Archive for ‘Classification & Compensation Project’

Visit the HR Blog for FAQ’s and updates related to the ongoing work to create a Classification and Compensation System for ACU.

Dr. Don Barwick provides our clients with expertise in operations, people/ organization and technology and has over 15 years of experience in higher education. Don began his career in higher education at the Texas Agricultural Extension Services, a member of the Texas A&M University System (TAMUS), in procurement services. He then served as the assistant director of purchasing for Texas A&M University-Commerce. After his tenure at Texas A&M University- Commerce, Don served as the records management officer, special projects officer and procurement manager for the Texas A&M University System (TAMUS) offices.

Don spearheaded several important initiatives during his tenure at the TAMUS. He streamlined procurement functions; ensured that minority and women-owned business received equal access and equal opportunity to provide goods/services to member institutions across the state of Texas; managed and coordinated records retention efforts, implemented an enterprise content management (ECM) system; and led the design, development and deployment of an e-procurement system across the TAMUS.

Don received his B.A. in English and his B.A. in History from Texas A&M University, his M.A. in History from Arkansas State University and is Ph.D. in Higher Education Administration from Texas A&M University. Don and his wife Anna reside with their daughter in College Station, Texas.

Who is Mindstream?

Mindstream is a management consulting firm specializing in organizational improvement and innovation in higher education. Their team has a combined 35 years of experience in higher education, and they’ve been helping colleges and universities optimize scarce resources to higher education’s core missions of teaching, research, and service since 2001.

What are the benefits of a classification and compensation system?

A classification and compensation system will allow ACU to:

• Ensure fairness and equality. By listening to your needs and understanding the needs of the university, we will implement a standard set of measurable compensation goals for staff employees.
• Develop consistent expectations. This system provides clarity for staff employee and supervisor relationships to accomplish their goals through standard performance measurements.
• Attract and retain the best talent. We will routinely assess staff employment competitiveness, based not only on compensation but other measures as well. This process will be data-driven and quantifiable.
• Provide clear paths for career advancement. We will examine, implement, and assess innovative human resource practices that lead to opportunities for career growth, a positive and safe workplace environment, employee recognition, and good communication.
• Provide financial stability. This system positions us to build a strategic budget that allows for a competitive and equitable total compensation package, effective professional development of employees and forecasting budget needs to sustain a high-performance environment.

How long will the classification and compensation project last?

The classification and compensation project is expected to be complete in the summer of 2018.

ACU is creating a standardized classification and compensation plan for exempt and nonexempt staff employees. The purpose of this plan is to:

• Ensure fairness and equality
• Develop consistent expectations
• Attract and retain the best talent
• Provide clear paths for career advancement
• Provide financial stability

Classification and Compensation Steps

There are several steps involved in a Classification and Compensation process:

1. Determine compensation philosophy
2. Conduct job analysis
3. Group jobs into families
4. Rank positions
5. Conduct market research
6. Create job grades
7. Create a salary range
8. Conduct out of salary range analysis

Explanation of the Classification and Compensation Steps

Determining Compensation Philosophy

Before beginning to create salary ranges for the organization, we determine our compensation philosophy. How do we determine the compensation for various roles throughout the university? This philosophy requires a comprehensive look at our core values and practices. The key is to create a philosophy and to be consistent in its application to compensation.

• STATUS: ACU began work on the Compensation Philosophy in June 2016. Members of Faculty Senate, Staff Senate and the Benefits Committee participated in the process. You can read the final draft here. 

Job Analysis

A job analysis is a process of gathering, documenting and analyzing information to accurately describe the jobs performed throughout the university. The basis of a job analysis is the job description. A job description describes the essential functions of a position as well as the frequency and importance of related tasks and responsibilities.

A job analysis determines whether the job descriptions are accurate. The process involves comparing each written job description to the job actually being performed. This can be done through observing employees, conducting surveys or interviewing employees doing the job, or a combination of these methods.

• STATUS:
  • 10/10/16 We are currently conducting Job Analysis on the following job groupings: Administrative Assistant and Office Management Roles & Technology Roles
  • 11/28/16 Job Analysis will begin on roles in the Library, Human Resources, Business and Finance, and Student Services
  • The next set of Job Analysis will occur in Facilities, Advancement, Athletics, and Police
  • 3/19/17 Job Analysis has begun for Facilities, Advancement, Athletics and ACUPD.

