Competitive salaries are a key component of our total compensation. UK has budgeted for campus staff and faculty salary increases in 10 of the past 11 years. Last year, the university invested more than $12.5 million in pay increases.
Our HR Compensation team strives to ensure all salaries at UK are competitive for our market and are equitably administered.
For every position at the university, including UK HealthCare, HR Compensation reviews the functions and context of the job responsibilities.
Benchmarking jobs means that we match specific jobs to comparable jobs in the labor market. A benchmark job is one with a standard and consistent set of responsibilities from one organization to another. In those cases, data included in valid salary surveys tends to be reliable.
The benchmark job is then slotted into the salary grade with a grade midpoint that is closest to the median salary reported in the surveys.
At the same time, non-benchmark jobs are those for which valid and reliable salary survey data is not available. They may be unique to our organization or can’t be accurately matched to comparable positions in published surveys.
To determine the salary grade for a non-benchmark job, we take an objective approach. First, we compare non-benchmark jobs to benchmark jobs to find similar positions. The similarities are based on important factors like skill requirements, management responsibilities and scope, educational requirements, decision-making responsibilities, etc. We then slot the job into the appropriate salary grade based on other similar positions at that level.
Benchmarking also refers to grouping higher education institutions like ours. In addition, we consider the SEC colleges and universities to be part of our peer group. We then look at the median compensation for similar roles in the benchmark groups. We try to align the position’s salary grade mid-point with the market median. Of course, pay grading depends on the job duties, span of control, hierarchical departmental/area structures, budget and other factors. You can review all salary grade levels here.
HR Compensation recommends UK departments pay the midpoint of the salary grade level for employees with seven years of related experience. However, all salaries will be dependent upon many factors, including department budgets.