What are grades and pay spines?

Salary grades are used by many organizations to help managers manage employees and establish appropriate pay increases for existing employees, while maintaining equity among the jobs in the company. Salary grades provide a structure for compensating employees and managing the payroll.

A pay spine is a step within a compensation system that defines the amount of pay an employee will receive. These types of systems of remuneration are normally associated with Local Authorities, Health Services and Civil Service, although these can also be used if your organisation has a defined pay structure in place.

Grades within Cintra iQ can be either stand alone or linked via Pay Spines or Grade Additions to actual payments.

Name	Description
Stand Alone Grades	Stand Alone Grades are used to group types of staff without associating a monetary value to the grade, although it may be that the grade would be within a salary range. Note: All managers may be a grade A, while assistants may be a grade B. In this case, the business would be able to report on all managers across the business, and if managers fell into a salary bracket of between 30K and 50K, then the business would have a rough idea of the expected outlay on managers.
Pay Spines	Pay Spines are based upon a value for a point and each grade can represent either one or more points. Example: Common examples can be found within Local Authorities, the Health Service, and the Civil Service. An example would be where a Grade A is associated to a single point 5, Grade B to points 3 to 4 and Grade C to points 1 to 4, where the points go up in value: Point 1 = 15000 Point 2 = 15750 Point 3 = 16250 Point 4 = 16999 Point 5 = 17500 This could allow progressive upward movement dependant upon the rules, and the Grade Spine range.
Spine Point Additions	Spine Point Additions are payments that can be attached to an individual spine point on a payslip. Once the grade has been attached to the employee, then that employee automatically derives these values. Once the spine point is attached to an employee, then the employee automatically attracts these values. For more information attaching spine points to employees, see How do I assign spine points to posts?

Name

Description

Stand Alone Grades

Stand Alone Grades are used to group types of staff without associating a monetary value to the grade, although it may be that the grade would be within a salary range.

Note: All managers may be a grade A, while assistants may be a grade B. In this case, the business would be able to report on all managers across the business, and if managers fell into a salary bracket of between 30K and 50K, then the business would have a rough idea of the expected outlay on managers.

Pay Spines

Pay Spines are based upon a value for a point and each grade can represent either one or more points.

Example: Common examples can be found within Local Authorities, the Health Service, and the Civil Service. An example would be where a Grade A is associated to a single point 5, Grade B to points 3 to 4 and Grade C to points 1 to 4, where the points go up in value: Point 1 = 15000 Point 2 = 15750 Point 3 = 16250 Point 4 = 16999 Point 5 = 17500

This could allow progressive upward movement dependant upon the rules, and the Grade Spine range.

Spine Point Additions

Spine Point Additions are payments that can be attached to an individual spine point on a payslip.
Once the grade has been attached to the employee, then that employee automatically derives these values.
Once the spine point is attached to an employee, then the employee automatically attracts these values. For more information attaching spine points to employees, see How do I assign spine points to posts?

Documentation Index

What are grades and pay spines?