Staff Schedule

In many cases, small businesses and individual entrepreneurs never write up and thus never approve a staff schedule in paper form, dismissing it as an excessive formality and a relic of the Soviet past. We believe there is a degree of truth to that; however, there is no doubt that a staff schedule is worth writing up. In addition to legal requirements, there are also practical benefits to writing up such a document.

A staff schedule will prove a lifesaver in a situation where an organization didn't have any job opening while cutting back. Take a past experience we had with one of our clients as an example.

The organization was looking to replace the head of a department who was headed for retirement and warned that he was going to be leaving in advance. A job opening for the position was published online to replace him.

A woman replied to the ad. Her work experience and education were a good match for the position's requirements. But something wasn’t quite right about her, and the executive decided not to hire her for the job. She was turned out without any explanation as to why (she didn't ask for the reason). Fast forward a little while and a court summons arrived at the organization – the jobseeker had filed a lawsuit to declare the refusal to hire her for the position unlawful and she sued to obligate it to sign a work contract with her. 

The organization's staff schedule only had one staff unit (rate), and at the moment that the woman filed the lawsuit, it was already filled by another department head for whom they were now looking for a replacement. Thus, that proved a decisive argument in the company's favor in its defense in court.

• The staff schedule is an obligatory document for legal entities and individual entrepreneurs (if the latter hire people to work for them). This is mentioned in article part one 15 and part two article 57 of the Labor Code.
• In the case that an organization doesn't have a staff schedule, it can be charged under  part 1 article 5.27 of the AOC of the Russian Federation as well as under part 2 article 5.27 for repeat violations. For individual entrepreneurs, the fine is 5,000, while for legal entities it's up to 50,000 roubles.

How do you write up a staff schedule?

There is no procedure established by law for writing up a staff schedule. As a rule, a staff schedule must contain (as per Letter from the Russian Federal Labor and Employment Service #PG/13229-6-1 on 1/21/2014):

• the list of structural divisions;
• the list of positions;
• the total staff units;
• the position base salaries and incentives;
• the monthly gross payroll.

Depending on what its needs are, the organization can develop a format for a staff schedule that suits it best (Letters from the Russian Federal Labor and Employment Service #2-TZ on 1/9/2013,  #PG/409-6-1 on 1/23/2013, and #PG/1487-6-1 on 14.02.2013).

Furthermore, a unified T-3 form is to contain all the necessary data envisaged by the Resolution #N1 of the State Statistics Committee of the Russian Federation “On approving unified primary accounting documentation forms for labor and compensation accounting”. Our HR manager, for instance, takes advantage of it. Why reinvent the wheel?

A staff schedule is a local, normative act so the organization must issue an order for staff schedules to be approved. Changes to the staff schedule must also be introduced in the form of an order.

REMEMBER!

1. While writing up a staff schedule, one must be certain to maintain an “equal compensation for equal work” approach (article 22 of the Labor Code of the Russian Federation).
2. In certain cases, the position title must match the name indicated in the Professional Standard or the Unified Qualifications Directory (UQD).
3. With respect to positional base salaries, a specific amount needs to be indicated for each specific position. However, if a position entails task rates, then it’s not a “base salary” that's to be indicated in the chart notes but rather “task rate payment”, along with a link to the document governing the compensation format.
4. Incentives on top of this position’s base salary are to be written out depending on the compensation system established at the organization, or only those that apply to the position. However, personal incentives for employees are to be recorded in the labor agreement.

For instance, the incentive “Work during night hours” is to be established for all workers of a certain position and indicated in the “Incentives” chart on the staff schedule. The “years worked” incentive, meanwhile, needs to be included in the work agreement with a link to the document establishing the terms and the amount based on which the incentive shall be established.

One must take into account that a staff schedule is an important document that will definitely be requested during checks and when a state labor, tax department, or social fund inspection is conducted.

We conduct HR auditing in organizations, spot the weaknesses they have, and help fill in the gaps. We develop all the necessary documents and prepare a campaign for inspections in this area.