Classification and Compensation supports UVM’s commitment to pay equity through use of the Career/Pay system, which classifies staff jobs based upon body of work. Here you will find detailed information about job classification and compensation practices for staff positions.
Career/Pay Standards & Paybands
Career/Pay is the University’s classification system for staff positions. Designed by campus wide constituents, Career/Pay is a broadband system in which jobs are classified into job families based upon body of work, further narrowed into series of jobs in career progressions. Click the Career/Pay Standards & Paybands link below for detailed information.
How Does this Benefit Employees?
- Clear career paths: Employees can visualize possible career progressions
- User friendly: Job standards, career progressions, and pay bands are available online for career-planning purposes
- Flexibility: Off-Cycle Increases allow for timely pay/equity adjustments
- Simplicity: Positions are classified by comparison to clear job standards
- Non-hierarchical: Based on similar bodies of work, not ‘rank’ of work
- Individualized: Uses unique working titles to supplement system titles
How Was it Developed?
Like most large organizations, UVM classifies its staff positions to help supervisors communicate with applicants and employees about jobs, to help determine salaries, and to ensure compliance with laws such as the Fair Labor Standards Act, the Equal Pay Act, the Civil Rights Act, the Americans With Disabilities Act and the Higher Education Act (PDF).
UVM’s Career/Pay system was designed by individuals campus-wide and is based on best industry practices that focus on competencies, skills, and the scope and functions of the job. Currently it is used to classify staff positions except Officers of Administration. The project began with approval from President Fogel in March 2003 and the first phase was finished in December 2005.
Compensation Policy & Practices
The University of Vermont annually reviews its pay bands along with individual staff wages and salaries, and develops staff wage and salary guidelines. These guidelines set parameters for pay band adjustments and individual fiscal year wage and salary adjustments based on merit. For general information, review UVM's fiscal year Staff Wage and Salary Guidelines and Philosophy of Compensation. Specific questions about pay levels and annual increases may be addressed to: HRInfo@uvm.edu
Resources
Create or Review a Position
As you walk through the steps of hiring a new employee, a key step is creating a reviewing the position. Discover the many tools available for your utilization in this process. From developing an overarching position description to providing specific physical demands required for the position, this guide provides the building blocks for creating and reviewing a position description.
Essential & Marginal Job Functions
Essential Functions: Must be performed with or without reasonable accommodation. If appropriate, include information about resources and/or supervisory elements.
Tips for describing Essential Functions:
- Be specific in describing job functions: What methods, techniques and equipment are used? What is the expected result or outcome? With whom is it done? Communicate the position's responsibility for financial resources, budgets, physical resources, and data/records/information.
- Use Action Verbs to specify each function statement, such as "operate," "analyze," or "approve." Avoid vague words such as "may" or "preferred."
- Determine the percentage of total effort each function requires. The total of all functions should equal 100%. In general, individual functions are best described with percentage breakdowns no higher than 20%-25%, and no lower than 5%.
- Prioritize functions in order of most to least essential
Marginal Functions: To distinguish essential from marginal functions, ask yourself :
- Does the position exist to perform the function?
- Can other employees perform the function if the incumbent does not?
- Is special training or education required to perform the function?
- Would removing the function fundamentally change the job?
- Would there be significant consequences if this function were not performed?
Exempt vs. Non-Exempt Positions
The Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA) is a federal law designed to protect workers and maintain fair working conditions. It includes minimum wage, overtime, child labor, recordkeeping, and equal pay provisions.
Not all employees are protected by the FLSA’s minimum wage and overtime provisions, however. Some employees are legally exempt from the regulations, and others are legally nonexempt. Nonexempt employees must be paid at least minimum wage and are eligible for overtime pay at the rate of 1.5 times the regular rate for all hours worked in excess of 40 hours per week. Exempt employees are not covered by the overtime provisions of the FLSA.
Because the intent of the FLSA is to protect employees, a job has to meet specific criteria outlined by the FLSA to be exempt from its minimum wage and overtime provisions. The Department of Labor (DOL) can audit any position considered by the University to be exempt. When the status of a job is sufficiently questionable, the FLSA recommends that the job be designated nonexempt. Human Resource Services staff are charged with determining exempt status and make a final job classification decision based on FLSA regulations.
To determine exempt/non-exempt status for temporary positions, work with your unit's Human Resource Representative to identify existing UVM positions performing similar work. For additional guidance see the Job Family Overview.
