Professional Staff Overview
All professional staff positions must meet one of the legislatively authorized exemption criteria in order to be placed in the University of Washington Professional Staff Program. The compensation section of the Professional Staff Program provides ten broad compensation grades and guidance for determining a compensation grade assignment, and also describes the different types of salary increase opportunities.
HR Compensation evaluates each professional staff position to determine the exemption criteria it meets, and assign a job profile associated with the exemption criteria and a compensation grade that is based on the position’s duties, responsibilities, and other factors. Each job profile and compensation grade combination is assigned a unique job code.
Most job profiles (e.g., “manager” or “director”) are assigned to more than one compensation grade. A job profile and its compensation grades are referred to as a Job profile Series (e.g., manager grades 7, 8, 9, 10, and 11)
A market range is also assigned for positions in grade 5 – 10 based on the position’s duties, responsibilities, and related factors. Market ranges are normally narrower than the compensation grade and are based on the most current Professional Staff Salary Survey, adjusted for market trends. The market range minimum and maximum represent a designated percentage below and above the market range midpoint. The amount of this percentage varies depending on the salary survey results for the targeted market position for a specific job family.
Workday displays the market range minimums and maximums for professional staff job codes. The market range midpoint is the pay rate that is half way between the market range minimum and the market range maximum. This midpoint is a calculated average rate of pay for similar jobs in the regional market.
The example below shows the kind of relationship a broad compensation grade (the “Sample Grade”) has to a series of market ranges for job profiles “A” through “E”.
Example of Market Range to Compensation Grade Relationships
