Huron Faculty and Staff Compensation Study

Initial data gathering, protected class analysis under the five equity lenses, and salary and job architecture analysis, which was completed between August-December 2023.

The Huron team began their work by analyzing internal compensation equity among faculty, excluding those in dedicated administrative roles. After receiving employee and market data from UND, the Huron team reviewed UND’s process for matching faculty jobs to market benchmarks. The team then completed a series of statistical analyses to identify misalignments in compensation between groups within five “equity lenses:” gender, race, age, veteran status, and disability status.

The latter half of the partnership was devoted to a study of staff compensation. The Huron team began this phase by conducting interviews with compensation stakeholders across the institution, including Vice Presidents, Deans, HR Business Partners, Staff Division Leads, and University and Staff Senate leadership. The interviews were designed to gather perspectives on the current opportunities, challenges, and strengths of UND’s compensation program. Insights from these interviews supported Huron’s holistic review of UND’s compensation program.

The staff study continued with analysis of internal compensation equity for staff, utilizing the same methodology used for faculty, and a review of staff job architecture. 

Communicated the protected class findings to the five impacted areas in March/April 2024. With additional input from these areas, salary corrections and consistent processes will be implemented moving forward.

Huron identified instances in which separating or combining job codes, or creating new jobs, could better align staff member’s current responsibilities with the external market. The Huron team used this review to propose a revised job architecture for UND’s staff, with updated job profiles that adhere to a standard set of responsibility levels, and appropriate benchmark job matches.

The Huron team conducted an initial round of mapping current staff members to this updated architecture.

April 2024-July 2025

• Staff job architecture including a work dimensions guide and job profiles is complete.
• UND's Compensation Policy created.

This Compensation Philosophy guides the design and administration of UND's compensation plan, which applies to all employees, including staff, faculty, and administrators. Only compensation at the presidential level is beyond the scope of this document, as the president's salary is determined by the Chancellor and the State Board of Higher Education.

The primary objective of the compensation plan at UND is to facilitate our mission to provide exceptional educational experiences and promote outstanding scholarship, research, and creative activities that enrich the lives of North Dakotans and the global community. To that end, the design of the plan, including all the processes that inform how compensation is administered, strives to advance the pillars of our strategic plan, UND LEADS.

We recognize that compensation goes beyond salary and pay, and it includes full medical insurance premiums, retirement plans, annual and sick leave, and educational benefits. These benefits are vital to the recruitment and retention of our team members and add considerably to total compensation.

We will ensure employee pay is equitable with respect to protected employment categories with equivalency across UND for similar job descriptions. Additionally, we will ensure that the minimum salary allowed for any job classification exceeds a defined threshold level. We will endeavor to implement regular increases to base salaries to keep pace with inflation and to reward excellence in job performance. We will conduct an annual salary analysis to ensure that we are abiding by our proclaimed salary expectations and to inform supervisors and campus leadership of the results of that analysis.

Recommendations for salary increases will be based upon the result of this analysis and the annual employee performance evaluations. Priority will be given first to address pay inequities and then to distinguish outstanding performance through merit-based increases. The relative weight of these considerations in any given year will be informed by legislative mandate and the availability of funds.

The leadership of UND commits to upholding and promoting this Compensation Philosophy. Leadership recognizes that this document will require periodic adjustments to evolve alongside our dynamic community and is dedicated to communicating with the university community when changes to or deviations from this philosophy may be necessary.

The President is responsible for setting UND's overall human resources compensation strategy, ensuring it aligns with funding availability. The Associate Vice President for Human Resources is responsible for the determination of the job architecture, salary ranges, and pay procedures. The Executive Council and area leaders will abide by the salary determinations to the maximum extent possible, with judicious use of requests for Presidential exceptions in a manner consistent with the overall compensation philosophy.

UND is devoted to working as a community to maintain a compensation plan that promotes equity and consistency in how compensation is set across the university, balanced with flexibility for units to make the best decisions to meet their needs and goals within the determined salary ranges and utilizing approved procedures.