Grouping Jobs into Families

Once the university feels confident that it has a thorough understanding of employees’ roles, responsibilities, and qualifications, we will determine whether to group the jobs into separate job families or have one pay grade system for all positions throughout the organization. For example, an organization may have an administrative job family, technical job family, management job family and executive job family. It may have different job families based on geographic locations (different countries or regions) or different divisions. We will evaluate the data and use the model that best fits the needs of our university.

Ranking Positions

A job evaluation is the process of rank ordering the jobs, not the people, based on job content to demonstrate the relative worth and level of responsibility of all jobs to one another. There are a number of job evaluation methods; two common methods are explained below.

Point method

The content of jobs can be described in terms of factors. Factors are qualities of a job that are common to many kinds of jobs, such as skill, effort or working conditions. Each factor is assigned a weight, or points, according to how much of that particular factor is present in the job. Simply stated, the more points assigned to a job, the more worth the job has to the organization. Jobs with more worth are compensated more than jobs with lesser worth. There may be a group of factors to apply to all jobs or different factors for different functions or a combination of both company-wide and function specific factors. One example is the Hay point method system, which uses only three factors and measures the degree that these three factors are required for each position. The Hay system factors are know-how, problem-solving ability and accountability.

Ranking method

The ranking method is a much more simplistic method of rank ordering the value or worth of each job in comparison to the other jobs within the same job family. This method is often used in smaller organizations that have fewer jobs to compare.

Conduct Market Research

Conducting market research ensures that compensation is comparable to similar positions in the marketplace. When conducting market research on salaries, we will consider the following best practices:

• Job titles vary between organizations. Employers should read the descriptions of the jobs surveyed to make sure that the related tasks, functions, and level of responsibility match the positions at their organizations.
• To obtain current, accurate salary information, employers will need to obtain salary data and/or conduct their own market research. Whenever possible, employers should try to obtain information from more than one market survey resource, at least for benchmark positions.
• Employers should realize from the outset that each organization has jobs that are unique and that it will be impossible to find exact matches for all of one employer’s jobs. Organizations may need to consider jobs that closely fit the principal aspects of a particular job or to consider salary data for more than one type of job.

Create Job Grades

There are two ways to create job grades. Organizations can either use their job evaluation data to group positions within each job family into job grades or use their market data to group positions based on similar salary survey data.

An employer can have as many or as few pay grades as it wants and we’ll make the best decision for our university based on the data collected earlier in the process. A startup or small organization may have only three or four pay grades. The federal government, by contrast, uses 15 pay grades. We will carefully assess what approach is most appropriate for our organization.

Create Salary Range

For each pay grade, we will establish a midpoint, a minimum, and a maximum pay range. One method to come up with a proposed midpoint is to average the market data between the different positions grouped in a grade.

Conduct Out of Salary Range Analysis

At this stage in the process, we will take a look at what we are paying our staff employees in comparison to the data it has collected and the proposed salary grades and ranges for positions. We may need to make some adjustments, but overall we plan to rely on the market data and its pay philosophy to set these ranges.

After the salaries for current staff employees have been placed in the range, it’s possible that some positions may not be in line with the established guidelines and ranges  If this is the case, we will need to thoughtfully consider how to remedy these situations.

*Adapted from Society of Human Resource Managers (SHRM)

ACU’s compensation philosophy will support our core mission of educating students for Christian service and Christ-centered leadership throughout the world so that “By 2020, ACU will become the premier university for the education of Christ-centered, global leaders”. In keeping with our values as a Christian university, our mission and our vision ACU seeks to accomplish two goals through its administrative and operational employee compensation plan:

•      Attract, retain and motivate a highly talented, diverse workforce and,
•      Encourage and reward workplace activities that support the university’s overall goals and objectives,

so that ACU provides the finest education and Christ- centered environment for our students.

Our ethos is woven into the fabric of work at ACU. Each administrative and operational staff member will exemplify our ethos by working together for the benefit of our students and faculty. The university will deliver administrative and operational services efficiently, effectively, honorably and transparently. We will strive to become the employer of choice.

Our administrative and operational employee (staff) compensation plan will be rooted in these guiding principles:

Mission alignment: ACU recognizes that our staff is a key element in accomplishing our mission and realizing our vision. Accordingly, our compensation policies and processes for our staff will align with and exemplify the values of ACU while simultaneously enabling ACU’s 21st Century Vision.

Transparency: ACU will design, communicate and administer the staff compensation plan in a competent, consistent, and impartial manner.

Justice: ACU will strive to compensate staff with a living wage that is just and fair. Compensation will be based on individual job performance, skills and abilities.

Market Competitiveness: ACU will strive to match the market in our recruiting region. Our staff compensation will be competitive with peer institutions.

