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Manager Forum:

Compensation Essentials

Gina Argus

Assistant Vice President, Total Rewards,

University Human Resources

Heidi Mukamal

Director, Staff Compensation,

University Human Resources

May 2024

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Agenda

1:00 - 1:05 pm |Welcome

1:05 - 1:10 pm |Partnering Together

1:10 - 1:30 pm |Compensation Philosophy and Administration

  • Externally Market Competitive
  • Internally Equitable
  • Recognize Performance

1:30 - 1:40 pm |Pay Conversations

1:40 - 1:55 pm |Questions

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Partnering Together

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Partnering Together

Managers

Assess and communicate employee performance

Talk with employees about pay and explain positioning

Collaborate with employees on how they can grow their career

Request review of job changes or reclassifications

Plan and recommend salary adjustments

School/Unit HR

Consult with managers on compensation related matters

Administer the salary planning program

Provide guidance to managers on performance management

Assist managers with reclassifications and job changes

Partner as needed with UHR Compensation

University HR Compensation Team

Establish University Compensation Philosophy

Conduct rigorous market analysis and ensure pay equity

Establish and maintain job structure and salary structures

Develop Salary Planning Program

Partner and consult with HR on compensation matters

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Compensation Philosophy

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Polling Question

How would you describe your confidence in talking about the essential elements of compensation?

  • Compensation “Guru”
  • Very confident
  • Somewhat confident
  • Not very confident
  • Compensation? Is that the new Marvel superhero?

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Stanford’s Compensation Philosophy and Program Objectives

Stanford is committed to providing a fair and competitive staff compensation program that will attract, retain and reward high-performing employees at all levels. The university is also committed to providing a total staff compensation package tied to the attainment of individual and group results and the achievement of organizational goals.

Externally Market Competitive: Reflect market-competitive pay rates for comparable jobs based on the market benchmarks in the geographic region where work is performed, role requirements (scope and complexity), education, and relevant experience of individuals in roles, as well as demand for such roles within the relevant labor market.  Stanford targets its overall position to market for staff pay at the 50th percentile (median) of the reported range of values in the relevant labor market.

Internally Comparable: Provide pay guidelines that ensure similar jobs are paid equitably across the University.  Pay differences may reflect variations in compensable factors such as experience, subject matter expertise, performance, regional assignment, and other acceptable reasons, without regard to gender, race, age, disability, sexual orientation, or other legally protected categories.

Recognition: Reward performance through salary increases, bonuses and incentives; extraordinary performance and contributions are further rewarded at a level that signifies the value of the employee to the organization and encourages retention.

Transparency: Leadership has the information, tools, and support needed to effectively communicate pay decisions to staff. Compensation policies, procedures, and assistance services are available and accessible. Stanford includes an expected pay range on every job posting. Employees are entitled to request and receive the pay range for their current position.

Fiscally Affordable/Sustainable: Pay decisions are fiscally sustainable, affordable, and aligned with the current and projected availability of budgeted resources.

Flexibility: Support a diverse, decentralized organization to accommodate differences and changes in job requirements, job market and economy.

Legally Compliant: Pay decisions adhere to applicable federal, state, and local laws, as well as contracts and policies governing compensation.

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Objectives of Compensation Philosophy

Externally Market Competitive

Internally Equitable

Recognize Performance

Objectives must be balanced together to ensure our ability to

recruit, recognize and retain within fiscal affordability

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Externally Competitive

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Compensation at Stanford is competitive:

We evaluate what the external market pays for comparable roles and use data to ensure our pay is competitive to organizations with which we compete for talent.

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Externally Market Competitive

We benchmark roles against peer organizations and industries to ensure our pay practices are competitive

We leverage up-to-date, verified data, including updated compensation surveys focused on both general and specific industries and higher education, conducted by reliable third-party market data organizations.

We seek feedback from our HR partners in schools and units to understand what they and hiring managers are experiencing with candidates for their jobs

We utilize market data based on geographic regions (for remote employees) because our philosophy is to pay market-competitive rates where the job is being performed

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  • Stanford anchors the market median (50th percentile) as the midpoint for the Job Market Salary Range for each job; market median data is collected for each job from Stanford’s talent target markets 

  • The market 25th and 75th percentile data:
    • is a useful reference to understand the magnitude of variability around the market median
    • can vary widely around median for one job versus another
    • is not a standard distance from the median or from the minimum and maximum and can be different for one job versus another
  • Market ranges include values below the 25th and above the 75th percentiles

EXAMPLE – Life Science Research Professional Job Market Salary Range

Minimum

25th Percentile

50th Percentile (Midpoint)

75th Percentile

Maximum

$90,498

$104,978

$120,664

$155,798

$168,930

25% below median

13% below median

29% above median

40% above median

Job Market Salary Ranges

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Internally Equitable

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To ensure pay decisions are equitable internally, Stanford utilizes an organizational job structure which allows us to relate all jobs to each other:

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Internally Equitable

Job Family

Broad groups of jobs that use similar skills and knowledge to accomplish work

Job Series

Grouped roles based on the nature of their related work

Job Level

The level that identifies where the job fits, from entry level to the most senior/expert level

Job Description

Defines the specific knowledge, skills, abilities and competencies, as well as duties and responsibilities and leveling factors (i.e. scope/impact, etc.)

