Pay progression refers to the process by which an individual employee attains higher levels of pay within a range associated with a pay grade or band. In this context, pay progression may be regarded as ‘real’ growth in pay, that is, in addition or separate to ‘cost of living’ – or inflation-linked – increases and/or the attainment of formal promotion to a higher grade or band.
Systems for pay progression may be designed to achieve a number of key aims:
- to support business strategy by encouraging and rewarding desired characteristics or behaviour in employees such as performance or length of service
- to maintain competitiveness of pay while also controlling paybill costs within set parameters including affordability
- to provide employees with a fair and, as far as possible, transparent process by which individual pay increases are determined.