- Establishing a short-term and multi-year compensation strategy that advances the campus goal of recruiting, advancing, and retaining employees.
- Develop a compensation philosophy to guide and align the campus compensation strategy work.
- Devise a compensation analysis that incorporates employee benefits aligned with employee populations.
- Develop compensation expense projections
- Establish a clear process to implement and communicate the compensation strategy.
- Changing the campus budget model.
- Increasing or changing budget sources or funding streams used on campus.
- Changing the frequency, timing or amount of employee pay increases.
- Providing new pools of money to individual units for specific issues.
- Determining how to fund the campus compensation strategy.
- Initiating a review of compensation programs for research faculty, undergraduate students, or temporary faculty (this is future work).
- Employee populations governed by other entities, such as classified staff who are governed by the state of Colorado and its employee partnership agreement with COWINS.
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- Promotion & Tenure
- Critical Needs Hiring Program
- AAU Public Peers average adjustments
- Minimum wage adjustments
- Compression costs
- Market average adjustments
- Pay range progression
- Pay equity adjustments
- Performance differentials
- Market adjustment for high-priority job codes with recruitment/retention issues
- Rising benefits costs
- For tenured/tenure-track faculty and graduate students, the CU Boulder campus market includes comparisons with the Association of American Universities (AAU) public peer institutions.
- For teaching-track, clinical-track and lecturer positions, the CU Boulder campus market is generally regional.
- For university staff positions, the CU Boulder campus market is occupation and job level specific including regional and national salary survey sources, AAU public peer institution comparisons, and internal campus alignment.
- For classified staff positions, market comparisons are determined by the state of Colorado Department of Personnel and Administration (DPA) and may be governed by the employee partnership agreement with COWINS.
Salary data sources may change at any time and include, but not limited to:
National Sources (higher education specific):
- Association of American Universities Data Exchange (AAUDE)
- salary surveys, including:
- Administrators
- Faculty
- Professionals
- ٲڴ
- Integrated Postsecondary Education Data System (PEDS) of the US Department of Education
- EduComp salary survey
National sources (all industry types):
- United States SIRES Benchmark High Technology salary survey
- salary database
- CompAnalyst tool
Regional and local sources (all industry types):
- salary surveys
Section 2 of the Act is the “Legislative Declaration” which states: “It is the intent of the general assembly to pass legislation that helps to close the pay gap in Colorado and ensure that employees with similar job duties are paid the same wage rate regardless of sex, or sex plus another protected status.”
In Addition, the Act requires that:
- The employer keeps records of job descriptions and wage rate history for each employee for the duration of employment plus two years after the end of employment.
- The employer provides notice of job openings and promotional opportunities, including the hourly or salary rate or range, and a general description of all the benefits and other compensation offered to the hired applicant.
- The employer does not seek the wage rate history, or rely on the wage rate history, of a prospective employee to determine a wage rate.
- The employer does not discriminate or retaliate against a prospective employee for failing to disclose wage rate history.
- University staff pay ranges are built around a midpoint representing the market average or median for similar work for a fully independent employee with several years of experience in the current role. The range midpoint is not designed to be a new hire starting rate. The range consists of a minimum (which is the start of the 1st quartile), a 2nd quartile, a midpoint (which is the start of the 3rd quartile), a 4th quartile, and a range maximum. The range maximum and minimum values are typically 20% above and below the midpoint.
- University staff jobs are assigned to different pay ranges based on responsibilities reflecting a different type of work or level of assignment. Positions are allocated to a different pay range as determined through the campus position description review process. Pay ranges overlap such that an experienced employee in a lower pay range may have a higher salary than a new employee in a higher pay range.
- University staff pay ranges will be published and communicated internally for the campus starting January 1, 2025. At that time, employees are to be paid within the pay range HR has assigned to their positions.
- For university staff positions, the CU Boulder campus market is occupation and job level specific including regional and national salary survey sources, AAU public peer institution comparisons, and internal campus alignment.
- Salary data sources for university staff may change at any time and include, but are not limited to:
- National sources (higher education specific):
- salary surveys, including:
- Administrators
- Professionals
- ٲڴ
- salary surveys, including:
- EduComp salary survey
- National Sources (all industry types):
- United States SIRES Benchmark High Technology salary survey
- salary database
- CompAnalyst tool
- Regional and local sources (all industry types):
- salary surveys
The university staff compensation system is designed to gradually move employees closer to the range midpoint (experienced level) with progressive time in the role. Salary movement through the range is based on annual merit, across-the-board, and/or range progression structural targets, depending on available budget and campus priorities each year. Additional salary increases may occur when a position description is updated to reflect higher level job duties (job reclassification) or a transfer/promotion to a higher-level position with a higher pay range. Pay adjustments may also be made by the hiring department following campus guidelines for completion of hiring incentives, retention, or internal compression as situations arise. More information is available on the Staff Compensation website.