Job Title

Is the system name of the job, reflecting the industry-accepted short name of the work of the job

Job Code

The system numeric assigned to a unique Job/Job Title

Job Market Salary Ranges

Represent the full range of pay for a specific job and are anchored in market data and are attached to the Job Code

Position

The employee’s seat in the job title, specific to the school/unit, department, business title, geographic location and employee attributes (i.e. FTE, pay, date of hire, etc.)

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Job Series and Job Description

A Job Series Matrix describes the job series and provides a job description for each job level within the job series. It includes:

      • Series Summary
      • Job Purpose
      • Core Duties
      • Education and Experience

Job Family

    • Finance

Job Series

    • Accounting

Job Level

    • Accountant 1
      • Knowledge, Skills and Abilities
      • Competencies
      • Certifications and Licenses
      • It can also include factors such as Scope/impact, Authority, Leadership, Strategic/Operational, Complexity

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Internally Equitable Pay

How equitable is pay

among

employees in the same or similar job

factoring in

differences in knowledge, skills, abilities, experience, time in position and performance

Employee Name

Job Code

Job Title

STF Service Date

Time in Position

Performace

Base Salary

Minimum

25th Percentile

50th Percentile�(Midpoint)

75th Percentile

Maximum

Page, Larry

2964

Stanford Analyst 2

6/13/2005

9.6

Outstanding

$130,499

$93,609

$110,396

$124,812

$137,964

$174,736

Steinbeck, John

2964

Stanford Analyst 2

3/6/2006

16.2

Exceeds

$158,726

$93,609

$110,396

$124,812

$137,964

$174,736

Woods, Tiger

2964

Stanford Analyst 2

7/18/2022

1.8

Trial Period

$108,750

$93,609

$110,396

$124,812

$137,964

$174,736

Ride, Sally

2964

Stanford Analyst 2

3/29/2004

4.5

Meets

$124,523

$93,609

$110,396

$124,812

$137,964

$174,736

Sunak, Rishi

2964

Stanford Analyst 2

4/1/1990

6.7

Meets

$138,779

$93,609

$110,396

$124,812

$137,964

$174,736

Connelly, Jennifer

2964

Stanford Analyst 2

3/27/2017

4.1

Improvement Needed

$116,533

$93,609

$110,396

$124,812

$137,964

$174,736

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Recognize Performance

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Recognizing High Performance Through Compensation

Base Salary

Bonuses

Variable (Retention, Incentive, Premium)

Non-cash Benefits and Perquisites

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Recognizing performance at Stanford starts with our performance management process

Stanford’s compensation philosophy and Annual Salary Planning process and guidelines support the recognition of performance.

The salary planning process begins following the completion of the performance management cycle.

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Recognize Performance

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Merit Increase Budgets

Merit increase budgets are reset each year. The budget for the merit pool is determined by several factors, including the

  • economic context (i.e. cost of living),
  • external year-over-year job value growth,
  • comparator industries’ planned wage growth forecast, and
  • an analysis of Stanford’s overall base compensation comparison to published market values of jobs.

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Base salary increases are intended to recognize an employee’s performance and address the employee’s position within the job market salary range.

The allocated budget for merit represents the total dollars allocated for the merit pool available at the school and unit level. The budgeted percentage of salaries does not indicate a standard increase to be applied at the employee level.

Managers have flexibility to discretionarily provide a base pay increase to employees based on their job performance, their position in the job market salary range, and our pay guidelines. Increases can typically range from 0% to 12%.

