Base Salary
Salary paid for a job performed. It does not include any premium pay such as shift differentials, overtime pay, supplemental pay or any pay element other than the base rate.
Benchmark Job
A job that has a standard and consistent set of responsibilities from one organization to another and for which data is available in valid and reliable salary surveys.
Career Pathway
A series of defined levels of jobs within a job family that provide a roadmap to identify career goals. Each level outlines the skills, knowledge, and experience necessary to progress to another level or laterally across an organization.
Classification
A system in which jobs are grouped together based on similarities in terms of the work they involve and the skills and knowledge needed to do them in order to assign a grade, title, and compensation level.
Compensation Philosophy
A compensation philosophy sets the foundation of an organization's compensation framework and establishes a cohesive set of principles for all levels for decisions around salary.
Exempt
Exempt staff are employees who are not subject to the Fair Labor Standards Act's (FLSA) minimum wage and overtime pay requirements. Exempt employees are typically paid a salary, and are not required to be paid overtime.
Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA)
Federal legislation that sets the federal minimum wage, overtime pay, equal pay, record keeping, and child labor standards for employees who are covered by the act and are not exempt from specific provisions.
Grade
A type of organizational structure that categorizes jobs by level of authority, responsibilities, and pay. Salaries may differ between job families. Therefore, positions in the same grade can have different pay levels depending on the job family.
Job Description
A summary of the most important features of a job, including the general nature of the work performed (core duties and responsibility), percentage of time spent on the responsibilities, and level (skills, education, and experience). A job description describes and focuses on the job itself and not on any specific individual who might fill the job.
Job Family
A job family is a group of jobs involving similar types of work and requiring similar training, skills, knowledge, and expertise. The job family helps organize related jobs for purposes of pay and career progression. Examples include human resources, information technology, and research.
Job Leveling
A process that categorizes roles within an organization based on their scope, complexity, authority, and requirements.
Job Profile
The job profile groups positions that have the same nature of work and compensation grade and require a similar degree of experience. Examples of Job Profiles include Administrative Coordinator 2, Financial Analyst 2, and Communications Specialist 2.
Job Sub-Family
A subset of a job family, usually more specialized in nature. Examples include:
Compensation, Benefits, Talent Acquisition (sub-families within Human Resources job family)
Application Developer, Programmer, Systems Administration (sub-families within Information Technology)
Market Analysis
An ongoing process which is conducted to analyze job trends and salary levels/rates paid in the market.
Market Pricing
A blend of compensation surveys that aggregates data points to provide a targeted salary range for similar roles. Survey data is compared across higher education and other industries as well as local, regional, and national data to develop the right blend for market pricing for each role.
Non-exempt
A job subject to the overtime, record keeping, and minimum wage provisions of the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA). These roles are paid hourly.
Pay Equity
Pay equity refers to compensating employees who are performing substantially similar or comparable work in an equitable way based on their responsibilities and experience. Equitable is different from equal since staff may have different related experience.
Salary Range
The salary ranges for each grade are designed to be broad so they can accommodate the differences in market pay for different job families within each grade. Pay within each job grade varies based on the external market for each job family and internal equity. The midpoint represents the middle value between the minimum and maximum in the salary range and, therefore, should not be used as the salary target. Instead, the salary target for a position should be based on the external market and internal equity for the type of role.
Salary Survey
The gathering, summarizing and analysis of relevant market data on wages and salaries for benchmark jobs by a third-party. Salary surveys are used to analyze pay and/or adjust pay levels in response to competitive pay changes.
Staff
Staff at Brown are categorized as non-union employees who are full or part-time and who are employed on a regular, fixed term, or seasonal/intermittent basis. Faculty, postdoctoral students, student workers, and interns are not categorized as staff.