We are now almost three months into this important project and I wanted to provide an update on our status. First, I thank all of those members of the Work Group who are devoting considerable time, energy and thought to this job. As you recall, we asked each employee group to provide three members and I appointed three at large members. This group has been meeting every other week for two hours plus and have been meeting outside of that with their employee group members, plus working on issues outside of the meeting times. Next, thanks to Linda Racine and Aaron Beach who are providing great facilitation and guidance in the process. Lastly, thank you to all of you who are providing feedback to members of the Work Group.
If you have not yet visited the intranet site we have set up, I encourage you to do so. Minutes of the meetings and work that the Work Group is generating are found there. One of the operating principles we started with was transparency and we are working hard to meet that commitment. There is a separate link on the MyNMC page that will take you to the Compensation site. https://intranet.nmc.edu/depts/human-resources/compensation-review/index.html
At our last meeting, we recognized that while we are including all of our notes on the intranet site, we need to summarize where we are for all of our sakes on a monthly basis. This will be done in the future by Linda and Aaron with input from the entire Work Group.
Summary of Activity to Date
As a reminder, the Board of Trustees adopted a Board Level Goal last year that stated:
B5. NMC will evaluate the employee classification and compensation systems and make adjustments as required. (Institutional Effectiveness #4)
The Target/Metric adopted this year as it relates to this goal states:
Complete review and adjustments, as necessary, to the employee classification and compensation systems in time to inform FY14 budget.
Our College policies and practices instruct us to use the Mutual Gains process for this class of work. In reality, we use that approach pretty consistently throughout the College and it is fundamental to shared governance. We get representation from the affected stakeholder groups around the table, identify issues of interest and work toward a solution that is in the best interest of all involved and the College. The process the Work Group adopted is described in the picture below.
While the process appears to be linear, it is iterative. As we progress and learn, we sometimes circle back and add to or refine previous work.
Important to our work is that as we review compensation, we are looking at “Total Compensation” or what one reference listed on our Work Group web site calls a “Total Rewards Model”. We have defined this model as including the following elements:
- Pay
- Benefits
- Performance & Recognition
- Development & Career Opportunity
- Work Life
As you can see, this is a comprehensive view that requires significant effort to evaluate.
The Work Group has identified 18 different values/interests to examine and determine if they fit into this Total Rewards Model framework and if so, how that might work. The Work Group is currently discussing whether a particular interest is a large, moderate, small or no piece of one of the five elements in the model. The Work Group recognizes any value/interest may fit and be demonstrated in different ways for different employee groups and that will require small group work.
The 18 values/interests we are working with right now include:
Longevity, marketplace equity, peer equity, internal equity, transparency and consistency, growth, credentials, experience, leadership skills, thoughtful risk taking, going above and beyond, social equity, performance/competency, achievement of organizational goals, achievement of individual goals, and choice.
Here is our work plan for next few months:
Last year, a good deal of work was done in examining our staff classification system. That work is continuing and is an important component of our review. In our meetings, questions have been raised about the efficacy of the current system and whether it appropriately differentiates among jobs. The work to address these issues is shown in the second row of the above diagram.
I am very pleased with the work we have done so far. It is important and not easy. As with all we do in our plan-do-check-adjust approach to work, we will examine our targets and make adjustments as needed. If we believe extra time is needed beyond our initial target, I will request that from the Board of Trustees.
Thank you all for your efforts and your support of all we are doing.
Tim