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Merit Pool Application Example

Manager, who is responsible for compensation planning for six employees:

Manager’s Employees

Salary

Performance

Position to Market

Recommended Merit Inc $

Recommended Merit Inc $

Employee 1

$52,000

Exceptional

Below 25th Percentile

$4,680

9.00%

Employee 2

$55,000

Very Successful

25th to 40th Percentile

$3,300

6.00%

Employee 3

$57,000

Very Successful

40th to 60th Percentile

$2,850

5.00%

Employee 4

$58,000

Successful

25th to 40th Percentile

$2,320

4.00%

Employee 5

$58,500

Successful

60th to 75th Percentile

$1,170

2.00%

Employee 6

$60,000

Unsatisfactory

40th to 60th Percentile

$0

0.00%

Manager A Total Salaries

$340,500

Merit Spend

$14,466

Manager A Merit Pool

(4.25% of Salaries)

$14,471

Total $ Remaining

$151

  • Refers to the Guidelines for Merit Base Pay Increases
  • Remembers the budget does not indicate a standard increase per employee when determining a merit increase, and
  • Avoids giving the same increase percentage to all employees, understanding that employees are not all in the same job, with the same performance, and the same pay position within their job market salary range.
  • Calibrates employee performance and highlights high performers to allow more meaningful base pay increases, and
  • Leverages the overall merit pool of $14,471 to plan for the entire team.

As a result, Manager can differentiate performance and position to job market salary range to award meaningful increases to high performers and address employees whose pay is too low in the job market salary range.

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Pay Conversations

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Transparency

  • Performance ratings provide transparency for both managers and employees.
  • Performance ratings support alignment between pay and performance.

Employees seek to understand:

  1. Why their pay is what it is, relative to market
  2. Whether pay is equitable compared to peers
  3. How performance factors into pay
  4. How pay level is determined

Employee Transparency

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Talking About Pay

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Context (what you say and how you say it) is important, because perceptions are:

Prepare for the conversation by reviewing:

  • The employee’s job specific attributes and their pay position in their job market salary range
  • How you might help them grow in their position,
  • How they might react

Opaque performance expectations and opaque understanding of organizational job structure and pay structures and how they work are often the root cause of conflict

It is a critical part of a manager’s job to have authentic and open discussions with employees about pay

Talking about pay with employees can be uncomfortable for both the manager and the employee because pay is personal and emotive; and there is a risk of conflict

54% of high performers don’t feel their pay is differentiated to the scale that their performance is differentiated

50% of employees believe they are paid below the market when they are not

35% of employees who paid above market have no idea that this is the case

77% of employees believe that pay decisions are not based on objective criteria

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The Conversation

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Share the increase and provide context

    • In a manner that is sensitive and empathetic, yet still clear and direct.
    • Ground your words in fact, don’t apologize or rationalize. Your increase is $X,XXX, which is a X% increase to your base pay, and it is based on your performance of “XXXX” as well as the time you have worked in the position, and your demonstration of knowledge, skills, abilities and competencies on the job.”
    • Explain target market, and why they are paid fairly in the range and how the decision behind the numbers was made.
    • Don’t engage in comparisons of their pay to other employees; if raised answer “I’m only willing to talk with you about your pay and performance. It’s not fair to talk about others.”

Ensure psychological safety

Communicate the employee’s value

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Be ready for a reaction, listen more than you talk

  • Don’t rush to judgment or defense
  • Ask open ended questions “How do you think about your current pay relative to the market for your position?” “What are your thoughts about your performance?”
  • Hear them without interrupting and recognize their emotions but don’t yield; “I hear you and understand it is a concern for you, my goal is also to help you understand your current pay position.”
  • If, based on what they share, you want to investigate further, offer to get back to them once you review; but don’t set an expectation unless you intend to act.
  • If the conversation becomes too heated and has ceased to be productive and is making you or the employee feel overly frustrated or psychologically unsafe, it is okay to suggest a break and to schedule a follow-up conversation.

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The Conversation (continued)

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Explain our compensation philosophy, the three objectives:

  1. externally competitive,
  2. internally equitable
  3. and to recognize performance.

Be ready to speak about how we gather market data and benchmark jobs to confirm a competitive job market salary range

Be curious and focus the conversation forward

  • Expressions of dissatisfaction might be opportunities to understand the employee’s perceptions of their pay. Listen calmly and be honest about their options, be clear and objective with your reasons as you respond,
    • “What about this pay range feels inaccurate to you? (avoid “why” questions) “what has changed to suggest that your pay should increase?”
    • “Are there things other than pay that are valuable to you? What is most important or valuable to you?”
  • Offer other non-monetary recognition that reflects how you value the employee (opportunity to work on a more challenging project, be a team lead, work on a visible initiative, gain new knowledge, skills or abilities)
    • “Is there a different job you compare yourself to?” “What are your expectations for your pay growth?” “You may not be able to achieve your desired pay level in this job; let’s talk how I can support your growth to jobs where that earning potential might be available.”
    • “What aspect of your current job to you enjoy most?” “Are there other positions of interest to you where you feel you can expand or grow in ways you enjoy most?”
    • “Is there a career path or career job you aspire to?”

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Polling Question

How would you describe your confidence in talking about the essential elements of compensation?

  • Compensation “Guru”
  • Very confident
  • Somewhat confident
  • Not very confident
  • Compensation? Is that the new Marvel superhero?

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Questions?