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Because of state and federal legislation and administrative requirements instituted over the years since World War II, it has become necessary to maintain separate classifications for employees in the personnel records. Important among these requirements are the union contracts, affirmative action regulations for minorities, sex, and age groups,
and various other labor laws and regulations applicable to selected nonexempt employees.
At the present time personnel records provide data on the following job families: instructional, administrative, professional, office and clerical, technical, service, and trades. Data maintained for these classifications include sex, age, minority status, and exempt or nonexempt status as to certain labor legislation, among other items.
Traditional classifications for full-time instructional positions include Professor, Associate Professor, Assistant Professor, Instructor, and Lecturer.
The history of development of noninstructional classifications on a University-wide basis is described in the following paragraphs:
In 1964, development began for centralized computer records of staff job classification titles and salaries by classification, with the reports being operational and produced on a regular basis by July of 1966. This provided the data necessary for the development of a uniform, University-wide job classification and pay system.
Historically, job descriptions, titles, and pay rates had been established on a departmental or divisional basis, until July 1964, when a system of uniform, University-wide job classifications, classification descriptions, and a wage schedule was adopted for all service and maintenance workers. This was the first step toward the implementation of a University-wide, centrally administered classification and pay program, and it began with this staff group in anticipation of collective bargaining, which occurred in 1967.
The administration of classification and pay programs of Office, Technical, and Professional and Administrative (P&A) staff continued to be primarily decentralized until the development of uniform job classifications, classification descriptions, and salary schedules began in 1967. The initial compensation program consisted of the preparation of classification descriptions for existing job titles and the assignment of each of these classifications to a salary grade and range, using the existing pay grades and ranges
for office jobs (C-1 to C-6) and establishing a new salary schedule for P&A and Technical classifications, which consisted of twenty-four separate salary grades and ranges. This initial program was designed principally around existing job titles and pay rates, rather than a restructuring of what had been done before. To that extent, it was the formalization, documentation, and systematizing of established pay practices for Office and Technical staff and for P&A staff up to middle management levels but excluding higher level (or executive) positions.
In July of 1968, the first University-wide job classification list, salary grade assignments, and salary schedules were published and distributed to unit management for use in preparing the annual salary budget and the processing of salary increases for Office, Technical and P&A staff. The preparation of University job classification descriptions for all classifications continued during this time and, by the Fall of 1969, virtually all job classifications for these staff groups had been described, except for executive level positions.
These classification and pay systems remained in effect until 1973, with numerous adjustments being made to the salary grade assignments of individual classifications and the ongoing establishment and deletion of job classifications.
By 1971, it became apparent that an intensive, systematic review of P&A job classifications was needed in order to (1) update and complete the classification descriptions for P&A positions at all levels (2) formalize the job classification evaluation process, and (3) provide for the inclusion of an additional 800 ungraded "academic" P&A staff in the graded system, which had previously been in the Instructional appointment system. In addition, the extension of the Federal Equal Pay Acts to cover University P&A staff made an equity review of the individual salaries an integral and essential part of the planned study.
The Robert Hayes and Associates consulting firm was retained to assist in the conduct of this compensation study, and work began on it by the spring of 1972. A total of about 4,500 positions and staff were affected by this comprehensive review, which was completed by September of
1972, with the resulting program implemented in January of 1973.
Specifically, the study resulted in the adoption of a point evaluation plan to be used in evaluating P&A job classifications for assignment to salary grades; a reduction of P&A job classifications from 694 to 544; the adoption of a twenty-one grade salary-range schedule; the incorporation of 772 ungraded "academic" positions into the graded P&A classification system; the adoption of graded classifications for all levels of P&A positions; and salary adjustments for a total of 386 staff members, to assure the maintenance of equitable salary relationships. The P&A job classification and pay system adopted in 1973 continues to operate to date, largely unchanged from its initial implementation. It should be noted, however, that numerous individual classification and salary grade changes have occurred over time, in the routine maintenance of the system.
With regard to the classification and pay system for Office and Technical staff, the basic system adopted in 1967-68 has remained in effect with little change to the system itself.