[redrose]

It's gone very quiet on here! Just wondered if everyone is sorted?

I was promised a review of my job description by my manager after mine and my colleague's appeal failed in April and our job was now significantly different. Didn't hear anything for ages so asked again in September about a review (not an appeal) but didn't hear anything again. Finally put it in writing in November and got a reply asking me to write my own job description then my manager would look at it and then decide if they could support me!
My colleague isn't even sure that they'll bother.

I know that I should have have pulled my finger out and done it earlier but just so busy!

I'm on the same banding after 7 years experience, a post-graduate course and team leader and on-call responsibilities as a secondee with limited experience, no course and no team or on-call responsibilities. It's so nice to feel valued!

[hodders82]

I work in Payroll in NHS and see what goes through, its strange how i am on a 4 and employees at Leeds are a 5? I see it all and it just makes my blood boil!

[estweyn]

Redrose I wouldnt even bother. Waste of time. I was told to print off jobs I found on the NHS website that were similar to mine Note bands 5 and 6 and re write my job description and resubmit as a new job, which I did. I came out matched to the same one as previously and I got less points than before, so still a band 3. Totally demoralised now as I have a job description that reflects much more responsiblility than my previous band 3 one and have to work to that one now, but elsewhere for the same job people are getting band 5 or even 6. But what can we do

[angiepan]

my department was one of the first to go on afc we didnt appeal at the time because we didnt think we could get any higher grade than what we where given now we know we should have fought it because other departments doing less than us are on higher and although we cannot claim back pay now, we are in the middle of appealing but this in its self is a very long drawn out affair !

[zippy]

Originally Posted by hodders82

I work in Payroll in NHS and see what goes through, its strange how i am on a 4 and employees at Leeds are a 5? I see it all and it just makes my blood boil!

and do you have the same job description and responsibilities or just a pre-AFC similar job title ?

Agenda for change was never intended to pay people in the same job title the same.

It was intended, which it does to some extent ( though it can be argued that all grades might have benefited from A,B,C and D scales to give a more accurate reflection of the variation within the bandings ) , to reflect the realities of people's job descriptions, if it had been implemented correctly ( which it wasn't thanks to ZanuLiarbore interference) it means peoples skills knowledge and responsibilities would be rewarded not that they would be fittedinto an arbitrary hierarchy...

[zippy]

Originally Posted by redrose

<snip>

I'm on the same banding after 7 years experience, a post-graduate course and team leader and on-call responsibilities as a secondee with limited experience, no course and no team or on-call responsibilities. It's so nice to feel valued!

experience is reflected by increment except where a job has been substantially upgraded ( i.e. the base salary post AFC is higher than that paid to experienced staff pre AFC - so everyone in the role is appointed to the bottom increment)

is the post graduate course required for the job or just a nice to have ? and if it;s required is it required on appointment, at the foundation gateway or at the fully competent point of the upper gateway?

on-call responsibilities are rewarded by the on call allowances and the pay arrangements when called in

team leader responsibilities if they make an impact on the banding means that there should be a team leader role description developed, banded, advertised and appointed to , even if this means putting people 'at risk' of redundancy or redeployment to fit it into the funded establishment.

this is all stuff that was squared away years ago in the rest of the NHS

[angiepan]

yes my responsibilites and job description are both the same, its just that for their job it was worded better and someone who did that job was on the afc panel so knew exactly what key words needed to be in there to get them the higher grade, tell me thats a fair way of doing things !

[Funky_Gibbon]

Originally Posted by hodders82

I work in Payroll in NHS and see what goes through, its strange how i am on a 4 and employees at Leeds are a 5? I see it all and it just makes my blood boil!

Removed because I'm an insensitive git.

[Funky_Gibbon]

Originally Posted by zippy

It was intended, which it does to some extent ( though it can be argued that all grades might have benefited from A,B,C and D scales to give a more accurate reflection of the variation within the bandings ) , to reflect the realities of people's job descriptions, if it had been implemented correctly it means peoples skills knowledge and responsibilities would be rewarded not that they would be fittedinto an arbitrary hierarchy...

I know from my KSF that quite a few of my skills, knowledge and responsibilities that I've routinely been using/doing are those that should only be given to people on a higher band. Unfortunately I have never been given a job description so I can't prove this in any appeal.

[craigs]

My experience with A4C actually was quite positive on a personal level in that I gained extra A/L. However, I can assure you that it will cause lots of ill feeling and resentment amongst some staff.

There will definitely be winners and losers from the A4C process (AKA agenda for shortchange!) - much of the emphasis in developing job descriptions based around KSF (Knowledge & Skill Frameworks) for points scoring will be carried out by individual managers, many of which will find it difficult to find time to scrutinise each role against the point scoring criteria, if indeed they actually understand the process in the first place, what you have to bear in mind is that there are also good and bad managers and that their thoughts and beliefs about what a job entails can be very different. Other managers will put the task to their staff to review their own roles and restructure job descriptions accordingly - if he/she then agrees, it will be signed off as a true description. Many will see current job descriptions and specs as adequate and submit those as suitable, when in actual fact they neeed re-writing to meet the wording and interpretation of the KSF task descriptions.