For More Information
DOL FairPay Fact Sheet summary of current regulations
DOL FairPay Presentation (PPT) on current regulations (1.363 Mb PowerPoint file)
Staff Reclassification Review
An outline of the process for the reclassification of a staff position:
- Contact your Dean's office or HRS Representative to obtain a copy of the current position description.
- You may download the Position Description Form from the Forms page to assist you in this process.
- The reclassification of an existing position is requested through an action in PeopleAdmin.
- Choose the proposed new classification title in the Proposed Title section and complete all information in the new action.
- Complete the Staff Proposed Salary section in collaboration with your supervisor and your Human Resources consultant.
- This step can be postponed until after the HR Committee has determined the appropriate classification for the position and notified the Dean's office.
- Route the completed requisition to your Dean's office.
- Upon approval from your Dean's office, the requisition will be routed to Human Resources for classification review.
- Once the classification and salary have been determined, an HR Consultant will return the action to your department for Salary Review and you will receive an automated e-mail.
- Consult the Action Summary and Proposed Salary tabs for information regarding the classification/salary.
- Complete or update the Staff Proposed Salary tab information, and route to Dean/Director for Salary Review.
- Contact your Dean's office with any questions.
- Upon approval from your Dean's office, the action will be routed to HR for salary approval.
- Once approved, you will receive an automated e-mail and, after consultation with your Dean/Director, you may notify the employee of any change in classification/salary.
- Complete and submit your Personnel Action Form.
Working/Business Titles
To create a simpler and more flexible staff compensation system, UVM has a limited number of job standards and makes use of business titles, as appropriate.
Business titles should be developed in the context of the following guidelines:
- Business titles should be consistent with other titles in higher education and throughout the University; therefore they must be approved by Classification & Compensation.
- Business titles will be used on business cards, job postings, and in the phone book. System titles will be used in the Human Resource Information System (HRIS), position descriptions, and job standards. Business titles will appear on Personnel Action forms in addition to HR titles.
- Business titles should describe the position responsibilities and reflect the job family to which the position has been assigned.
- Business titles should be short and should communicate an immediate understanding of the position. In order to be used in the phone book and/or on the web, titles should be short enough so that their abbreviated versions are understandable. (Our mainframe computer will limit the title/abbreviated title to 25 characters.)
- Business titles should not replicate an existing HR title.
Following are examples of title ‘descriptors’ for each job family. These examples are just that: examples. This is not intended to represent a finite list from which to choose.
Executive/Managerial (E) Family | Director Manager Supervisor |
Professional (P) Family | Officer Analyst Advisor Counselor Administrator Developer |
Technical (T) Family | Technician |
Skilled Craft (K) Family | Assistant Mechanic |
Service & Maintenance (S) Family | Worker Laborer Specialist Operator Assistant |
Clerical and Administrative Support (C) Family | Specialist Assistant Coordinator Representative |
WebXtender Minimum System Requirements
- Windows 98 SE, Mac OS 9
- Internet Explorer 5.x for PCs (6.x recommended)
- Internet Explorer 5.5 for Mac
- 128MB RAM (256MB RAM recommended)
- Printer: Ink jet no older than 1 year, laser no older than 2 years (recommended)
WebXtenderAccess Instructions
- Using a browser (application is better viewed in Internet Explorer), go to: https://webxtender.uvm.edu/AppXtender
- Click the "Login" button.
- At the sign-in screen, Data Source should say “IMPG.”
- Enter your UVM Network ID and password (same credentials you use to access email) in the User Name and Password fields. To find your NETID, visit http://www.uvm.edu/directory and enter your name.
- Click "login."
- Double-click on the Position Application (the link, not the folder).
- Enter search criteria on any line, such as position number or last name.
- Click on “submit” to see documents available. Uncheck the boxes on left of indexes if you do not want all listed indexes to display.
- Double-click on the document icon at left to display the document. Scroll down and click on “printer-friendly” version to get a full-screen version.
- If the screen says:
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Download Foreign File:017262.doc
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click on file to download (screen says, “downloading file”). Select “save” and save it to desired location. You can edit this ‘Word’ file and save it, but it will only save at your location and not on WEBxtender.
- To return to the search screen, close the document window at upper left, and click on the “new query” icon (folder with magnifying glass) to start a new query.
- When finished, logout and close browser.