Compression lesson from a hospital group: newly qualified nurses overtaking third-year staff

A 2.5% step per year of experience is generous compared with what I have seen. We use 1.5% for years one to five and then nothing formula-driven. Did you find 2.5% was needed, or was that what the budget allowed?

I would be wary of rebuilding a step scale by the back door. We did an experience-based correction for laboratory staff and two years later people expected an automatic annual step. Communicate it as a one-time alignment or you will own it for good.

From the manufacturing side, the same thing happens with technicians when a new plant opens nearby. Our monitoring report is one line per job: average pay of people with under one year of service divided by average pay of those with three to five years. Anything above 0.95 gets a look.

On the 2.5%: it was what the local market data showed between entry and year six, spread evenly. And yes, the warning about step scales is fair. We called it a market alignment and wrote explicitly that it does not repeat. Ask me in two years whether anyone remembers that sentence.

I am borrowing the ratio report. We have been looking at compression case by case in our clinics, which means we only see it when somebody complains or resigns.