Staff Compensation

Caltech is a community of curious and passionate individuals who collaborate to understand and solve complex scientific and societal challenges. That's why it's so important to attract, motivate and retain the best and brightest employees with the skills needed to achieve Caltech's mission.

The compensation structure for campus staff is designed to meet the needs of a dynamic and unique workforce whose focus is on education, science and engineering. It primarily consists of a pay philosophy, the determination of job classifications, research of market data for salaries, the development of salary ranges, and the annual review of employee compensation.

Staff Pay Philosophy

The pay philosophy for campus staff is to:

• Target base salaries to align with available market data.
• Review pay of staff for equity amongst internal employees.
• Pay-for-performance so stronger performers receive larger annual pay increases as compared to lower performers.

Staff Job Classifications

Each division/department defines the employment positions needed to complete the required work for their organization. The details of the position are defined in a written job description. In addition to the essential job duties, the job description also includes the required and preferred qualifications for an individual who could be successful in the role. The Compensation team within Human Resources reviews the job descriptions for campus staff and assigns a job classification.

A job classification is made up of a job discipline and a career level. The job discipline defines the overall focus of the job. The career level distinguishes the scope and complexity of the job.

The combination of the two creates the job classification. Examples of job classifications are:

• Accounting Services, Senior
• Business Systems Consulting, Lead
• Research Technician, Assistant
• Scientific Research, Associate
• General Administration Management, C

Each position filled by a campus staff employee is assigned a job classification. It helps to categorize the various types of work and group together employees performing similar work. It also is the basis for our market data research.

Staff Market Data

The Compensation team participates in and purchases salary surveys to determine what other employers pay for jobs that are similar to campus staff jobs. The salary surveys represent both academic institutions and for-profit companies.

Salary surveys are conducted by third-party vendors. The salary survey companies publish generic job descriptions and ask employers to find matches to their jobs. When matches are found, Caltech and other employers submit salary information to the salary survey company who then publishes aggregate results for each of the survey job descriptions. We then use this data to create salary ranges.

In the absence of market data from salary surveys, we reference publically-available salary data and the salaries of our existing staff to create a salary range.

Staff Salary Ranges

Salary ranges consist of a minimum, midpoint, and maximum salary for each staff position on campus. The Compensation team updates the salary ranges each fiscal year and supervisors use the salary ranges to help determine the appropriate pay for campus staff. In some cases, positions may have the same job classification, but will have different salary ranges due to variations in the job duties.

Staff Salary Range Request

Existing Staff employees may request the current salary range for their position by sending an email to [email protected].

Existing Faculty and postdoctoral scholars may request salary range information from their respective division offices. Pay ranges for student assignments are included on PM 10-1.1 on the Human Resources website. (Institute Policies).

Staff Annual Compensation Evaluation (ACE)

The compensation for eligible staff is reviewed annually. The Annual Compensation Evaluation (ACE) program provides managers the opportunity to make compensation decisions that reward performance. At the start of each fiscal year, eligible employees are considered for merit (performance-based) pay increases. Through the ACE program, managers review the individual performance of eligible staff and may recommend adjustments to base pay. In addition, managers may address compensation as it relates to market equity, internal equity, and retention.

Manager Tools:

• ACE System User Guide