Human Resources to study classified staff compensation

Susan Szpyrka
Susan Szpyrka

The UCCS Office of Human Resources will conduct a compensation analysis for classified staff beginning March 14.

Susan Szpyrka, senior vice chancellor, Administration and Finance, announced plans for the analysis March 9. Jeanne Durr, director, Office of Human Resources, will lead the effort with the goal of completing the analysis by June 30, 2016.

The goal of the analysis will be to determine if UCCS classified staff duties and wages are comparable to those at other southern Colorado employers, Szpyrka said. Previously, UCCS relied exclusively on a State of Colorado analysis of comparable positions and wages.

“It is important that we look carefully at our own market and where we compete for the best employees,” Szpyrka said. “For the last two years, a similar analysis was conducted for university staff and faculty.  Individuals who were not within the market range received adjustments with the most recent adjustments occurring in January of 2016.  We will now look at classified employees and perform a similar assessment.”

9 Comments on Human Resources to study classified staff compensation

  1. Yeah, right, what a bunch of lip service. Everyone knows Sperka couldn’t give two hoots about staff on campus. My prediction : we won’t get a damn thing just like always. Take a poll sometime – morale among staff sucks but I doubt if that matters to the powers that be on the Hill.

  2. Indeed, John. Not to mention, the current workload distribution among Classified Staff employees is repugnant. I fail to understand how any compression/increases could be considered fair or equitable when the variation in duties and responsibilities for identical titles/ jobs is unbelievable.

  3. Why is this happening only on the Colorado Springs campus? I work at CU Denver and live in Boulder, where the cost of living continues to go up exponentially. The small salary increases that we may or may not get each year are not enough to constitute a living wage when we are underpaid from the start. When I came to the university, I took a huge pay cut as a Classified staff person. Five years later, I am still making less money than I used to make before joining CU. The Classified system is an outdated method of keeping people in their places, by limiting their mobility and their opportunities for financial improvement. The whole system needs to be examined!

  4. We need this to be done in Boulder. The cost of living has gone up so much that those of us who are state classified employees can hardly live close enough to make commuting to the Boulder campus justifiable. The prices on houses and rents around here have increased so drastically in the last couple of years, while our wages really haven’t, that I may never be able to realize my dream of buying a house. As a 5th generation Colorado native, that is very depressing to me.

  5. Oh I see it only matters in Colorado Springs. The rest of us at UCB, UCD are just happy getting along with slave wages. The cost of living in Boulder is 18.6% above the national average and the Median Home Price: $366,200 (http://www.forbes.com/places/co/boulder/). Yet, in the not to distant past for 5+ years classified staff struggled with no wage increases and only within the last year or so have we been given a token raise. There has been no apparent effort to correct the lack of raises for so many years. The Compensation 2013/14 plan is the latest information on the CU Payroll site on how to determine 2014 merit calculations. Wake Up CU!

  6. Colorado WINS, the union representing classified state employees, is currently working on a Fight for $15 campaign at the University of Colorado. We believe the University can set a standard for all businesses in Colorado by paying a living wage of $15/hour to all workers (including contract, academic, student and classified staff). We are also pushing the university to consider a living wage, not a market wage, for all employees in their system. If you want to get involved in the system-wide push for a living wage, please visit our website at cu15now.com.

  7. I find it interesting when I see a comment about how the person took a huge pay cut to come to work for CU….and then they complain. Are there guns to peoples heads and they can’t leave to pursue a higher paying job so they can get their dream home in Boulder? Nobody is making you stay here. Always a whining sense of entitlement. If you don’t like it, leave!

  8. my compression compensation for 2-16-2017 was equal to six dollars a week. Which means that the person starting the job I have being doing for 11 years now makes 156 less a month than I do, instead of just 150. I feel well compensated by the great Susan. I hardly feel as though I am part of the UC system or UCCS. Just a Wallah in the system the way they were in Indian before independence.

  9. As a business student through the College of Business, I can tell you that not only does this HR department have no intention of doing anything, the students going through HR courses are not even told about the word wage compression. You will find it no where in any of the textbooks for Human Resources. Lip service. I bet Susan would lose it if her pay was compressed!

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