Recruitment and retention premia

5.1 The Isle of Man Government currently offers staff a relocation award depending on various criteria. Please refer to the Departments’ Red Policy folder details of this scheme.

5.2 Guidance on the application of local recruitment and retention premia is set out in Annex J.

5.3 All recruitment and retention premia will be subject to any annual percentage pay awards.

5.4 A recruitment and retention premium is an addition to the pay of an individual post or specific group of posts where market pressures would otherwise prevent the employer from being able to recruit staff to and retain staff in sufficient numbers for the posts concerned at the normal salary for a job of that weight.

5.5 Subject to the provisions below, the Departments may apply a recruitment and retention premium to posts of a specific class or type. They may also be applied to individual posts where the post is unique within the organisation (such as the head of a department or service).

5.6 Recruitment and retention premia will be supplementary payments over and above the pay that post holders receive by virtue of their position on their pay band, any high-cost area supplements, or any payments for unsocial hours or on-call cover.

5.7 Recruitment and retention premia will only apply to posts and not an individual. Where an employee moves to a different post that does not attract a recruitment and retention premium, either within the Department of Health or the Department of Social Care or elsewhere in the NHS, their entitlement to any previous recruitment and retention premium will cease.

5.8 The Departments and staff representatives, in partnership, will follow the procedure set out in Annex J in deciding the award of a recruitment and retention premium.

5.9 The JNC is responsible for awarding a recruitment and retention premium and shall determine whether to award a long-term or short-term premium.

5.10 Short-term recruitment and retention premia will apply where the labour market conditions giving rise to recruitment and retention problems are expected to be short-term and where the need for the premium is expected to disappear or reduce in the foreseeable future.

5.11 Long-term recruitment and retention premia will apply where the relevant labour market conditions are more deep-rooted and the need for the premium is not expected to vary significantly in the foreseeable future.

5.12 Short-term recruitment and retention premia:

• may be awarded on a one-off basis or for a fixed-term
• will be regularly reviewed
• may be withdrawn or have the value adjusted subject to a notice period of 6 months
• will not be pensionable, or count for purposes of overtime, unsocial hour’s payments or any other payments linked to basic pay

Long-term recruitment and retention premia:

• will be awarded on a long-term basis
• will have their values regularly reviewed
• may be awarded to new staff at a different value from that which applies to existing staff and
• will be pensionable, and will count for the purposes of overtime, unsocial hour’s payments and any other payments linked to basic pay

5.14 Both long-term and short-term recruitment and retention premia will be expressed as cash sums and will be separately identifiable from basic pay, any high-cost area supplement and any other component of pay.

The combined value of any nationally awarded and any locally awarded recruitment and retention premium for a given post shall not normally exceed 30% of basic salary, except in exceptional circumstances. It will be the responsibility of employers to ensure that any premia awarded locally do not normally result in payments in excess of this amount, taking into account any national awards for the posts in question.

Where staff or managers feel that a Recruitment and Retention Premia should be afforded to them or their staff a business case should be prepared and presented to the JNC for consideration. This is applicable to both short and long term Recruitment and Retention Premia.