Financial Sustainability: ACU will plan and administer staff compensation packages in a financially sustainable manner to ensure good budgetary stewardship and financial stability.

Successfully implementing our staff compensation plan will require designing an implementation strategy that has these goals…

•   Articulate an effective, finite, measurable set of total compensation goals for ACU’s staff employees.
•   Develop an effective, mandatory system for assessing staff employee performance with sound and capable supervision of every employee, clearly communicated expectations between the University and the employee, and specific expectations between supervisor and employee.
•   Regularly assess ACU’s staff employment competitiveness, based not only on compensation, but other measures as well (e.g. recruitment and retention). This process should be a data-driven and quantifiable.
•   Examine, implement, and assess innovative human resource practices that lead to opportunities for career growth, a positive and safe workplace environment, employee recognition, respect from supervisors and co-workers, a positive campus climate, and good communication.
•       Build a strategic budget that allows for a competitive and equitable total compensation package, effective professional development of employees and a positive work environment
•       Reviews the progress of these and other compensation-related issues on at least an annual basis.

… and follows this step by step process:

1. Conduct job analysis: this is the process of gathering, examining and interpreting data about each job’s tasks and responsibilities. It will include tracking an employee’s duties and the duration of each task, observing the employee performing his or her job, interviewing the employee, managers and others who interact with the employee and comparing the job to other jobs in the same department and job grade or job family.
2. Group into job families: Once the university feels confident that it has current and accurate job descriptions, it will group the jobs into separate job families, e.g., information technology, office/ administrative support.
3. Rank positions: A job evaluation is the process of rank ordering the jobs, not the people, based on job content to demonstrate the relative worth and level of responsibility of all jobs to one another. There are a number of job evaluation methods; ACU will follow the Hay point method system, which uses only three factors and measures the degree that these three factors are required for each position. The Hay system factors are know-how, problem-solving ability and accountability.
4. Conduct market research: Conducting market research ensures that wages paid to staff employees are comparable to similar positions in the marketplace. When conducting market research on salaries, will consider the following:
5. Job titles vary between organizations. ACU will scrutinize the descriptions of the jobs surveyed to make sure that the related tasks, functions and level of responsibility match positions at the university.
6. To obtain current, accurate salary information, ACU will need to purchase salary data and will in some cases conduct its own market research.
7. Whenever possible, ACU will try to obtain information from more than one market survey resource, at least for benchmark positions.
8. Create job grades: ACU will use its job evaluation data to group positions within each job family into job grades. The university will note the range of pay in the salary surveys and all the information that may be relevant when establishing an average salary. ACU will use the 50th percentile in salary survey data to meet the market.
9. Create a salary range: For each pay grade, ACU will establish a midpoint, a minimum and a maximum pay range.
10. Conduct out of range analysis: At this stage in the process, ACU will take a look at what it is paying its staff employees in comparison to the data it has collected and the proposed salary grades and ranges for positions. ACU will rely on the market data and its pay philosophy to set these ranges.
11. Updating and aging (refresh the plan): Salaries never remain unchanged. The rate of pay is constantly changing with external market and economic activity; hence salary survey data will be gathered and reviewed every two to three years so that appropriate adjustments can be made to ACU’s salary ranges.
12. Communicate the job grade structure, salary ranges, and market comparison data to the staff, and make the information available.

Ruben Izaguirre, Ph.D.

As a consultant for Mindstream Dr. Ruben Izaguirre provides our clients with expertise in people/ organization.

Dr. Izaguirre has over twenty years of experience working in various administrative capacities at four-year and two-year institutions of higher education, most recently as Director of Academic Advising at Texas A&M University, San Antonio and as Sr. Director of TRIO Programs at the University of Texas at San Antonio.  Dr. Izaguirre also served as the Interim Dean of Educational Support Services for the Alamo Community College District (ACCD) in San Antonio, Texas. Prior to serving as the Interim Dean, he was the Director of Student Support Services for ACCD. In addition to his wealth of experience in Student Services, Dr. Izaguirre’s field is Organizational Development where he has both classroom and research experience. Dr. Izaguirre is currently an adjunct professor in Business and Management at the University of the Incarnate Word in San Antonio, Texas.

Dr. Izaguirre received his B.A. in Psychology and Sociology from Our Lady of the Lake University, his M.A. in Administration and Organizational Development, and his Ph.D. in Education with a concentration in Organizational Development and Leadership from the University of the Incarnate Word. Dr. Izaguirre lives in San Antonio, Texas.