To the Panther Family,
I am pleased to announce that our leadership team has completed our review of the initial findings from the university’s compensation study. As you may remember, this was one of the immediate initiatives that we introduced as a part of my first 100 days as President earlier this year. Since that time, we have diligently engaged with an external firm to review our compensation data, analyze multiple survey sources to determine market compensation in comparable organizations and provide feedback to help us chart an action plan. Our entire leadership team is committed to ensuring that our salaries are competitive and that you, our university employees, feel valued and appreciated for the tremendous work you do for Georgia State each and every day.
EY, our consulting firm, conducted interviews with my cabinet, deans, associate provosts, the Salary Study Advisory Group, Faculty committees, and Finance and Human Resources leadership. They identified salary comparisons for 84 percent of Georgia State job titles and evaluated salaries against organizations of similar size and scope for faculty and staff. Their initial report indicates most of our job classifications are market competitive. However, we know that is not the whole story and there are indeed some areas and positions where Georgia State needs to adjust salaries to be competitive. We are committed to improving our competitive position.
As a first step, the study gave us an opportunity to analyze the lowest end of our pay scale. The salary data supports adjustments for nearly 200 of our lowest paid employees, mostly custodians and security guards. With our strategic pillar of Identity and Placemaking and our priorities around improving campus safety and maintaining the condition of our facilities, I am immediately directing financial resources to increase the salary minimums for our valued security and custodial personnel, effective Dec. 1.
Although this is a much needed first step, I know we have more work to do. I am working with our Executive Vice President and Chief Operating Officer Jared Abramson and Chief Human Resources Officer Ann Williamson to develop an action plan to balance the need to make salary adjustments with our overall budgetary constraints. The first step is to adopt an industry standard definition of what it means to be competitive. The next step is to establish a benchmark for every position at the university so that we can measure our competitiveness. Over the next year, we will use the data collected to evaluate our salary structure to ensure we have a solid framework to manage salaries for our workforce long-term.
To that end, we will continue to work with key stakeholders and share the relevant dataset with our deans and vice presidents to review local nuances and to validate benchmarks. With jobs benchmarked appropriately, we will be able to identify our most critical gaps and develop a phased approach to close these gaps. We intend to include funding in our FY24 budget proposal for the next phase of this critical strategic initiative, while considering the anticipated budgetary reductions in the overall FY24 budget.
Together with our consultants, we will be scheduling a virtual university-wide Town Hall when we return to campus in the new year. I look forward to providing additional updates to the university community as we move forward with this process.
Thank you for all you do for Georgia State!
Best Regards,
-Brian
All the best,