Staff groups that can commit enough time to interpret the scoring mechanism and make strong 'over' representation for the work they actually do will score well and get a higher banding - most staff within psychology services got huge pay increases where I work after allocating specific staff/time to review the KSF and interpret the scoring system in order to manipulate the wording of job descriptions/specs to suit.

At the end of it, there will be lots of people with the same job titles and roles but with different job descriptions/specs and ultimately different banding - lends itself to staff refusing to pick up others workloads at times of sickness or A/L as although they have the same job title, they are not paid on the same band - as a manager, you then have the task of defining what parts of each employees role has actually gained them the additional points which in the process highlights areas of work that other people can refuse to do as they’re not paid for it, or it's not recognised by their A4c banding.

You will then have staff appealing their A4C banding - another lengthy and drawn out process involving biased panels instructed by HR ultimately governed by trying to save money.

HR should actually take complete ownership of defining roles and then distribute them across the whole Trust allowing for additional dimension specific tasks to be added accordingly and departmentally. It can't be done fairly by involving individual managers but at the end of the day, does HR really understand what everybody does either?

Some staff will de demoralised and the whole job description and banding process will result in a hotch potch of varied jobs and bandings which will need overhauling via employing project mangers to review the process costing more money and bringing yet more uncertainty and change all over again.

On another note - I found that the senior groups of staff which were more academically minded were able to manipulate the scoring system far more effectively than staff on lower bandings, staff on higher salaries seemed to benefit more than those on the lower pay.

Please remember that this is only my view and that I dont work for STH so the process may be different for you're organisation.

[angiepan]

i agree with some of what you have said our manager is not based at our hospital and when staff met with this person they admitted that they didnt know we did as much as we do do when they read our new job ,so has asked to see other job descriptions from other posts that are on the higher grade to see if we do same which we do,before he will let us re- appeal plus manager is not the same person who was in charge when afc first came in in 2004

[craigs]

If you do get to add additional tasks, ensure you break everything down individually no matter how small or how infrequent these tasks may occur. Use the descriptions given within the KSF review process booklet to develop your job descriptions/specs. (Strongly advise you get hold of one and check through and use the wording from the book).

You can download it from this link:
http://www.dh.gov.uk/en/Publications...nce/DH_4090843

[Funky_Gibbon]

Originally Posted by craigs

If you do get to add additional tasks, ensure you break everything down individually no matter how small or how infrequent these tasks may occur. Use the descriptions given within the KSF review process booklet to develop your job descriptions/specs. (Strongly advise you get hold of one and check through and use the wording from the book).

The problem is that neither my manager nor HR have a job description for me and it's not one of the standard jobs so I can't download it from the Intranet. It just doesn't exist, they never wrote it.

My manager also seems to think that all the additional work I've taken on over the years is covered by the catch-all statement that appears in every job description "...any other tasks as required."

Plus budgets are being heavily squeezed and all the managers are talking about redundancies so if I make an issue of it I'll probably end up out of a job anyway.

I even had Unison looking into this for me. Fat lot of good they were.

[craigs]

Well if your job can't be matched it presents an ideal opportunity to develop a KSF job profile all of it's own which won't have to fit in or be similar to other roles for banding.

The 'catch all' scenario or 'other tasks as appropriate' doesn't fit in with KSF/
A4C job profiles - all tasks have to be specified in order they can be assessed via KSF appraisal system otherwise you may find that you can't provide enough evidence to progress through gateways which are increment linked......sounds like you're manager needs some KSF/A4C training?

Good luck with it all

[Doglet]

Originally Posted by zippy

becasue STH was virtually all on trust contracts i.e. the NGH trust contract which was born of an era before service reconfiguration in sheffield when the nGHJ was a tinpot DGH in the shadow of the mighty hallamshire

in terms of the STH contract there are trust grade 8 staff who might lose out if banded as AFC band 5

I am on Trust grade 8 and would be over £2.000 worse off if I had accepted AFC

[dropout]

Originally Posted by obase

My wife went through this at the Hallamshire and was "rewarded" with an extra £2k and more holidays. Much as she is not going to turn this down, "agenda for change" has wasted taxpayers billions and is a totally stupid idea.

If something highlights the inefficiecies of the public sector versus to private sector this is it.

Think about it. We are talking about salary structures that have evolved over many years, for a variety of reasons. Some idiot sat in an office thinks it's a good idea to bring everybody's pay "in line" with everybody else is only ever going to result in p****d off staff and money wasted. A lot of staff are going to be "rewarded" with more money that they didn't ask for, and a lot of staff are going to be demoralised.

Thanks Obase. Couldnt agree more. Your posting sounds TOO MUCH LIKE COMMON SENSE.
The "powers", leaders, employers, bosses...(capitalism for short)....just dont believe in it....only profit and greed for themselves.

People DO NOT matter.
The sooner we all learn that.....the sooner there will be a Rwanda genocide....the world over.
LOVE...and let live....(in fairness and equality).