Update: Staff Position Classification & Compensation Project

Last fall, Talent & Inclusion initiated a staff position classification and compensation project to assess the market competitiveness of staff salaries at WPI. This is an important and iterative project and we are grateful to the employees, managers, supervisors, and leaders who have been engaged throughout the process; that input helps to ensure that WPI builds a system that is fair and equitable and one in which the community has trust and confidence.

We have been making steady progress and are pleased to provide you with an update along with the remaining tasks and timelines, which you’ll find at the end of this message. Here is a synopsis of that work:

• Assessed staff positions across the university to identify those with similar duties and responsibilities for the purpose of assigning jobs to a job family, career level, and title. This allows us to outline the level of responsibilities the position holds, and the skills and experience necessary to perform the role effectively.
• Conducted benchmarking to match our position descriptions with comparable positions outside of WPI. Through benchmarking, we can collect compensation data from reliable salary surveys that reflect local, regional, and national markets, as well as data across different industries, including those outside of higher education, as is appropriate for our various positions.
• Performed an assessment using the benchmarking data gathered to determine the degree of competitiveness of WPI’s salaries. This data will help inform the development of a pay structure and ranges to which WPI’s jobs will be assigned. This structure allows for movement of salaries within a defined range to recognize employee skillsets, expertise, and contributions to their role.
• Finalized benchmarking for an initial group of positions and, in October, based on this benchmarking, implemented equity adjustments to the salaries of approximately 50% of incumbent employees in the administrative assistant professional job family across campus.

We are currently finalizing the benchmarking for all other positions and developing the design and framework for our new position classification and compensation system. We will also establish guidelines to ensure that the system is maintained and remains viable going forward. In this phase, we are continuing to work closely with our compensation consultants from Segal, as well as with WPI division heads, managers, and leaders across campus; we have also formed a new internal Compensation & Classification Project Advisory Group* to help with these efforts.  

As outlined in the following timeline, we are on track to finalize this work sometime this spring. Information, including grades, salary ranges, and guidelines for ongoing administration of the system, will be shared with the community at that time.

At the outset of the project, we anticipated that we would need to take a phased approach to implementing results, based on the available budget. We remain committed to identifying budgetary resources to support the implementation of recommendations which come from the project, and we will prioritize this work. 

Please reach out to your Talent Strategy Partner if you have questions.

*Compensation & Classification Project Advisory Group:

• Terri Camesano, Dean of Graduate & Professional Studies
• Hilary Clark, Associate Vice President, Talent Operations 
• Jen Cluett, Associate Vice President & Dean of Admissions
• Mike Horan, Executive Vice President, Finance & Operations/CFO
• Olga Klochkova, Associate Vice President, Finance & Operations
• Emily Perlow, Dean of Students
• Theona Scola, Director, Strategic Donor Outreach
• David Spanagel, Associate Professor, Humanities & Arts
• Lauren Turner, Senior Vice President, Talent & Inclusion/CDO
• Tracy West, Senior Compensation Analyst