A yearlong study of the university’s staff salary administration process has been completed, and a plan is being developed based upon its recommendations.
“This review was initiated to provide the university with better tools to more effectively manage staff salaries, but it was not meant to be a comprehensive salary classification review,” said Ryan Nesbit, vice president for finance and administration. “One of the primary benefits of implementing these recommendations will be increased flexibility for the university’s departments and units when determining compensation. Instead of a position title being the driving factor for salaries, focus will be placed on the duties and responsibilities to be performed by the position, as well as the individual’s acquired skills.”
These acquired skills are referred to as competencies by HR practitioners and represent a person’s knowledge, skills, abilities and other characteristics that enable job performance. To date, the university has gathered information surrounding competencies and will now begin forming focus groups and conducting surveys to identify and validate the competencies for various positions.
“The most important factor is that this competency framework will be a system built by UGA employees for UGA employees,” said Juan Jarrett, associate vice president for human resources. “This framework will allow UGA to increase its salary competitiveness for retention and recruitment, as there is a greater reliance on peer market salary data to maintain salary ranges for UGA job classifications.”
How does this benefit UGA staff members? As staff members demonstrate advanced competencies, they will be better positioned to expand their job duties and increase their salaries. This new approach will seek to reward staff who seize the initiative to assume more responsibility and enhance their professional development.
The university was aided in the review by the Korn Ferry Hay Group, a consultant with more than 75 years of experience providing strategic human resources guidance. A Salary Administration work group, comprised of staff members across the university, reviewed the consultant’s recommendations and presented them to the senior staff.
The recommendations provided by Korn Ferry Hay Group were categorized as short-term (up to one year), mid-term (one-two years) and long-term (three-five years). Human Resources already has completed many of those recommendations and anticipates completing the remainder by the end of fiscal year 2020. A full list of the recommendations may be found on the compensation page of the HR website under the supervisors menu.
Human Resources will communicate additional information to the university community as the staff salary recommendations are implemented. Any questions about the Staff Salary Administration Review should be directed to Human Resources at hrweb@uga.edu or by calling 706-542-2222.
