Interviews and Focus Groups (Summer 2024)
The first phase of the project focused on collecting data and obtaining stakeholder perspectives. During summer 2024, Mercer conducted leadership interviews with 85 stakeholders including the following groups:
- Executive Committee
- Diversity and Inclusion Oversight Board
- Staff Advisory Council
- HR Business Partners
- Faculty directors
In addition, University Human Resources invited all staff and managers, including faculty managers, to participate in digital focus groups, which allowed the project team to gather feedback in a live, interactive setting.
Who Participated
1,940
participants in digital focus groups, including:
1,294
staff members
646
managers
85
+
stakeholders interviewed
Feedback
These conversations and focus groups helped us gain valuable insights from which we were able to identify common themes and form plans to improve how compensation is administered at Brown.
| What Was Said | What Brown is Doing |
|---|
| Staff have a sense of pride about working at Brown. | Enhancing our transparency and communications regarding compensation practices at Brown and how we ensure that pay is consistent, fair and equitable |
| Staff want to grow their careers at Brown. | Developing career streams and career pathways that support growth and mobility |
| Staff want to learn about and understand our compensation programs. | Creating more resources, educational materials and training for staff and managers about how compensation is administered |
| Staff appreciate our benefits, culture and work-life balance but feel that pay is not as competitive as it could be. | Enhancing our market-based pay structure by developing job families, subfamilies and job profiles to better define, classify and align pay with external market and internal equity and ensure competitiveness |
Bottom line: Staff want transparent, well-understood career paths that support career growth, mobility and competitive pay.