Glossary of Terms
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Glossary of Terms
| Across the Board | Pay adjustment generally applies to all university employees, generally as a percentage adjustment. |
| Annual Salary Setting Process | The Board of Regents must approve the salary pool, based on economic conditions, for officers and university staff, and the Chancellor must approve all individual salary adjustments. |
| Base Pay | Ongoing budgeted salary for a position. The salary paid for a job performed. It does not include any premium pay, overtime pay, supplemental pay or any pay element other than the base rate. |
| Benchmark Job | A job defined and used to make pay comparisons either within the organization or to comparable jobs outside the organization. Pay data for these jobs are readily available in published market surveys. |
| Blended Job | A job that encompasses multi-functional responsibility for a combination of different areas that are all important and necessary for the role and typically represent two or more separate jobs (e.g., Financial Analyst and Talent Acquisition Specialist). If a Job Group code does not exist for the blended job, pay is based on the work where the majority of time is spent. |
| Classification and Compensation Structure | The array and hierarchy of job families, functional groups, functional levels, and the associated salary ranges established for different jobs within an organization. Also includes policies, practices and overall compensation philosophy adopted by an organization. |
| Compensation Philosophy | A philosophy set and adopted by an organization that ensures the compensation program supports the organization’s strategy, culture and the achievement of organizational objectives. The UCCS compensation philosophy is in proposed status. |
| Internal Equity Adjustments | Pay adjustments based on an internal compensation analysis of current employees in similarly situated positions based on widely accepted industry standards. |
| Functional Level | The level of the position, ranging from entry professional to director, usually indicated by the last digit in the CU job code. Jobs functioning as independent contributors (Entry through Senior Professional), advanced or technical expert (Principle through Program Director), directors (Assistant Director through Director) or strategic positions (Executives). |
| In-line Promotion | Occurs when a position takes on higher level responsibilities and scope of work resulting in an advancement to the next functional level within the same job and functional groups. |
| Job/Position | The total collection of tasks, duties and responsibilities assigned to one or more individuals whose work has the same nature and level of work and outlined in a job description. |
| Job Classification | The assignment of a job to a specific job group and functional level based on the duties, scope, and responsibilities. |
| Job Description | A summary of the most important features of a job, including the general nature of the work performed, core duties and responsibilities, essential functions, and required skills, education, and experience. |
| Job Family | A major grouping of jobs serving a common purpose (e.g., Academic Services, Business Services, Communications). A job family includes functional level ranging from entry level to director. CU has established 19 job families. |
| Job Group (Functional Group) | Groupings of similarly situated positions for job classification and compensation. |
| Market (External Equity) Adjustments | Market adjustments occur for existing staff if there is strong evidence to support a salary increase due to specific triggering event(s), such as high turnover rates, failed searches, hard-to-fill positions, etc. Must be supported by a validated market analysis. |
| Market Analysis | An annual process conducted by UCCS HR to analyze job trends and salary levels/rates paid in the market. Market data reflect the geographic regions and the types of industries from which we recruit. These may include for-profit and not-for-profit organizations, local and national organizations, and higher education institutions as well as general industry firms. Market data used will vary depending on the level of the position. |
| Market Rate | Rate of pay for each job based on the aggregate, representative market data from appropriate salary surveys. |
| Merit Adjustments | Merit is the historical basis for all salary increases at the University of Colorado. Salary adjustments or increases that take into account market, career, equity, or structural factors must be simultaneously based on merit. Refers to the growth in an employee's pay awarded based on an objective measure of their past performance. Merit increases are not based on time in position. |
| Non-Base Building | Salary adjustments that are not permanent or ongoing, do not impact base salary, and generally end or are reestablished each fiscal year. |
| Reclassification | Occurs when a position takes on duties that result in moving to a different job group. Changes may be at the same functional level or may result in a pay increase if the scope and responsibilities of the duties have increased. |
| Salary Range | The range of pay rates, from minimum to maximum, established for a specific job group and functional level. Typically used to set individual employee base salary rates, the range reflects the competitive market-based lower and upper bounds of pay for jobs within a particular job group. |
| Salary Range Structural Adjustments | Structural adjustments are granted to whole units, or categories of university staff employees when it is determined that the entire structure of salaries is out of alignment. Structural pay range adjustments may occur annually to ensure pay ranges are in- line with market data. Structural pay adjustments may also occur when an employee’s pay is below the minimum of the pay range. |