We are pleased to announce that we have reached an outcome on the pay proposal for employees at Levels 6a to 9:

A pay increase will be awarded based on a pay matrix that varies by level as follows:

Overall, this equates to 3.6% of the total pay spend for Levels 9 – 6a.

Unite recognise that real progress has been made in the pay negotiations and the proposal is a very fair offer in relation to industry wide discussions. Unite will ballot their members for acceptance in the forthcoming pay ballot which will take place from Wednesday 1^st February to Tuesday 14th February.

Vox were also consulted on this proposal in respect of AXA PPP employees, and are in agreement with Unite.

Pay matrix

The following matrices will be used to award pay increases by level as follows:

Level 6 – 3%

Level 7 – 4%

Level 9 and 8 – 4.75%

• These matrices have an element of manager discretion but any adjustments up have to be balanced with movements down – this is necessary to ensure affordability for the business.
• For those employees paid above the pay range (i.e. where their FTE Salary is over the maximum of the pay range) a pay award based upon the maximum salary for their pay range will be made using the same percentages as available to those High in range.
• Pay awards will be available for employees rated as Partially Successful/Developing. The matrices are broadly based around awards that are 50% of those available to employees rated as Successful. All awards are subject to manager discretion and based on the available ranges within these pay matrices.
• For employees paid a salary of less than £13,900 (FTE) after the application of the pay matrices, a further uplift will be made to bring the revised FTE equivalent salary to £13,900. The £13,900 FTE salary is a value suggested by Unite which is prescribed by the Joseph Rowntree Foundation as being a “minimum income standard”. (Exceptions will be any ring fenced arrangement as a result of a TUPE, employees rated unsatisfactory, employees on the AXA PPP apprenticeship scheme and instances where a manager has elected to make a 0% pay award for Partially Successful/ Developing rating.)
• There will be no immediate changes to the pay ranges for 2012, however an agreement has been reached to review the pay ranges in view of current market conditions in Q3 this year.

Forty-seven roles are being lost in the IFA sales area of AXA Wealth as part of the ongoing business transformation. The union was fully consulted on the changes and is optimistic, given AXA Wealth‘s record, that many of the individuals impacted will be able to be redeployed should they wish.

Unite in AXA is fully aware of the dangers of change fatigue in the ex-Life side of the business and continues to stress the need for the people impact to be kept as low as possible to enable staff to feel secure and devote their energies to helping AXA Wealth hit its 2015 target.