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| Benchmark Job | A job whose major responsibilities and requirements are common in the market. These jobs are typically included in salary surveys and have reliable market data readily available year after year. |
| Career Path | Varied forms of career progression including advancement within a subfamily or transition to a different discipline of work. This can be examined through the job classification architecture. |
| Career Stream | A career type characterized by unique responsibilities. The career streams at the University are Operational, Professional, and Managerial. |
| Compensation Philosophy | A formal statement documenting the University’s position on employee compensation and creating a framework for consistency by defining components of the compensation program. |
| Compensation Surveys | Collections of data on current market rates and trends. Surveys report data by industry, nature of work, financial scope or size, geography, etc. Surveys are conducted by third-party professional organizations and stored internally to inform internal pay practices. |
| Complexity of Work | The duties, the degree of autonomy, and the scope of responsibilities. The level of complexity is based on the work and not on the employee in the role. |
| Demotion | The movement of an employee into a job that is in a lower salary grade than the employee’s current job. |
| Equity | The practice of ensuring employees performing similar duties (in similar work environments) are paid fairly without regard for race, color, gender, religion, sex, national origin, age, and/or disability for similar work performed, but takes into account market and job-related factors such as performance, education, work experience, seniority, etc. |
| Exempt | The term that refers to jobs that are not covered by the Fair Labor Standards Act (i.e., “exempted” from the law). Exempt employees are paid a set salary for defined responsibilities and are expected to fulfill the duties of their jobs regardless of hours work required. Employees in exempt jobs are not eligible to receive overtime compensation. |
| Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA) | A federal law that sets the minimum wage as well as other work rules, and guaranteed overtime pay for work beyond 40 hours a week for jobs covered by the law. The law includes specific “tests” to determine whether a job will be covered by the law (“non-exempt”) or not covered (“exempt”). These tests consider job duties, (such as education, experience, skills, or performance) not characteristics of a specific employee |
| Job Classification | The process of reviewing jobs based on an objective analysis of its duties, knowledge, skills and industry or field then assigning it to an organization’s job architecture. |
| Job Family and Subfamily | A job Family and Subfamily is an overall grouping of jobs where work performed is of a similar nature. Families and subfamilies are intended to reflect the nature of the work and may not align directly to the organizational structure. |
| Job Architecture | An organization of the University’s jobs into families, subfamilies, career streams and levels based on the job’s responsibilities within the university. |
| Job Levels | Variations in the degree of jobs, such as the differences between the entry, intermediate and senior levels, based on differences in scope, organization impact, complexity of work, independence and supervision, and/or management responsibilities. |
| Job Responsibilities | A series of statements indicating what the major work responsibilities are and why they are performed. The responsibility statements support the job summary and form the basis for development of specific objectives or performance standards. |
| Job Summary | A clear, concise statement explaining the major functions of the position. The job summary describes the “what” the job does and ‘why” the job exists, but not “how” the job is performed. |
| Job Title | A title assigned to a job that describes the job’s roles and responsibilities at the university. Job titles should be descriptive of the work and consistent with general market practices. |
| Lateral Move | The movement of an employee into a job that is assigned to the same salary grade as the employee’s current job. |
| Managerial Stream | Jobs that oversee broad portfolios of responsibility; plan, prioritize, and/or direct responsibilities of employees; and/or manage strategy and policy development for a function, department, or unit. |
| Market Data | Salary data provided by reputable salary survey vendors that represents the external market |
| Market Position | An organization’s stance on employee pay relative to market. Unique market factors may lead to different market positioning for certain segments of the university. |
| Market Salary Benchmarking | The linking of jobs to the market by analyzing and comparing standard job descriptions to the compensation survey benchmark. Note: review is of the work and responsibilities assigned to the role, not the comparing of titles. |
| Market Title | A title commonly found in the market for a job. Some titles may have multiple Market Title matches |
| Non-Benchmark Job | A job that is either not common in the market or that is not included in compensation surveys. Jobs that have been tailored to meet specific needs of the institution or a department, or to align with the expertise of an individual are examples of non-benchmark jobs |
| Non-Exempt | Refers to jobs that are covered by the Fair Labor Standards Act (i.e., “not exempted” from the law) and are subject to all its provisions. Employees are required to account for time worked on an hourly and fractional hourly basis and are paid for overtime hours. |
| Operational Stream | Jobs that provide support and/or service in a “hands-on” environment that contributes to regular University operations. This may include, but is not limited to, work that is administrative, technical, and/or operational in nature. |
| Organizational Impact | The quantitative and qualitative impact of the work performed to the department, division, college, or institution. |
| Parity | The quality or state of being equal or equivalent. In compensation, parity is the practice of ensuring appropriate salary relationships are maintained for employees within the same job title or related job titles as imbalances or issues may arise with new hires and differences in pay practices across work units. |
| Position Description (PD) | A description of a specific job as it relates to an employee (i.e., position), which is based primarily on a job profile. Position descriptions are used for many purposes including recruitment and performance evaluation. |
| Professional Stream | Jobs that primarily design, implement, guide, and/or deliver processes, programs, and/or policies using specialized knowledge or skills typically acquired through advanced education or equivalent advanced learning attained through experience. |
| Progression | Advancement within a salary grade due to performance, changes in responsibility without a change in title, increased knowledge, skills, abilities, years of experience; certifications, licenses, degrees; and/or other elements that add value to an employee’s ability to perform their job and ability to impact their department, division, and/or institution. |
| Promotion | The movement of an employee into a job that is assigned to a higher salary grade than the employee’s current job due to the acceptance of a higher set of job responsibilities. |
| Salary Administration Guidelines | Guidelines that ensure salaries and pay adjustments are determined by using a consistent approach across the organization and are aligned with the compensation program’s design and intent. |
| Salary Grade | The building blocks of a salary structure. Each salary grade has a range (minimum and maximum values). Jobs in the same salary grade have similar levels of market value, organizational impact, scope, complexity, independence and supervision, management responsibilities, etc. |
| Salary Maximum | The highest rate of pay within a salary range. |
| Salary Midpoint | The middle of a salary range. |
| Salary Minimum | The lowest rate of pay in a salary range. |
| Salary Range | The lower and upper limits of compensation of a job, which include minimum, midpoint, and maximum values. |
| Salary Structure | A hierarchical grouping of jobs and salary ranges within an organization. Salary structures are often expressed as salary grades that reflect the value of a job in the external market and/or the internal value to an organization. |
| Job Profile | A general set of responsibilities, without regard to any specific employee, that describes work performed, and role and impact to the organization. Job Profiles are primarily used for market pricing and salary structure design and maintenance. |
| Thumbnail Job Description | A concise description of work being represented in a job found in a compensation survey. |
| Working Title | A title that provides more description to the Job Title. It provides more details about an individual position within the organization or the type of work performed. |
