University Human Resources

Compensation and Career Pathways Initiative

The Compensation and Career Pathways Initiative (CCPI) is a multi-year phased initiative that includes redesigning job levels to provide more consistent, transparent, market-driven, and competitive pay and to foster a greater understanding of career pathways within the redesigned structure for non-union staff at Brown.

Message from the Executive and Project Sponsors

We are dedicated to ensuring that Brown continues to be a great place to work where talented people can build productive and rewarding careers in support of Brown's mission of advancing knowledge and understanding. We are excited to launch this dedicated webpage for the Staff Compensation and Career Pathways Initiative (CCPI), which is focused on supporting competitive market pay and career growth.

Sarah Latham, Executive Vice President of Finance and Administration
Marie Williams, Vice President of Human Resources

Project Overview and Approach

Brown has engaged Mercer, a leading global Human Resources consulting firm with extensive experience in higher education, to serve as a key partner during all phases of this initiative. Together, we will develop a competitive strategy as part of our commitment to ensuring that our compensation packages are reflective of the value our talented staff bring to the University. 

By analyzing market trends, industry standards and internal benchmarks, we will ensure our compensation packages are fair, competitive, agile, sustainable, and provide clear career pathways for staff. These are critical components to continue attracting, developing and retaining an exemplary workforce that is integral to the success of the University.

Project Duration

The CCPI will be a multi-year phased project to enhance Brown’s approach to compensation and career advancement for all non-union staff members. The project is expected to be complete in FY27.

Stakeholder Engagement

The CCPI incorporates both the feedback that UHR has received through the HR Advisory Board, HR Business Partners (HRBPs), Fall 2023 Business Process Roundtables, and Fall 2024 Digital Focus Groups, as well as current best practices in talent management. We will continue to provide staff with opportunities to share feedback throughout the project. We appreciate the time and thoughtful feedback staff have contributed to this initiative. This engagement is crucial in developing a structure that best serves everyone.

Project Goals and Benefits

  • Provide accessible compensation and career tools and resources for managers and staff. 
  • Create and refine job groupings (job families and subfamilies) to align similar positions into common market jobs to ensure employees are compensated fairly and equitably.
  • Redesign of our job levels, titles, and compensation structure to make it more consistent, transparent, market-driven, and competitive to attract and retain diverse top talent.
  • Empower staff to embark on their career planning by creating clear pathways for growth and development to support employees in career planning and development that is aligned with Brown’s needs.
  • Develop market-driven pay to enhance talent recruitment and retention by analyzing university salaries compared to those of the external market. 
  • Development of a compensation philosophy to drive pay equity and consistency.
  • Development of standard job descriptions where applicable.
  • Development of more transparent and improved communication pertaining to compensation at Brown.

What it is Not

  • A general increase or automatic increase in pay for all employees.
  • Part of a budget savings initiative.
  • A review of individual raises or promotions.
  • A change to any employee’s currently assigned job duties or responsibilities.
  • Change(s) to benefit programs.

Project Phases and Status Updates

This project includes creating a job structure, establishing a compensation philosophy, conducting a market assessment to determine market salary ranges, and developing career pathways to support staff career growth.

Phase 1 - Planning and Discovery

April 2024 to September 2024

 
  • Collect and review relevant data, institutional information, organizational charts, and gather feedback from broad stakeholders.
  • Conduct stakeholder interviews and Digital Focus Groups.

Phase 2 - Job Structure, Leveling and Mapping

October 2024 to September 2025

 
  • Develop an organization framework, including job families and subfamilies, career streams, and grades for leveling. 
  • Work with senior leadership and HRBPs to map all positions and develop career tracks.
  • Develop career pathways across job families.

Phase 3 - Market Pricing and Assessment and Pay Structure Development

November 2025 to March 2026

 
  • Establish a compensation philosophy to articulate the guiding principles for setting and administering pay.
  • Conduct market pricing analysis to develop market salary ranges to build Brown’s salary ranges.

Phase 4 - Implementation and Communications

April 2026 to September 2026

 
  • Develop compensation administration guidelines, launch the new job and pay structures.
  • Develop educational resources, and deliver training sessions.

