As an employee at KTH you are entitled to a salary dialogue with your closest manager. The salary dialogue should focus on your work performance during the past salary review year in relation to current salary criteria. During the dialogue, you have the opportunity to explain your work and contributions. It is important that you and your manager are well prepared to ensure a good salary dialogue.

Central agreements regulate salary level setting at KTH. These central agreements also stipulate an annual salary review.

The new salaries are valid from October 1st 2022.

What characterizes a good salary dialogue?

Some success factors are important if managers and employees are to feel that the salary dialogue has worked well. Managers must:

Have a dialogue in which employees have been able to discuss their work, results and salaries and have been afforded the opportunity to explain their views.
Have explained and justified their assessments.
Have made it clear how employees can develop and affect their future salary levels.
Shown themselves to be open to further dialogue.

Preparations - important prerequisites for a good dialogue

The prerequisite for a good dialogue is that both the manager and employee are well versed about the purpose of the dialogue and have prepared well, which should include a study of the relevant salary criteria and applicable salary statistics.

Employees should be able to participate in departmental information meetings (workplace or equivalent) prior to salary dialogues. At these meetings, information will deal with the approach and content of the dialogues as well as salary criteria for the department. Preparations should focus on what the dialogue will deal with - the employees' duties, achievements and skills linked to operational objectives and needs, KTH salary level setting criteria and the employee's salary. Consequently the focus is on preparing for the proper objective of the salary dialogue, not preparing for negotiations. The most skilled employees should earn a higher salary, not the most skilled negotiators.

Both managers and employees must contribute to the dialogue, characterized by openness and respect. However the manager, as the representative of the employer, bears the greatest responsibility for carrying out the salary dialogue in the best possible manner.

About different models for salary setting (docx 58 kB)