay ranges and pay scales set up in Every HR and already be using these to determine employee salaries. For more information on pay scales see our article on setting up pay scales.

You must also have access to the Admin area on Every HR.

Permissions Required:

  • To access Pay Awards you will require the user permission 'Admin - Pay Award Admin'.

  • To complete the setup for Pay Awards you will require 'Pay Award Admin Setup'.

  • To approve payroll changes, or new starters and leavers you must ensure you have the user account permission 'Payroll - Manage Payroll Approvals'.

Please see our article User Permissions for further information on this process.

We are currently aware of an issue with Pay Awards not being able to be saved when a previous pay award or legacy pay model has been set for that date already. This will be rectified soon however, our advice would be to view, then supersede existing pay awards that are showing to be made effective from that date, amend the title and add in the additional scales or additions required.

Setting up approvals for pay awards

Before creating any pay awards, you may want to set up an approvals process to ensure everything is correctly reviewed before being applied. To do this you will need to enable the pay award approval process, and then create approver tags and approval groups.

Approver tags

Approver tags are for identifying different persons of responsibility in the approval process. Tags could include ‘School Business Managers’ or a ‘Headteacher’.

Approval groups

Approval groups dictate the conditions and order of approvals, allowing more junior personnel to approve pay awards in stages as it escalates to final sign off by a more senior person or persons.

How to set up your approvals process

Step 1 - Activating approvals

Go to the ‘Settings’ tab on the Pay Awards page.

Switch the toggle marked ‘Enable Approval Process’ to ‘YES’.

Click ‘Save’ and wait for the page to reload with more options for setting up your approver tags and approver groups.

Step 2 - Creating approver tags

Now click the ‘Add Approver Tag’ button. This will launch a window prompting you to enter the following information:

Give your approver group a name so others can understand its significance.

Click here to add any users to be included in the tag.

Select all relevant users by ticking the checkboxes to the right. Choose ‘Add Selected Approvers’ to add them to the tag. You can create as many approver tags as you would like, as you will then be able to order these using approver groups.

Step 3 - Setting up your approval groups

Next, you can set up and order your approval groups. To do this, click the ‘Add Approval Group’ button and fill out the field in the following window:

  • Add all approver tags you would like included within this approval group.

  • Use this dropdown to determine whether all the tags in the group must approve the Pay Award, or whether approval by any of the tags is enough to progress.

  • This sets the order that the approval groups will be asked for their approval. More junior groups should be listed first, with more senior approvers left for later in the order.

Once you are happy, click ‘Save’ to add your new group to the list. Repeat this for as many groups as you require, and order to your specific needs.

Using pay awards

In this guide we will learn how to create a pay award, model pay scales within it, and include any changes to additions and deductions.

Setting up a new pay award

Step 1 - Add your pay award

Go to the Pay Awards page. Click the ‘Add Pay Award’ button.

Step 2 - Set a name and effective date

On the window that appears enter the following information:

  • Give you pay award a name so it can be easily understood and identified.

  • Choose the date from which you would like your pay award to take effect.

Click the ‘Add Pay Award’ button to load your new pay award.

Step 3 - Add your pay scales

On the Manage Pay Award page for your new pay award, find the ‘Pay Scales’ section. Click the ‘Add Pay Scales’ button.

On the window that appears, select all pay scales you would like to add to your pay award using the checkboxes on the right. Once happy with your selection, click ‘Add Pay Scales’.

Step 4 - Adding additions and deductions

You can also include additions and deductions within a pay award. These must have been set up previously on the ‘Pay Additions & Deductions’ tab on the Settings page for the Employees module and have been set to be ‘Subject To Pay Award’. Only additions made subject to pay awards will be visible when creating a pay award.

Percentage additions cannot be added to a pay award. This is because they are calculated as a percentage of the resulting salary after it has been calculated. There is another setting to ‘auto-supersede’ when a salary changes.

On the Manage Pay Award page for your new pay award, find the section for the type of pay addition or deduction you are looking to add, be this a fixed amount, default amount, or range amount.

Click the relevant ‘Add Pay Additions & Deductions’ button.

On the window that appears, choose any add additions or deductions you would like to include by selecting them with the checkboxes on the right.

