Business coach on labor law and personnel management, teacher at the Russian School of Management Yulia Zhizherina - about the procedure and legislative features of changing wages.
During the economic crisis, companies have to reduce personnel costs. To avoid laying off workers, management often decides to reduce salaries. A reduction in salary or a change in the salary/bonus ratio in the remuneration system usually causes protest from employees. This part of the remuneration is directly fixed in the employment contract and its change requires the consent of the employee based on Art. 72 Labor Code of the Russian Federation. In the absence of consent, such a change is possible only under the condition and in compliance with the procedure provided for in Article 74 of the Labor Code of the Russian Federation. Let's consider both cases.
Reasons
In order for the increase in wages for certain employees to be justified, it is necessary to draw up some documents that will regulate adjustments in payment for work. In addition, it is necessary to provide the worker with a notice so that he can sign.
If, in addition to increasing wages, a worker needs to change his position, then he must act in accordance with Article 72.1 of the Labor Code of the Russian Federation.
There may be important reasons for increasing the salary, including inflation . To properly justify a salary increase, you need to rely on specific facts. These include:
- the employee became the owner of a higher education diploma;
- the employee has completed advanced training courses;
- the worker has received additional education;
- the employee has extensive work experience and experience;
- the worker’s responsibility for the work performed has increased;
- the size and quality of labor indicators has increased.
An example of justification for increasing wages for certain workers on a document may look like this (message from the commercial director to the general director): Due to the fact that sales volume has increased by 30%, as well as the quality of customer service, and so that these achievements are maintained at the appropriate level, I propose to increase the salaries of managers (six full-time units) by 4,000 rubles. from April 2021.
Salary increase due to increase in minimum wage
According to current legislation, the monthly payment to a subordinate who has worked efficiently for this period cannot be less than the minimum established by law.
If workers' wages are higher than the minimum, then the management of the enterprise may not make adjustments in this regard. The manager can do this at his own discretion at a time convenient for him.
You need to know that employee salaries may be lower than the minimum wage if the worker works part-time . If an employee works part-time, then his working day cannot last longer than four hours. Thus, the salary of this employee will be below the minimum wage.
If an employee’s salary is determined by the minimum wage, then it must be increased if the minimum wage has increased.
The wages of workers are fixed in the staff schedule , so it also needs to be adjusted. The staff schedule is adjusted taking into account the orders of the boss. The order is issued in free form.
Read our article about what staffing is.
In this case, the employee is not provided with notice of salary changes. It is necessary if the salary, on the contrary, is reduced.
Once adjustments to the state schedule have been made, the next step is to issue an additional agreement to the regular contract.
It must indicate the employee’s new salary and the date from which the adjustments will take effect. This document is signed by the head of the enterprise and the employee.
Workers do not agree with pay changes
A more complicated case is when the employer intends to change the official salary without the employee’s consent. The grounds and procedure for such a change are described in Article 74 of the Labor Code of the Russian Federation. It determines that if, for reasons related to changes in organizational or technological working conditions, the terms of the employment contract determined by the parties cannot be preserved, they are allowed to change at the initiative of the employer. But changing the employee’s labor function is also prohibited in this case. Let's consider what steps need to be taken with such a change in order to reduce the employee's salary.
Step 1. Adopt an order justifying the need to change working conditions
It should set out the organizational or technological reasons why changes in working conditions were required. When issuing this order, it is necessary to proceed from actual changes. At the same time, you should stock up on financial, technical and other documents confirming the need for such changes. The order also requires an indication of what kind of organizational changes have occurred (for example, the distribution of functions, work methods, management methods has changed, as a result of which the organizational structure has changed).
See also: We formalize changes in wages for an employee
Step 2. Adopt an order to amend the employment contracts of specific employees
Such an order must set out a plan for the procedure for amending the employment contract of specific employees: notifying employees, offering vacancies, and so on, indicating the specific employees in respect of whom the procedure will be carried out, the timing of the procedure and the persons responsible for carrying out the procedure.
Step 3. Notify the employee about upcoming changes
The employer is obliged to notify the employee in writing of the upcoming changes to employment contracts, as well as the reasons that necessitated the need for such changes, no later than two months in advance (Part 2 of Article 74 of the Labor Code of the Russian Federation). Such notice must describe exactly what changes will be made. In this case, you should indicate in the notice what salary will be set for the employee. It is necessary to pay attention that if the salary is reduced, then the volume of work should correspondingly decrease, for example, the number of operations or the number of job responsibilities.
The notice should also indicate the specific date from which the change is introduced and the consequences of the employee’s disagreement with the changes.
Step 4. If the employee does not agree to change working conditions, offer available vacancies
If the employee does not agree to work under the new conditions, then the employer is obliged to offer him in writing another job available to the employer (both a vacant position or work corresponding to the employee’s qualifications, and a vacant lower position or lower paid job), which the employee can perform taking into account his health status (Part 3 of Article 74 of the Labor Code of the Russian Federation). The notification of vacancies must indicate the job title and salary for each vacant position.
