Frequently Asked Questions

They are separate projects, however they utilize common methodologies and stakeholder engagement where appropriate.

Graduate Assistants are out of scope for this project.

  • The purpose of this project is to give U of A staff career paths, transparent pay structures and ensure we are able to attract, recruit, develop and retain talent as we enhance the university’s status as an Employer of Choice.
  • Changes to an individual employee’s assigned job duties or responsibilities are not the objective of this project. Some working titles may be altered to create more consistent job families and more clearly represent the role’s expected and assigned responsibilities.
  • This project is not aimed at achieving job elimination or pay reductions, although we will assess the competitiveness of our compensation and staffing for all positions that are part of the project.
  • This study will evaluate the university’s competitiveness to the external market, depending on various factors – including region, sector and job type. The university will assess the best course of action to pursue market alignment, including title and pay, based on the findings of the study.
  • Where significant changes emerge as appropriate based on the study, the university commits to engaging in a dialogue with leaders and employees.

  • A general or automatic pay adjustment
  • An effort to reduce headcount
  • Reorganization of departments
  • Employee-specific performance review of current job duties or responsibilities

This process will establish greater consistency across all departments on the U of A campus when it comes to both job classifications (i.e. titles) and pay structures.  

  • Employee positions will be mapped to job profiles that describe the nature of the work that position is performing. This mapping primarily uses existing position data in Workday and feedback from departmental leaders.
  • If there is any misrepresentation of the work in the position data in Workday, position restrictions will be updated.
  • Connecting positions to job profiles enables us to more consistently understand positions with a similar scope of work, education and experience requirements, and level of independence. It also ensures that we offer consistent career path and progression opportunities.

The job classification architecture will enable the university to better attract and retain talent through greater consistency in how career opportunities are advertised and stronger relevancy in title, level, and pay. 

  • A career path is a series of jobs an employee moves through to reach short-term and long-term career goals.
  • Career paths are different for everyone based on their own motivations and desires, but the U of A's job classification architecture provides individuals with more transparency into what jobs are available and the knowledge, skills, abilities and competencies that are required for jobs.
  • This transparency allows our employees to define a roadmap to advance or move into the various opportunities within the university if they so desire, and empowers employees to make educated decisions on their path forward. It also allows better talent management for supervisors and leaders as they connect and plan for workforce needs. 

  • The job classification architecture - which is a structure by which we organize our jobs into job families, career streams, and levels - is intended to enhance visibility to opportunities that may be available and to educate you on paths to land those opportunities within the university.
  • Career mobility and advancement is not limited to the job family or career stream you are in today, but highlights what knowledge, skills, abilities, and competencies are required if you choose to move into another job family or career stream. 

The U of A emphasizes a performance-based culture on campus which will drive the competencies needed, but it will not necessarily limit an employee’s ability to follow their career journey because of performance. A goal through this work will be to provide employees with visibility to recommended competencies, education, experience and skills expected for different levels and positions. Employees will be able to progress their career path by being able to view how one level leads to another, and will see all opportunities for potential advancement along with associated qualifications.

No. Market-driven pay overlap will exist across career streams so that employees will not be limited to a specific salary range based on career stream. Job sub-families within each career stream will also factor in to compensation.

career streams

Positions are mapped to areas in which their job functions have at least an 80% match, or where the majority of the work is performed.

No, this is an iterative process. Job families can change as it is necessary.   

All University of Arkansas, Fayetteville, campus staff positions are included in this project except those who are classified as: extra help, provisional, work study, contingent workers, executive level (associate vice chancellor and above), and graduate assistants. 

The U of A is working with Huron Consulting Group to design a transparent job framework that organizes in-scope staff positions in a clear, consistent structure across the institution and clearly outlines pathways for career growth. Working with subject matter experts across campus, the project team has created job families and job profiles for staff roles that better represent each role’s responsibilities. Bringing in campus perspectives of those close to the work being done helps ensure the job profiles both represent the roles the U of A has today, and roles needed in the future.

The team is also working with leadership to refine the university’s compensation philosophy to attract, develop, retain, inspire, and reward talent. The output of this project is not being created by Huron or Human Resources, rather it will be the result of an iterative, data-driven and highly collaborative process across the entire campus.

At the beginning of the project, Human Resources leaders and the project's Compensation Advisory Committee identified a small core of initial SMEs grouped into different categories based on the work they currently perform at the university, who were also interested in contributing to the project.

This initial group was then asked to recommend other SMEs with expertise in similar roles across campus which cascaded into working groups that provided input into developing our job families, subfamilies and job profiles for each work category.

These SMEs collaborated weekly and played a valuable role in providing feedback to shape the job classification architecture.

Yes. The U of A has a training committee that is working on defining phrases and terms associated with the project and will implement them as part of future training and tailored education sessions for different subsets of employees (supervisors, budget officers, etc.). There is also a page for key definitions.