Once happy with your selection, click ‘Add Pay Additions & Deductions’ to add them to your pay award.

Modelling pay scales

The pay modelling options within pay awards are very similar to the previous pay modelling functionality on Every HR. Once loaded into your pay award, you can use the checkboxes in the action column to select pay scales and make specific changes to them, such as a percentage increase, fixed amount increase, or recalculation.

Step 1 - Select the pay scales you want to model

Select the pay scales you would like to model using the checkboxes in the action column on the right.

Select the pay scales you would like to model using the checkboxes in the action column on the right.

Step 2 - Choose how you want to model the pay scales

Go to the dropdown menu above and choose from the following options:

  • Percentage Increase Salary: Increase the selected pay scales by a chosen percentage.

  • Fixed Amount Increase Salary: Increase the selected pay scales by a fixed amount.

  • Round Salary: Round the salary up or down to the nearest whole number.

  • Recalculate Daily Rates: Use a divider to recalculate the daily rate of a salary.

  • Recalculate Hourly Rates: Use a divider to recalculate the hourly rate of a salary.

  • Reset to Current: Remove any pay modelling changes from a pay scale.

  • Remove Pay Scales: Remove the pay scale from the pay award.

Step 3 - Creating different models for different pay scales

Note that you can make different changes to different pay scales all at once. For example, you could give certain pay scales a 5% uplift, while others get 2% in the same pay award.

You can save a draft of your pay model using the ‘Save Draft’ button at the bottom of the section, and preview what your new calculations will look like using the ‘Preview Changes’ button.

Modelling additions and deductions

You can use pay awards to model changes to additions and deductions. This could be a percentage increase, fixed amount increase, or rounding.

Step 1 - Select the additions and deductions you want to model

Select the pay scales you would like to model using the checkboxes in the action column on the right.

Step 2 - Choose how you want to model the additions and deductions

Go to the dropdown menu above and choose from the following options:

  • Percentage Increase: Increase the selected additions or deductions by a chosen percentage.

  • Fixed Amount Increase: Increase the selected additions or deductions by a fixed amount.

  • Round: Round the additions or deductions up or down to the nearest whole number.

  • Reset to Current: Remove any modelled changes from any additions or deductions.

  • Linked Roles: View a list of all employees who have this addition or deduction and choose whether the changes do or do not apply to them specifically.

  • Remove: Remove the additions or deductions from the pay award.

Step 3 - Choose specific employees for your changes to apply to

Unlike pay scale changes, changes to additions and deductions can be targeted at specific employees and roles using the ‘Linked Roles’ function.

On the ‘Linked Roles’ window you can see all employees/job roles who have this addition and select whether your changes ‘Apply’ or ‘Do Not Apply’ in each instance using the dropdown.

You can save a draft of your addition or deduction changes using the ‘Save Draft’ button at the bottom of the section, and preview what your new calculations will look like using the ‘Preview Changes’ button.

Saving draft, and submitting your pay award

You can step away from your pay award and return to it at any time. To do this, ensure any modelling calculations have been saved as a draft using the ‘Save Draft’ button at the bottom of each section.

To pick up where you left off, simply head back to the Pay Awards page, locate your pay award and click the pencil icon in the action column on the right.

Once you are happy with your pay award and want to put it live, click ‘Save and Submit’. This will put it live from the effective date you have set, and once all approvers (if set up) have confirmed they are also happy with it.

Approved, applied and superseded pay awards

Once your pay award has been saved and submitted, and approved by all the required users, it will move to the second section on the Pay Awards page. Here, it will be given a status of either ‘Approved’, ‘Applied’, or ‘Superseded’.

An ‘approved’ pay award has been approved by all approver tags, but the service that runs every night has not yet actioned it.

An ‘Approved’ pay award will show as ‘applied’ the following morning, after the service has applied it overnight. ‘Applied’ does not mean the pay award has come into effect already, it means that it will come into effect from the effective date you have set for it.

You will also be able to see ‘applied’ pay awards in an employee’s salary history (as the future, effective date).

Superseding a pay award

You can also supersede a pay award once it has been approved or applied. To do this, click to view an approved or applied pay award from the list using the eye icon.

You will find a red button marked ‘Supersede Pay Award’ at the bottom of the pay award page.