UNIVERSITY PARK, Pa. -- The third phase of the Penn State’s six-phase Human Resources (HR) Compensation Modernization Initiative is in continued development, as a “job architecture” review of all staff job responsibilities worksheets (JRWs) gets underway.
The modernization initiative, begun in November 2020 and expected to conclude in summer 2022, will transform the University’s staff compensation program into a contemporary, comprehensive, and competitive set of processes and services.
These updated profiles and their associated levels will help:
- Clarify career development and growth opportunities across the University,
- Inform comparisons to external market pay rates, and
- Ultimately develop staff pay ranges based on a market assessment.
The current job architecture phase involves working with HR strategic partners and consultants. as well as HR’s compensation and classification team, to review all staff job responsibilities worksheets (JRWs), including job content, supervisory responsibilities, education and experience requirements to organize staff positions into up-to-date University job profiles that accurately reflect the work that is done at Penn State today and are reflective of jobs in the market. Once complete, the University’s new job architecture will be streamlined, modernized, and fit to serve as a foundation for the subsequent market assessment of staff salaries.
Planned project phases include:
- Initiation/discovery (Complete)
- Development of a compensation philosophy (Complete)
- Job architecture (In progress)
- Salary market assessment
- Salary program design
- Implementation and communication of final results
As a reminder for all those who supervise staff members, job reviews are temporarily frozen at this time. This freeze allows for the effective completion of the job architecture and market analysis phases of the initiative. For job responsibilities that may have changed since filling out the job responsibilities worksheet, there will an opportunity to provide this information to HR at the conclusion of job architecture and market analysis phases. Supervisors with a critical need to retain staff during the job review freeze should reach out to their HR representative to discuss an appropriate solution.
For more information on the Compensation Modernization, visit the project website.