FY21 Compensation Market Study

The College followed best practices to select internal benchmark jobs. The selection process included:

• Assessed each job class to ensure the jobs reflect a cross-section of our workforce using the following criteria: organizations (i.e., areas, departments, units), job families (i.e., accounting, financial aid, facilities), job levels (i.e., administrators, managers, professionals, staff), grade levels, and bargaining status.
• Considered if the jobs are likely to have job matches in survey data and the likelihood that the survey match will yield reliable, relevant and robust data.
• If an MC job hierarchy has multiple levels, the level most likely to match to a survey job and yield robust data was chosen. However, we ensured all levels, regardless of job hierarchy, were represented in the study.
• Reviewed the proposed benchmark jobs with Segal (our consultant).

Benchmark jobs are placed in the salary structure based on their target market rate - how the job is paid in the relevant labor market. Non-benchmark jobs are aligned (slotted) based on job-related factors such as job duties, knowledge, skills, abilities, scope, autonomy, complexity,  decision-making  and supervisory responsibility.

The process to align benchmark jobs in the salary structure is:

• MC’s position description is aligned to MC’s job class specification
• MC’s job class specification is matched to a survey job description and a target market rate is determined
• MC’s job is “slotted” in the salary range with the midpoint that closely matches the target marker rate.

Job slotting is a technique used to align jobs within a job hierarchy or salary structure. Once benchmark jobs have been aligned in the salary structure, non-benchmark jobs are slotted into the same grade associated with the benchmark job that is the closest match based on job-related factors such as knowledge, skills, abilities, scope, autonomy, complexity, decision-making, and supervisory responsibility.

The process to align non-benchmark jobs in the salary structure is:

• MC’s position description is aligned to MC’s job class specification
• MC’s job class specification is compared to similar MC benchmark jobs based on job-related factors such as knowledge, skills, abilities, scope, autonomy, complexity, decision making, and supervisory responsibility.
• MC’s job is aligned with the grade associated with the benchmark job(s) it most closely aligns with.

Supervisors in collaboration with employees are encouraged to update position descriptions as changes occur. Employees are reminded periodically, and at a minimum during the annual performance review process, to review position descriptions. Our policies and practices state that administrators and supervisors are responsible for ensuring that position descriptions accurately reflect the work performed by their staff. Working under this premise, and based on the periodic notifications, existing position descriptions and job class specifications were used as the basis for this study.

The classification of a job for the market study will not be impacted unless there is a major and significant change to the work of a job class. Minor changes to a position description most likely will not impact the benchmark exercise.

This study has two tracks: 1) staff and administrators, and, 2) faculty. The implementation plan for the staff and administrator study is expected to be submitted by summer 2021. While some of the activities for both tracks will be performed concurrently, due to additional complexity and analysis required for faculty data, the implementation plan for the faculty study is scheduled to be submitted by December 2021.