Compensation Study Frequently Asked Questions

Compensation refers to the monetary rewards earned by employees, typically as base pay.

A compensation philosophy is a formal statement documenting UIW’s strategy on compensation. It essentially explains the “why” behind pay. It can also create a framework for consistency. A well-designed compensation philosophy supports the organization’s strategic plan and initiatives, business goals, competitive outlook, operating objectives, and compensation and total reward strategies. Once finalized, UIW’s philosophy will be posted and available to all employees on the Classification and Compensation webpage.

UIW will benchmark jobs against the markets in which we compete for talent. The markets may include higher education institutions as well as general industry organizations for jobs that exist outside of higher education.

Not in a formal manner. UIW is always aware of the value of our compensation programs, but the market survey conducted will focus on base salary. Considering non-salary benefits like retirement, health benefits, leave accruals and tuition benefits do play a role in UIW’s decision on how close to “market” we want to be with our base compensation, but non-salary benefits will not be surveyed during this study.

A classification analysis involves a review of positions to define a classification structure or “job architecture” which is the grouping of job families, levels, and consistent titles. The analysis is based on many factors including position duties, scope, complexity, and requirements. The intent of this analysis is to update the current classification structure and align our position titling and leveling to best practices in order to help us stay competitive in the market and provide transparent career opportunities.

It is important to keep our classification structure current and aligned to best practices so that we can ensure we maintain both internal and external equity.

A job family is a grouping of jobs doing similar work based on function and primary duties. A job family will have a clear linkage to the market to support a comparison and recruitment of qualified talent. They clarify career progression and development opportunities between levels. Examples include Student Services and Information Technology.

Job levels create a consistent internal structure for UIW and define the relative responsibilities, scope, complexity, and requirements of staff jobs by level at the University. Job levels are part of the “job architecture” described above and will support career development at UIW.

A career ladder is a series of steps an employee takes to progress into different or more advanced roles at work. These steps may include vertical promotions (how you might traditionally think about career growth) but also lateral moves that provide development and knowledge opportunities to expand into other areas.

Some titles may change to ensure consistency across all titles or to make a title describe a particular job more accurately and/or link to the market.

The classification study does not address workload or an individual’s work performance. It also does not address position responsibilities performed occasionally. Typically, if a responsibility does not consume 10% of an employee’s time (over a course of a year), it will not impact the classification level.

The Market Assessment will follow the classification analysis which involves a review of our jobs to determine a fair and competitive market salary point. The peer markets determined will be used to benchmark staff jobs to comparable jobs within the market. This analysis is based on both a review of comparable market survey data as well as a review of internal salary relationships between positions. The primary objective for these projects is to create a sustainable, fair, and understandable classification and compensation program.

Benchmark jobs are those that have a substantial portion of their work that is comparable to jobs found at other higher education institutions and/or other organizations. This allows us to understand market pay levels for a given job. Segal will use reputable published survey sources to gather market data and will match the University’s positions to those survey sources (both peer higher education institutions and general industry sources) using current job descriptions.

The appeal process is under development and will be announced at a future date.