Background

The University of Colorado Boulder campus has a total of 3,859 full and part-time staff. Of those there
are about 590 individuals that earn less than $15/hour. After adjusting for employees who are interns,
residence hall directors receiving room and board, the total employees earning less than $15/hr is 494.
The majority of those employees are in the classified system (462 employees).
Analysis
The University has historically been required to follow the States lead in providing increases. The
recession which began in 2007, impacted the job seeking behavior of new entrants into the marketplace
by slowing the rate of turnover and seeing individuals accept lower pay for positions than the market
average. Shortly after the recession began, the State declared a freeze on all pay increases. This further
exacerbated the difference between workers wages and expected market compensation. Workers with
the most significant disparities with market expectations were hired between 5 and 15 years ago. The
State Department of Personnel Administration currently sets the ranges which guide compensation for
the majority of the positions in this analysis. CU-Boulder purchases and utilizes other compensation
surveys to supplement the states analysis.
The market is defined by a variety of employers willingness to pay for a given role. The greater the
quantity of salary surveys, the more accurate the estimate of how the market is valuing a given role.
Jobs are matched to salary surveys based on duties, not titles. Compensation ranges are mathematically
blended.

Salary compression occurs when the pay of one or more employees is very close to the pay of more
experienced employees in the same job. (Society of Human Resource Management)
The Job Classifications where we are seeing compression include:

Custodian I
Dining Services II
Dining Services III
Dining Services I
General Labor I
Custodian II
Sales Assistant I

Lowest
Paid
AVG Paid

Highest
Paid

Dining Services IV
Security I
Animal Care I
Early Childhood Educator I
Materials Handler I
Early Childhood Educator II

Expected %
Ave %
from
% Below
from
Median
Expected
Market Based on
Market
Median
Exp
Rate

Years Since Most

Recent Start Date

EE
Count

0-1 year

97

$9.55

$11.37

$14.57

78%

80%

-2%

1-3 years

99

$9.55

$11.57

$14.24

80%

88%

-8%

3-5 years

62

$9.91

$11.87

$14.36

81%

96%

-15%

5-10 years

98

$9.83

$12.04

$14.99

82%

104%

-22%

10-15 years

70

$9.83

$12.21

$14.87

85%

108%

-23%

15-20 years

40

$10.17

$13.13

$14.78

93%

112%

-19%

20 + years

28

$12.40

$14.32

$14.78

100%

116%

-16%

With regard to newly hired individuals, there are several titles that, despite being paid under $15/hr,
are compensated slightly above the market expectation:

Animal Care I

5% above

Dining Services III

4% above

Early Childhood Educator I

5% above

Security I

4% above

Those that have been employed in a position for less than one year are around 4 percent below market
expectations. With a single exception, those individuals with time in a position between 1 3 years are
around 10 percent less than market expectations. There are substantial wage gaps in the groups with
time in position greater than five years.
The cost to bring salaries to the market average for employees that earn less than $15/hr is $2.8 million.
Conclusions and Recommendations
The University needs to make the changes that are in progress to address root causes and avoid future
challenges in this area. There are process and procedure changes to address compensation issues
holistically that need to be addressed.
Recommend the University make the market adjustments for earners under $15/hr consistent with
Table 1. Additionally, recommend the University provide a compression pool in FY 2017 to address
other market based compensation issues across the University.
Additionally, recommend the University create and expand other benefits to low-wage earners including
but not limited to:

On campus high school equivalency program (all)

On campus English proficiency program for non-native speakers (employees)

On campus Spanish proficiency program (supervisors).

Expand tuition benefit.

Waive all fees for any employee utilizing the CU tuition benefit programs.

Increase staffing to facilitate time in class for core skills programs.

Core skills program participation added to individual performance plans.

Twice annual career counseling sessions.

Interview preparation and coaching for those interested in applying for more complex
positions.