Project Governance

The Steering Committee includes senior leadership from across the University who provide direction and support for the project, make key decisions and recommendations throughout the duration of the project, and play a critical role in communication and change management strategy.

The Advisory Committee includes representatives from across the University who provide expertise regarding divisional needs and position-specific functions.  They also act as a sounding board for project deliverables.

The Project Leadership Team includes key HR leadership members who manage project planning, operationalization, and progress oversight.

The Communications Working Group includes key staff who provide guidance on the overall communication and engagement strategy, develop and review key communications and messaging, and inform the overall change management strategy.

Frequently Asked Questions

The Compensation and Career Pathways Initiative (CCPI) is a large-scale multi-year project that will modernize Brown’s approach towards compensation and career advancement for all non-union staff positions. The goal of the initiative is to create and sustain competitive compensation through market-based pay and clear, supportive career progression resources for staff. 

This initiative will modernize our compensation structures to align with current best practices, create an inclusive, consistent and transparent job framework to provide clarity on job levels and career progression, and transition to market-based pay to ensure competitiveness to the external market. 

Market-based pay is a compensation method that leverages market salaries, or the going rates of pay for jobs in the market, to inform pay decisions.  This is achieved by market pricing, which is a technique that requires the collection and interpretation of market data external to the organization.  Jobs are “matched” to comparable roles in salary surveys that are published by third-party vendors to identify market prevalent rates.

A job framework is a tool that makes visible the collection and organization of jobs to reflect the hierarchy and associated pay ranges.  Brown currently has one job framework that includes 15 grades for all career streams/job families.  This initiative will provide more clarity and transparency around job levels by introducing  a new framework. 

University Human Resources (UHR) has partnered with Mercer, an external human resources consultant firm that specializes in workforce, careers, compensation, and benefit program design. Mercer has worked with many other universities on similar initiatives and will serve as a critical partner providing knowledge across industries, expertise in compensation programs, career pathways and market competitiveness.

Feedback from all staff is critical to the success of this initiative.  As part of the planning and discovery phase, Mercer conducted multiple interviews with over 90 key stakeholders, including the Executive Committee and members of the President’s Staff Advisory Council and Diversity and Inclusion Oversight Board.  Additionally, all staff members had an opportunity to participate in digital focus groups. 1,878 staff participated in the month of August. The insights and information collected  from these interviews and focus groups will inform the new compensation structure. 

Staff will not see a reduction in their pay as a result of this initiative. One of the outcomes of this initiative is to create a structure that will allow for fair and transparent compensation decisions, including pay ranges that better represent our internal pay practices and market benchmarks. Another outcome will be new compensation levels and pay grades, as well as titling guidelines to create consistencies across Brown.  This is critical to support transparency and foster greater understanding about career pathways.

This is a critical component of what the project is working to accomplish. We want staff to understand the many career opportunities across Brown. Having a consistent and transparent structure will illustrate career pathways and advancement opportunities so staff can map out long-term opportunities for growth and development.

Multiple committees have been formed including members of senior leadership that will provide direction and support for the project, make key decisions and recommendations throughout the duration of the project, and play a critical role in communication and change management strategy.

Roles and responsibilities will not be reviewed or modified as a part of this initiative. Therefore, individual job descriptions will not change as a result of this initiative.  Standard job descriptions may be developed and shared as appropriate to help departments quickly write job descriptions for common roles.  As a reminder, managers and employees should review job descriptions on an annual basis and update as appropriate.

Compensation Services will continue to partner with Human Resources Business Partners and leaders to review staff’s compensation to ensure it is competitive with external market rates and internal equity.  Any necessary adjustments that are identified will be made during one of our compensation cycles.  As a reminder, this initiative will not result in an automatic increase for staff members.  Employees will continue to remain eligible for annual performance increases, which typically occur in July of each year.

If you have a question or would like to discuss your compensation further, please be sure to raise this directly with your manager.  You may also reach out to your Human Resources Business Partner.

Key Definitions

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.

Questions

If you have questions about the initiative, please reach out to ccpi@brown.edu.