Samir Delaney· Senior Compensation Analyst, Silverline Media
Posted in Compensation ·
We introduced pay for skills for maintenance technicians at a food manufacturer in the Netherlands, about 1,400 employees across three sites. The grades stayed. Inside grades 5 to 7 we added up to four skill blocks, each worth 2.5% of the grade midpoint, paid as a separate allowance.
What held: multi-skilling went from 22% to 61% of technicians holding at least two blocks, and overtime call-outs fell. What did not: we never built a rule for skills that go unused. People hold a block for a line that was decommissioned last year and still receive the allowance.
If I started again I would agree the recertification rule before paying the first euro.
4 helpful · 2 insightful · 1 agree · 4 replies · 265 views · 2 following
Colin WalshWWP, CBS
People Analytics Lead, Kestrel Aerospace
Recertification every 24 months, with the block lapsing if the skill has not been used on at least ten shifts in that period. That is our rule at a packaging plant and it was accepted because it was there from the start. Adding it later is a different conversation.
Compensation Consultant, Cardinal Insurance
Why an allowance and not base pay? We built skill blocks into base and the consequence is the same problem you describe, only worse, because nothing can lapse. I would keep it separate every time.
Hannah MüllerGRS, CRP
Global Job Architecture Lead, Steinbach Industrie
That overlap exists for us as well, about nine people. We decided it is acceptable for a fully skilled technician to out-earn a new team leader, and said so openly. The allowance being separate helps, because the base salary hierarchy is still intact on paper.
