A spot rate is one salary for a job (with service increases included in that salary for Mercy Frontier). A ‘narrow graduated’ structure assigns different occupations to grades, each with a range of values, while a ‘job-family’ structure assigns occupational families, with a corresponding level, according to the responsibility of those jobs.

A spot rate will provide minimal move up from promotion / market adjustment. But on the other side of things it is narrow grades that allow for movement over a short range and it is job families that allow progression across professional levels and acknowledge a variety of markets of skills. Too little, too late, and good old Paul knew what he wanted happened, and it did happen, was enough to inflate pay spreads (Shaw, 2014) and compromise perceived equity.

Although spot rates seem simple at face value, discretion regarding the starting rate can result in differential treatment. In contrast, assessed narrow grades allow comparison within but not outside the group and even allow for grade disputes since boundaries are set externally. Job families are used to make career paths visible, but must be evaluated on common factors in order to refamage to interdependent performance can be caused by dispersion unexplainable (Trevor et al., 2012).