What's a ceiling step?

A ceiling step is typically the highest step within a grade to which a worker may progress. When a worker reaches the ceiling step within a grade, typically any further progress must be made by moving the worker to another grade.

You can override the ceiling for individual assignments. In most cases, the ceiling step is the last step in the sequence. For example, if the grade has steps 1 through 5, step 5 is the ceiling step. However, you may have situations where you want another step to be the ceiling. For example, in a grade with steps 1 through 5, you might indicate that step 4 is the ceiling step, and workers can progress from step 1 to step 4, and then on to the next grade. You can use step 5 when a worker isn't entitled to move to the next grade, perhaps because he doesn't yet have the required qualifications or certificates, but you still want to increase his pay to reward him for many years of experience and good performance. You can provide the pay increase by moving him to step 5.