Hiring managers are encouraged to consider promotional career path options when creating a position description and filling a position, such as planning for moving employees from entry to professional, to senior if the work supports it. The hiring manager should budget for the highest career track level available. The hiring manager can work with a Position Management/Compensation Consultant to develop position description templates for each career track level that include the job duties, competencies, and qualifications needed. The hiring manager can use this information to communicate promotional expectations and timelines to their employees. The availability of career paths is dependent on the nature of the job and the size and role of the work unit. Not all jobs have internal career path options. Please see the HR Promotions & Transfers webpage for additional information.
Each university staff position is assigned by HR to a payroll job code and a compensation code, which in turn is assigned a pay range based on HR’s annual analysis of competitive market salary data and internal alignment factors. All university staff positions at the time they are created, updated, or filled, are assigned a compensation code by HR based on the job duties (and other related factors) as outlined by the hiring department in the position description in comparison to similar positions across campus. This ensures that positions performing substantially similar work are categorized into a single code for salary setting and pay alignment.
When there is a staff vacancy, a promotion, or a position description update is needed, HR reviews the position description provided by the hiring department and classifies the position with the appropriate CU payroll title, compensation code, and associated pay range. HR notifies the hiring manager and the division, college/school, or department HR liaison of the approved pay range/range. HR Talent Acquisition (TA) and Position Management/Compensation (PMC) will advise campus departments on an appropriate salary range to publish in the job posting (which is often the first quartile or the first two quartiles depending on the hiring department’s budget and any pay equity considerations for similar work) and to offer a final candidate.
Human Resources is implementing a staff leveling framework and compensation structure for the campus. Information, training, tools, and resources will be communicated to the campus this summer (2024). Information will be available on the Staff Compensation website.
The framework is based around the concept of job families which are used to group substantially similar jobs based on the nature of the work. Positions are leveled within job families based on the position description’s assigned duties, the complexity of the work performed, level of independence, supervision exercised, oversight received, proficiency required, campus impact, and minimum education, experience, or job-related requirements. Each position’s job family, level, title, and pay range are documented on the position description reviewed by HR in the
Coming Soon!
- Establishing a short-term and multi-year compensation strategy that advances the campus goal of recruiting, advancing, and retaining employees.
- Develop a compensation philosophy to guide and align the campus compensation strategy work.
- Devise a compensation analysis that incorporates employee benefits aligned with employee populations.
- Develop compensation expense projections
- Establish a clear process to implement and communicate the compensation strategy.
- Changing the campus budget model.
- Increasing or changing budget sources or funding streams used on campus.
- Changing the frequency, timing or amount of employee pay increases.
- Providing new pools of money to individual units for specific issues.
- Determining how to fund the campus compensation strategy.
- Initiating a review of compensation programs for research faculty, undergraduate students, or temporary faculty (this is future work).
- Employee populations governed by other entities, such as classified staff who are governed by the state of Colorado and its employee partnership agreement with COWINS.
- ѱ
- Promotion & Tenure
- Critical Needs Hiring Program
- AAU Public Peers average adjustments
- Minimum wage adjustments
- Compression costs
- Market average adjustments
- Pay range progression
- Pay equity adjustments
- Performance differentials
- Market adjustment for high-priority job codes with recruitment/retention issues
- Rising benefits costs
- For tenured/tenure-track faculty and graduate students, the CU Boulder campus market includes comparisons with the Association of American Universities (AAU) public peer institutions.
- For teaching-track, clinical-track and lecturer positions, the CU Boulder campus market is generally regional.
- For university staff positions, the CU Boulder campus market is occupation and job level specific including regional and national salary survey sources, AAU public peer institution comparisons, and internal campus alignment.
- For classified staff positions, market comparisons are determined by the state of Colorado Department of Personnel and Administration (DPA) and may be governed by the employee partnership agreement with COWINS.
Salary data sources may change at any time and include, but not limited to:
National Sources (higher education specific):
- Association of American Universities Data Exchange (AAUDE)
- salary surveys, including:
- Administrators
- Faculty
- Professionals
- ٲڴ
- Integrated Postsecondary Education Data System (PEDS) of the US Department of Education
- EduComp salary survey
National sources (all industry types):
- United States SIRES Benchmark High Technology salary survey
- salary database
- CompAnalyst tool
Regional and local sources (all industry types):
- salary surveys