Step 5. Dismiss the employee in case of disagreement with changes in working conditions and proposed vacancies
In the absence of the specified work or the employee refuses the offered work, the employment contract is terminated in accordance with clause 7, part 1, art. 77 Labor Code of the Russian Federation. In case of dismissal of an employee, a corresponding dismissal order, work book, personal card and other documents are drawn up in accordance with labor legislation.
According to Art. 178 of the Labor Code of the Russian Federation, the employee is paid severance pay in the amount of two weeks’ average earnings.
Step 6. Change staffing
After the employees have agreed to change the salary or after carrying out the procedure described above in case of disagreement of the employees, it is necessary to indicate the new salaries in the staffing table. To do this, an order is issued to amend the staffing table or to approve a new staffing table.
Please note: even careful compliance with all conditions and procedures when changing working conditions in accordance with Art.
74 of the Labor Code of the Russian Federation cannot completely eliminate the risk of an employee turning to the labor inspectorate, the prosecutor's office and the court. In addition to the fine under Art. 5.27 of the Code of Administrative Offenses of the Russian Federation, which can be imposed by the labor inspectorate, there is a risk that the court will recognize dismissal or transfer to another job as illegal (Article 394 of the Labor Code of the Russian Federation). In this case, the employee may be reinstated to his previous job. Then he will be paid the average salary for the entire period of forced absence or the difference in earnings for the entire time he performed lower-paid work, interest for late payment of wages (Article 236 of the Labor Code of the Russian Federation), as well as moral damages (Article 237 of the Labor Code of the Russian Federation). About the course “HR Director” Yulia Zhizherina Teacher at the Russian School of Management
Annual salary increase at the enterprise for all employees
If pay for work is changed for all subordinates, it increases by the same percentage, then this is possible, most often due to indexing. These terms and limits are not established by law, but usually wages thus change once a year.
The company chooses the date of salary changes at its discretion. This can be either the beginning or the end of the working year.
If all subordinates’ pay increases annually not due to indexation, and there are specific regulations in internal documents, then certain changes should be recorded in important papers.
They may be Regulations on payments for work , or on bonuses, etc. Adjustments are made taking into account the way in which these documents were adopted. It must be remembered that any changes must be introduced to subordinates against signature.
If an enterprise plans to index, then all it needs is a document confirming its implementation. If the salary increases for other reasons, then the need for orders will depend on the document flow adopted in the organization. As a rule, an additional agreement and presented to the employee for signature.
Download a sample additional agreement on salary increase here for free.
If there are a lot of workers in an organization, then it becomes expensive to draw up separate orders. But, if you enter all the data into one document, then workers can find out each other’s salaries, and this is not advisable.
Login to the program
Login to the program is carried out by double-clicking the left mouse button on the shortcut located on the desktop. In the pop-up window, you must enter your data (username and password).
After you have entered the program, the Desktop will open. A menu will appear on the left side. In the center, the current date and a line for selecting the organization of interest will be indicated.
Enter the name of the organization in the line and click “Update”
After the update, the organization's data appears on the program desktop. You can study them. Let's move on to selecting an employee using the menu on the left. Select the “Salaries and Personnel” tab by double-clicking on the left mouse button.
In the window that appears, select the “employees” tab by clicking on the entry with the left mouse button.
A list of employees of the selected organization opens. It contains the employee’s data: Personnel number, department, position and date of hire.
In the top lines, for convenience, you can set up a filter: by organization or by department.
And also, when you click on the column header, you can customize the table by alphabet, position, or date of admission.
Ways to increase your salary
The component of wages is prescribed in Article 129 of the Labor Code of the Russian Federation. According to the law, you can increase your salary if you increase the tariff rate, official salary , as well as the basic and basic salary rate.
In addition, it may become necessary to increase or establish compensation payments (for work in difficult conditions, in contaminated areas, etc.).
The manager can increase the amount of incentive payments that were established earlier (bonus portion, incentive allowances, etc.).
The first option for increasing wages is the most labor-intensive. But even in this case, there are options that are influenced by the fact whether the salaries of all workers will increase, or only some (one department or a pair of employees).
How to design - algorithm
To increase your salary, an employee must adhere to a certain procedure , which is as follows:
- It is necessary to draw up a memo regarding the salary increase.
- Issue an order to increase payment for work.
- Conclude an additional agreement with the employee that the salary will be increased.
Find out how to increase your salary from the video:
Employee card
From the list, select the required employee whose salary needs to be changed. Double-click on the name with the left mouse button.
The employee card will open in a new tab. It contains all the data: full name, date of birth, passport details, INN, SNILS, citizenship, address and date of employment. It is important to verify this data so as not to make a mistake if there are namesakes.
Using the roller on the mouse, you need to go down to the bottom until the salary line appears.
In order to change the salary, next to the salary amount there is a “change” button; you need to double-click on it with the left mouse button.
