Since the University of Idaho introduced a new classification and compensation system, the overarching tone with staff across campus has been one of confusion and concern. 
Part of this concern, according to Vice President of Finance and Administration Ron Smith, is that staff felt they didn’t have enough involvement in the process with Greg Walters, executive director of Human Resources, and the rest of the HR staff.
“I think Greg and his staff did a really good job of keeping people informed, but they really didn’t get them involved,” Smith said. “So the staff got information but it wasn’t clear where it came from, how it was developed, the structure, how it was structured, how they came to the conclusions they came to. And now we’re having to go back and do that.”
What is it?
Last fall, all staff on campus submitted Position Description Questionnaires, which were forms focused on detailing the knowledge and skills, scope of responsibilities and range of impact for each individual job at UI. HR hired Sibson Consulting to assist in identifying benchmark positions — that is, positions that are comparable to similar jobs in the market — and slotting them into the appropriate classification and associated pay grade. Positions that didn’t match market benchmarks were evaluated by HR and slotted into classifications that closely matched. The number of classifications were reduced from around 1,180 for 1,567 employees, to around 270. The number of pay grades dropped from 18 to 12.
The goal of the classification study was to reduce salary compression — that is, when new employees are hired at a higher rate of pay than existing employees at a similar or lower level — and to improve hiring equities across the campus. By simplifying the number of classifications and pay grades, it allows differences between jobs in different pay grades to be easier to discern, Walters said.
Staff who are below the minimum salary for their pay grade will receive a raise to meet the minimum and staff who are above or close to the maximum for their range will continue to be eligible for raises, according to Smith.
UI administrators have stressed repeatedly that there will be no loss of salary for current university employees and that all employees will be eligible for future raises.
Classification titles
Many have expressed concerns that the titles assigned to them for their particular classification do not accurately reflect their job duties or position at the university, despite it being separate from a working title. Smith said these concerns are partially based on a misconception.
“We have to put people into certain groups, so they are viewing that as a title — and that’s what (HR) said, ‘classification title’ — so that might be part of our issue,” Smith said.
Smith said they are hoping to change the terminology they’ve been using to help correct the perception of the classifications.
“Classification group, job title. I think that if we can get to that (terminology) people will feel better about that,” Smith said. “What the classification title is, is just a grouping of like positions … it’s not their title. It’s not what they should be known as, it’s not what they should put on their business cards or stationary.”
What staff should put on their business cards or stationary is their working title, which cwan be established by individual staff members and their supervisors to properly reflect their position at UI, Smith said.
Appeal process
A concern expressed by staff at the Aug. 22 open forum was inadequate time to file an appeal for reclassification, given the busy start to the academic year. The original appeal deadline was Sept. 9 and Smith said after sitting down and discussing what it would take to file an appeal, it was decided to extend that deadline to Oct. 9.
Cindy Bogar, chemistry department manager, cited concerns about not being able to easily access PDQs in an online format.
“What I would ask, perhaps for everyone, perhaps just for myself, is why if we have benchmarks … why don’t we have those same job descriptions that we can literally go to and see, not in person, but online,” Bogar asked. “Why isn’t there transparency in that?”
In response, administration and HR decided to make the PDQs available online for staff to access.
“So it will be online for them and it will make it a lot easier to get the information and I think that will be more fair with the appeal process,” Smith said.
Brian Mahoney, chair of Staff Affairs Committee, said right now he feels good about how staff will be represented on the appeals committee. Three Staff Affairs Committee members will be on the appeals committee, he said, which is more than was originally planned.
“I think that staff (will be pleased to) know there are other staff just like themselves and not just upper-level administrators, that we’re going to be looking out for the good of all staff,” Mahoney said.
Communication
Mahoney said that before Interim President Don Burnett sent out a staff-wide email on Aug. 2, he’d had discussions with administration and HR addressing the perceived lack of transparency.
“One thing that came out of that was the communication or lack of transparency in the entire process,” Mahoney said. “And I think what came out of that was that a lot of the folks doing a lot of the work on it are so involved in it, that they assume other people knew how they got to where they were. And those of us who weren’t that involved had no idea.”
Walters said communicating the process has been a challenge for HR.
“Sometimes it’s hard to describe in enough detail, for instance how an individual position ends up being graded in a particular place,” Walters said. “That’s probably the hardest part is to help people understand the inner workings. But also to help them feel comfortable enough that in the end the effect on them individually may not be as significant as they’re imagining.”
