Implementing and Integrating Policies on Performance-Based Pay: Coordinating the “One-Employer Approach” in a Swedish Municipality

Abstract

In Sweden, performance-based pay has gone furthest in the public sector. This development has placed demands on employers to have a transparent and salient salary review process with which to evaluate employees uniformly and fair–and to act in a unitary manner, as one employer. Pay policies aim to coordinate salary reviews in organizations. However, the transfer of policy to practice is not easy and research has shown a gap between intended and implemented policies. Drawing on a case study in a municipality, this article expands knowledge on policy transfer by exploring and describing how HR, unions, managers and employees perceive implementation and integration of the pay policies, and to what extent the municipality succeeds in a one-employer approach. The findings suggest that the municipality fails to act as one employer and that the units that are most successful in implementing the policy are those closer to top management.