Compensation Project—Phase II, 2015-16

Western Michigan University is conducting a study of the staff compensation system for all professional, administrative, clerical and technical employees. The goal of Phase II of the project is to develop a new compensation system structure.

Scope

Phase II of the project includes the following components:

• Identifying additional benchmark jobs.
• Competitive market analysis.
• Development of market-based salary structure.
• Job evaluation and slotting of jobs into structure.
• Financial analysis.
• Administrative guideline development.

Timeline for Phase II

For the project timeline, please see Staff Compensation Study: Western Michigan University, Project Plan Phase II. Please note that all dates on the project plan are subject to change based on scheduling updates.

Project updates

• Jan. 5: Human Resources sent initial set of job content tools (employee and supervisor submissions) to Aon Hewitt. Please see Staff Compensation Project: Job Content Tools Received by Human Resource as of Jan. 5 for a list of job content tools received.
• Jan. 9: Human Resources sent additional job content tools (employee and supervisor submissions) to Aon Hewitt.
• Jan. 13: Conference call with WMU project team members and Aon Hewitt.
  • Review of job content tools by Aon Hewitt to begin on Monday, Jan. 19.
  • Aon Hewitt will review all jobs and place them in the new structure.
  • The review process will take approximately five weeks.
• Jan. 16: Human Resources sent additional job content tools (employee and supervisor submissions) to Aon Hewitt.
• Jan. 20: Human Resources sent a final set of job content tools (employee and supervisor submissions) to Aon Hewitt. Please see Staff Compensation Project: Job Content Tools Received by Human Resources as of Jan. 20 for the most recent list of job content tools received.  
• Jan. 27: Conference call with WMU project team members and Aon Hewitt.
  • Aon Hewitt is in the process of reviewing job content tools and placing positions into a new compensation structure.
  • Job evaluation review meetings are being scheduled for the weeks of Feb. 23 and March 2. During these meetings, executive officials and a limited group of high-level directors will review and validate Aon Hewitt's placement of positions into the new structure.
  • A sub-group comprised of Aon Hewitt representatives and technical HR resources are working to refine Aon Hewitt's job content tool Microsoft Access database which will ultimately be used to 1) extract data to be imported into PeopleSoft to aid in implementation of the new system and 2) create job descriptions.
• Feb. 10: Conference call with WMU project team members and Aon Hewitt.
  • Aon Hewitt is continuing with the process of reviewing job content tools and placing positions into a new compensation structure. Meetings to review these placements with executive officials and a limited group of high-level directors are scheduled for Feb. 24-25 and March 3-4. For additional information about Aon Hewitt's job evaluation review process please see WMU Job Evaluation Meeting Schedule and Recommended Attendees. 
  • The WMU compensation project team and University Relations will be working with Aon Hewitt to develop a communication strategy/plan for the remainder of the project. The team's initial conference call meeting, scheduled for Feb. 3, was cancelled due to weather (flight delay of the Aon Hewitt representative leading the conference call.) This meeting has been rescheduled for March 4.
  • Aon Hewitt has finalized the list of market surveys used to benchmark positions. See Compensation Surveys Included in 2014 Market Study.
• Feb. 18: There have been slight revisions to the meeting order and attendee list for Aon Hewitt's upcoming job evaluation review meetings. Please see WMU Job Evaluation Meeting Schedule and Recommended Attendees, Revised. 
• Feb. 24: The following documents were distributed at Aon Hewitt's job evaluation process overview meeting:
  • Administrative and Clerical Support Positions at WMU.
  • Marketing Positions at WMU. 
• Feb. 24: The existing staff compensation system will sunset as follows: 
  
  • Effective Friday, May 1, all changes under the existing compensation system will be suspended in order to allow adequate time to implement the new system. This suspension includes job evaluations, market pay adjustments and temporary pay increases. This suspension does not apply to vacant positions or new positions to be filled by either internal transfers or new hires. For questions about position evaluations that are currently in process, please contact your HR Representative.  
• Feb. 24-25 and March 3-4: Aon Hewitt met with directors and executive officials to review Aon Hewitt's initial placement of positions in the new compensation structure. During these meetings, Aon Hewitt shared the new pay structure which is available at Staff Compensation System Pay Structure, Effective July 1, 2015. 
• March 10: Conference call with with WMU project team members and Aon Hewitt cancelled due to WMU spring break.
• March 24: Conference call with WMU project team members and Aon Hewitt.
  • Meetings to review Aon Hewitt's placement of college positions are scheduled for March 26-27.
  • Aon Hewitt is developing a set of job title guidelines for WMU. These guidelines will assist WMU in aligning job titles so that they are more closely aligned with titles in the external market and are more consistent across campus.   
  • Aon Hewitt is in the early stages of developing a set of administrative pay guidelines for the new compensation system. Once developed, the draft administrative pay guidelines will be reviewed by the senior leadership team.
  • WMU and Aon Hewitt are developing plans for maintaining the new compensation system once implemented. The first stage of these plans involves the creation of job evaluation review committees. Early discussions call for two evaluation committees, each with nine participants drawn from the campus community with representation from Human Resources. The vice-presidents have been asked to nominate staff members to serve a two- to three-year commitment to one of these committees.
• March 26-27: Aon Hewitt met with deans and chairpersons to review Aon Hewitt's placement of college positions in the new compensation structure.
• April 16-17: Aon Hewitt met with executive officials to review the draft job title guidelines and Aon Hewitt's initial assignment of job titles. During these meetings, Human Resources announced that beginning in July, a formal process to request working titles will be available. Under this process, which is still under development, working title requests will be reviewed by the appropriate vice-president and Human Resources.
• April 21: Conference call with WMU project team members and Aon Hewitt.
  • The job title meetings on Apr. 16-17 went well. Work on the job title assignment process continues.
  • Use of the word "intermediate" in the WMU job title structure was negatively received by many participants in the review meetings. An alternate job title structure for jobs with three levels of work will be developed.
  • The original communication plan has been revised based upon feedback from the campus community. This original plan called for supervisors to have advanced discussions with employees scheduled to receive pay increases based upon their positions' placement in the new system. Instead, all employees will be notified of their placement in the new system, including job title and pay, at the same time via a letter mailed to home addresses. These letters are scheduled to be sent in mid- to late- May, with the specific mailing date to be announced. 
  • Over the next two weeks, WMU and Aon Hewitt will further refine the communication plan for announcing details about the new compensation system.
  • Aon Hewitt has prepared preliminary costing figures for executive review.
• June 2:  Last scheduled conference call with WMU project team members and Aon Hewitt.
  • Aon Hewitt thanked the project team for their work.
  • Next steps include the technical implementation (i.e. placing new grades, titles and pay rates on PeopleSoft) and training for the job evaluation committees.
• June 17 and June 30:  Aon Hewitt conducted training for the new job evaluation committees.
  • Aon Hewitt will continue to provide oversight to the job evaluation committees during their training and development period and will lead the first job evaluation session.
  • For a list of committee members, please visit Staff Compensation System: Job Evaluation Committees.