Jane Baillargeon, a staff representative on Faculty Senate, said in a way, she thinks perception is everything.
“There does seem to be the perception out there that it has not been done well,” Baillargeon said. “I’m thinking that we really needed more transparency early on. It would have made the process easier.”
But, she said, whenever people’s salaries are involved that is very personal and can be a touchy subject.
“There’s always that distrust and suspicion when you’re messing in people’s pocketbooks,” Baillargeon said. “I do think we could have done it a lot better if we had talked about each piece of the process as we went along the way … just a little bit more information as we’ve gone along would have alleviated some of the tension.”
Hiring practices
During the open forums, Dan Davenport, director of student financial aid, highlighted concerns that the new classification system will negatively affect the ability of UI to hire and retain quality staff.
Davenport said if he were to rehire his staff members at the new classification level assigned to their positions, their combined salaries would be significantly reduced, making it difficult to find quality candidates willing to take on vacant positions.
“I fully support the objectives of the ability to retain and recruit quality talent, compensation that is externally competitive, and the president’s initiative to consider advancement within our offices,” Davenport said. “But I am concerned about the compensation tables being able to support those goals.”
The example he gave was the associate director position in his office. The salary of the person currently in the position is $58,500, but based on the compensation tables, that position could only be re-hired at $45,000. He said Washington State University, Idaho State University and Boise State University hire the same position at $15,000-$25,000 more than that.
“I find it difficult to meet the first two objectives based on that,” Davenport said.
Smith said this is the unfortunate flip side to the ultimate goal of the classification and compensation study — to fix compression. Smith said in the past there have been staff on campus for seven or eight years who have not received raises and when somebody leaves in a similar position, the university has to pay a lot more to get a new hire of the same caliber as the person who left.
“So we’ve ended up with employees who have been here a long time, have more experience and are making less than the new person coming in,” Smith said. “And that’s really not fair.”
Although restricting hiring to the first quartile or third of the salary range could be the solution, it may be difficult to fill positions with qualified candidates.
Smith said UI needs the legislature to fully fund a Change in Employee Compensation, which would raise the salaries of all university employees through state funding.
“And we need to make it the priority of the institution to at least give a little bit each year — just a little bit — so we can keep building the salaries of our current employees,” Smith said. “And we will get to the point where — it could take five or six years — we’ll get to the point where this won’t be an issue. We’ll be hiring people at the market rate and they’ll be coming in at a lower rate than the people working here. That’s our goal. How to get there, that’s going to be the problem.”
Addressing the problem
Mark Miller, a staff representative on Faculty Senate, said there is a writing group made up of staff members who are currently looking into updating the policies and procedures associated with hiring practices at the university to address some of these problems.
“So what we’re hoping to do is to change hiring and promotion and things like that and make it so qualified internal candidates don’t necessarily have to compete with equally qualified candidates outside,” Miller said. “So the people that could move up through the ranks would be able to do that and make more money through internal promotion.”
Mahoney said a goal is to make it easier for people to move up through the ranks within departments. Then, hiring is taking place at the lowest levels where it would be easier to find qualified candidates who would be at lower salaries.
“Yes money will be a concern … and knowing there is some type of progression and they can see how they can work themselves up through an organization,” Mahoney said. “I think having something like that will make a big difference, especially with the morale (and retention) of the staff.”
Baillargeon is also a part of the writing group and echoed Miller’s sentiments.
“I think we are definitely looking at bringing people in at lower salaries. Which is problematic,” Baillargeon said. “However, if we can develop some sort of internal promotional kind of process where people come in knowing there is a future here. They might be willing to take that lower entry knowing that they can move forward. So its all going to hang on how these policies come together in the end.”
Baillargeon said she hopes the writing group will have something to present to Faculty Senate within the next few weeks.
In the future
Staff are encouraged to give feedback and participate in the process whenever they have the chance, Baillargeon said.
“I want to encourage the staff to participate whenever there are forums, conversations, to have their say so they (don’t) feel like this has been imposed upon them,” Baillargeon said. “But we’ve done difficult things before and I think we’re going to come through this just fine.”
Smith said he’s heard both complaints and praise for the new classification and compensation system.
“Some people are happy, some are unhappy,” Smith said. “You tend to hear more from those who are unhappy. But I think we’ll make adjustments as we go. We’re already making adjustments, trying to make it better for the employees, more understandable. So hopefully we get through it.”
Kaitlin Moroney can be reached at [email protected]