Compensation Strategy

A compensation strategy is a formal plan that outlines how a company will pay and reward its employees. 

A compensation strategy helps attract top talent, boost morale, and keep the business competitive. It's a win-win, ensuring fair employee pay and financial health for the company.

A successful compensation strategy goes beyond just offering competitive salaries. It's about attracting, retaining, and motivating the right talent. To gauge its effectiveness, there are key metrics we can use to track success: 

• Time to hire - A well-designed compensation strategy can help fill vacancies faster by attracting strong candidates.
• Application rates – A competitive and well-communicated compensation strategy can turn qualified lookers into enthusiastic applicants.
• Turnover rate – A lower turnover rate can signify that employees are happy with the compensation and availability of growth opportunities.
• Pay equity analysis - Regularly analyze salaries to ensure fairness across genders, ethnicities, and experience levels within similar roles.
• Market index - This metric compares an employee's salary to the market rate for their position and helps identify the salary competitiveness.
• Position in range – Shows the current placement of an employee’s salary in their assigned salary range and helps indicate internal equity.
   

The UCCS compensation strategy will include multiple different components with multiple topics discussed within each, including but not limited to: 

• commitment to pay equity
• defined compensation/classification structure for both faculty and staff
• market-based salary ranges to remain competitive
• recruitment elements, such as posting ranges and recruitment/hiring bonuses
• compensation adjustments and placement in range
• salary grievance process
• non-base building incentives
• performance incentive strategy
   

A compensation strategy is a framework for deciding how much to pay employees. It does not dictate a single number but considers several factors to arrive at a fair and competitive pay rate. These factors may include external market analysis, internal equity, individual qualifications, and the company budget. The specifications for reviewing and implementing these factors will be determined during this project and shared in more detail once they are available. 

Throughout this project, the task force will pay close attention to how employees receive adjustments within their pay range. Considerations will include promotion guidelines, retention offers, market adjustments, annual merit strategy, skill acquisition increases, general across-the-board increase guidelines, and other adjustment opportunities for our faculty and staff. 

Bonuses are also an essential factor in our compensation strategy as they help with motivation and performance, provide more flexibility with finances, and help attract and retain our top talent. This will also be discussed in more detail to be considered, including sign-on bonuses, referral bonuses, performance-based incentives, and project-based incentives.  
 

In addition to base salary, the compensation task force will discuss non-base building incentives such as bonuses, additional payments, professional development, research support, etc. Our CU System office works hard to ensure that all faculty and university staff in the CU system are provided with generous benefits, including but not limited to medical, dental, vision, life, disability, and paid time off. Employees can see their total compensation, including benefit worth, using the Total Compensation Calculators.

During this process, the task force will discuss items such as linking rewards to performance, recognition, and appreciation incentives and look for other ways to incentivize employees in alignment with the university’s goals. In developing these guidelines, we will implement clear goals, fairness and transparency, and financial balance to ensure these rewards are obtainable to all. 

In alignment with the 2030 strategic plan, a compensation strategy will assist in all goals and objectives of our university. Still, there are three specific areas that this strategy will impact most significantly: 

• Foster a community of learning, engagement, and inclusive belonging – by creating fairness and transparency within the compensation strategy and by offering a variety of compensation avenues depending on the diverse needs of our employees.
• Invest deliberately in our people, processes, and infrastructure – attracting top talent and rewarding current employees through incentivized learning and development and fostering a skilled and engaged workforce.
• Strengthen our financial position – by assisting with forecasting and controlling labor costs, determining an appropriate budget to motivate employees, increasing revenue, and reducing turnover through the compensation strategy, resulting in lower recruitment costs. 
  

The positions at our university are very diverse and unique, so there are multiple different approaches we will take to ensure that employees are paid competitively within the market while maintaining internal equity. Some of those elements include: 

• Job code framework
• Salary ranges associated with job codes
• Market research
• Internal equity
• Variable or non-base building pay.
   

Three key factors must be considered to successfully create a compensation strategy that will attract, retain, and motivate top talent at our university. 

• Competitive Total Rewards Package: Offer market-rate base salary, non-base building incentives, and adequate pay for performance.
• Investing in Growth and Well-Being: Provide professional development opportunities, work-life balance, and clear guidelines for movement in range.
• Tailoring the Offer: Understanding unique employee needs and providing transparency about total compensation.
   

We will maintain compliance with multiple laws when developing this strategy. Some of the major ones include, but are not limited to: 

• Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA)
• Equal Pay Act of 1963
• Colorado Equal Pay for Equal Work Act
• Americans with Disabilities Act
• Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964
• Age Discrimination in Employment Act
   

Throughout the project, quarterly announcements will be sent via email campuswide and on this webpage. As pieces of the strategy are implemented, documents will be shared on the HR website, and training will be conducted for different groups depending on the topic within the strategy. Once this project is complete, training will continue to be available, and documents will be listed on the HR website to promote transparency within this strategy.  

While details are still being discussed and tested, UCCS will consider multiple avenues to ensure pay equity across all employees in the organization. This will likely include regular pay audits driven by data, offer and negotiation guidelines, promoting salary transparency, reviewing our classification and pay structures, addressing pay inequities with available resources, and current diversity and inclusion initiatives. 

Yes. The compensation strategy project will result in an appeals or grievance process. Faculty grievance processes within each college will still be utilized, but more campus-wide guidance will be created to include university staff. 

The task force’s current timeline is to complete work by the end of the Spring semester of 2025 to start training and implementing summer 2025. However, this timeline is subject to change given the topics discussed, feedback received, and leadership approval and additional time may be required to ensure it's well-crafted. While the timeline might shift slightly, the final plan will be more effective and sustainable in the long run.

The compensation strategy project has a smaller group of project team members that will create the strategy documents, lead and guide discussions, and get approval through the process. However, the compensation task force is a large group of representatives of the campus community. We rely on the task force member’s insights and experience to guide our strategy and decision-making process. This is an opportunity for us to collectively tackle the complexities of compensation and drive meaningful change at UCCS. To provide input to the strategy, please get in touch with the taskforce member who best represents your role on campus or with whom you feel most comfortable speaking. 

Training will be provided in multiple avenues and separated into various sub-training courses to capture the entire compensation strategy. Our goal is to provide live, virtual and recorded training and be available to provide 1-on-1 guidance for managers and employees as compensation-related discussions arise. Training will be implemented for managers and leadership, HR liaisons, and employees to ensure an understanding of the processes and guidelines outlined in this compensation strategy. 

The compensation task force approved a list of compensation benchmark peer institutions that operate closely to how the University of Colorado Colorado Springs operates. HR then takes that data and their salary information, enters it into the market pay compensation tool and gives salary data that best matches where those peer institutions are at. HR does this with each job level/job code to ensure accuracy when comparing pay.  

HR uses the data from compensation benchmark peer institutions, market sources, survey data, etc., to get the midpoint of a position’s salary or the market average. Depending on the position, the range or spread of a salary may vary. If the spread is set at 60% for an executive position, for example, HR would take 60% of the salary and add it below the midpoint and above the midpoint to create a range. Certain positions have larger ranges than others.  

HR bases their market data and analysis on the job descriptions for these positions, rather than the working titles. Titles often vary at institutions, so the duties are assessed instead to develop the salary. Most of the time, they would still be in the range of a “director” position. 

 One of UCCS' goals is to have standard job descriptions for positions that can be applied to all positions under that job code/working title. Job descriptions currently vastly vary amongst colleges, departments, and campuses. By job scaling each position, we can help eliminate inequities between jobs with differing duties and pay.