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Without a pay structure, every pay decision is a negotiation. The best negotiators end up paid the most, the person who never asks quietly subsidises the person who threatens to leave, and nobody designed any of it. That is the position in most practices.
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A benchmark taken from the wrong region or the wrong practice type is worse than no benchmark, because it feels authoritative. What the pack gives you is the structure to hold your own numbers in, and the questions to ask before you set them.
Step three of the framework asks you to place every current employee against a band and note anybody sitting outside it. That table is the reason to do this exercise, and it is the one practices flinch at.
Anyone outside their band needs an explanation you would be willing to say out loud. “They negotiated hard at interview in 2023” is not one, and it is the most common answer. Where you find an anomaly, plan to correct it over a defined period rather than either ignoring it or fixing it in one visible jump.
You cannot stop people discussing their pay. A confidentiality clause is unenforceable to the extent it prevents somebody making or seeking a relevant pay disclosure, meaning a conversation held to find out whether a pay difference is connected to a protected characteristic. You can ask for discretion. You cannot discipline somebody for comparing notes.
Equal pay is about the work, not the job title. Two RVNs doing equal work are entitled to equal pay regardless of sex, and the classic practice risk is a pay gap that exists only because one of them negotiated at interview. The consistency check on the review form is what catches that before it becomes a claim.
The total reward statement takes twenty minutes a person. Practices spend real money on CPD funding, RCVS fees, indemnity, pension and enhanced sick pay, then never mention any of it, so the employee compares a headline salary against a competitor’s headline salary and moves for less than they were already getting.
Read it with our guides to the annual salary review, pay bands and the counter offer, which is the symptom of not having done any of this.
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A pay banding framework, an annual review form with a consistency check, a pay conversation guide, and a total reward statement showing staff what they actually receive. No invented benchmarks.
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