Career Compass Job Mapping Implemented for Staff
To: Deans, Directors, Chairs, and Chief Administrative Officers
(3/25/09) Dear Colleagues,
We have reached a significant milestone in the Career Compass initiative that our campus launched in 2001. With the help of many people across the campus, we have mapped more than 4,800 non-represented employees into new job titles, replacing a 40-year-old classification system with market-sensitive job standards that describe the work being done today on the Berkeley campus.
In early April, managers and supervisors will receive letters that summarize each non-represented employee's new job title, along with the salary range that applies to the position. Employees will receive the same communication shortly thereafter. (We are still in conversation with the unions about represented positions; these positions will be mapped in the next phase of the initiative.)
Human Resources is providing detailed briefing and consultation to campus mapping coordinators (most of whom are your Department Human Resource Managers), as well as to managers and supervisors. Human Resources staff will offer a series of open sessions throughout the spring, where staff can learn more about the process.
I want to highlight a few key details should you need to respond to questions from your managers and staff. Please ensure that faculty members who supervise staff are also aware of the upcoming changes.
- Neither job responsibilities nor working titles will change because of mapping to the new titles – employees' current responsibilities have simply been categorized within new job titles that accurately describe their duties and are more meaningful in today's labor market. (In a few cases, managers may have clarified an employee's responsibilities when drafting the new job description.)
- Although current employee salaries will not change with the new job titles, the new salary structure provides a strong foundation for future salary decisions.
- While most employees are still within the new salary range for their positions following the mapping process, a small number of employees will be temporarily below the minimum of the new range. Our goal is to be ready to bring these employees into their new salary ranges as soon as equity funds become available.
With the new structure in place, managers, supervisors, and employees will have better support for career planning and performance reviews, and campus leaders will have accurate workforce data for short- and long-range planning.
The timing is also affected by the upgrade of our campus HR information system, which is the system of record for our employee data. That system will be upgraded in April to the new Human Capital Management (HCM) system, and on May 1 the HCM system will incorporate the new job structure and individual job titles.
The impact of what the Berkeley campus has achieved in Career Compass is unprecedented in higher education. Several UC campuses are actively working with Berkeley's team to implement a similar program at their locations and HR has been contacted by other universities and private consulting firms to learn more about the Career Compass job structure. I am proud of the team in HR as well as many others on the Staff Infrastructure Steering Committee (SISC) and in departments across the campus who contributed to the achievement of this goal.
Nathan Brostrom
Vice Chancellor - Administration