Overview

Job Location:
Colby College

Job Description

Department:

Human Resources

Pay Rate Type:

Salary

Employee Type:

Job Summary:

Colby Human Resources is undergoing an exciting period of transformation. Work is underway to elevate and modernize our HR division to support the continuous growth and innovation of the College and create an irresistible work environment where our employees can do their best work and thrive. Building the capability and expertise within HR to ensure the College’s competitive position as it relates to staff compensation and total rewards now and in the future is essential.

We are seeking a Compensation Analyst to support the College’s staff compensation philosophy, methodology, market benchmarking as well as annual and on-going compensation processes. Reporting to the Director of Human Resources Operations and Transformation, this position will assist with numerous hands-on compensation projects, processes, and procedures. This individual will provide consultative and analytical assistance for department reorganizations, job reclassifications, pay-related decisions for new hires, promotions, market adjustments and internal equity reviews. This position collaborates with Human Resources Business Partners (HRBPs), managers, division and department leaders, to act as a strategic partner and advisor on all aspects of compensation. This role will conduct compensation reviews, submit data for a variety of industry salary surveys, evaluate reclassification requests and analyze new positions, including gathering job analysis information, reviewing external market data and internal comparisons, and recommending grade/range, title, and FLSA status. The incumbent will ensure internal equity and external competitiveness in recommendations and decisions. They will also conduct compensation studies, including, but not limited to, internal equity reviews, annual and ad-hoc surveys, market trend analysis, and develop recommendations based on findings.

Essential Functions

To perform successfully in this position, an individual must be able to perform essential duties satisfactorily as well as possess education/experience, employ the knowledge, skills, and abilities as listed in representative fashion. Colby College actively supports the Americans with Disabilities Act and will consider reasonable accommodations to enable individuals with disabilities to perform the essential functions of the position.  This listing of essential duties is not all-inclusive, but representative; other duties may be assigned. 

 

  • Serve as a subject matter expert on compensation processes and related issues.

  • Build and maintain strong partnerships across the College, including Human Resources Business Partners (HRBPs), executives, department heads and managers, to ensure the staff total rewards package is positioned to enable talent attraction, retention, and engagement.

  • Oversee the annual staff increase process, working with vice presidents to solicit merit increase designations and requests for promotions and/or special adjustments, while keeping the CHRO and the CFO apprised of budget impacts of special requests.

  • Apply compensation principles, best practices, and appropriate guidelines to collaborate on compensation issues, including promotions, pay adjustments, job classifications, retention, offers/counter offers, merit increases, incentives, and special pay.

  • Provide guidance, analysis, insight, and research on market trends to ensure a competitive total rewards strategy designed to attract, retain and support new and existing talent.

  • Create strategic plans to address compensation and retention issues.

  • Proactively plan and implement solutions to ensure that Colby’s compensation policies and practices comply with state and federal laws and support the diversity, equity, inclusion, and belonging goals of the College.

  • Advise on job description development, including job content, title and qualifications to ensure consistency across the college. Develop tools on writing job descriptions, including generic job descriptions, compensation resources and training programs to assist staff and managers.

  • Conduct job evaluations to determine the appropriate job grade, title, FLSA status and compensation package, ensuring consistency across the College.  This includes reviewing internal and external salary data, and benchmarking to similar positions at the College or among peers.

  • Proactively consult with HRBPs and managers to identify positions that should be reviewed for job grade, title, FLSA status and compensation package.

  • Partner with HRBPs, managers and functional experts to develop career progression guidelines and job descriptions.

  • Complete, submit and leverage salary surveys to gain an understanding of the compensation landscape across competitors sets.

  • Stay up to date on current compensation-related legislation to ensure compliance with applicable employment-related federal and state statutory requirements regarding employee pay and independent contractor vs employee classification.

  • Conduct exempt testing to determine appropriate FLSA status of new and updated positions.

  • Conduct ad-hoc research and compensation modeling in support of project assignments including presentation of findings and recommendations.

  • Coordinate budget related items with the Financial Planning Department, including quarterly compensation deviation reporting for the Board. 

  • Identify opportunities to collaborate with and provide support to the Provost’s office on compensation-related items for academic staff positions. 

  • Mentor and provide guidance, support, and coaching to people about compensation related items. 

  • Understand the College's mission and challenges, to assess when and where compensation strategies may assist in reaching these strategic goals.

  • Work with payroll to seamlessly coordinate the transfer of compensation related data; perform one time, relocation, transition payments, and compensation updates in Workday.

  • Maintain awareness of evolving compensation laws, regulations, best practices and recommend updates to policies and practices.

  • Work with key stakeholders to develop and finalize reorganization documentation, including job descriptions, and salary recommendations.

Non-Essential Functions

An employee in this position may perform some of these responsibilities on an infrequent basis.

  • Actively participates on various in-house teams/cross-functional work groups chartered with the responsibility for various special projects intended to add-value, increase efficiency, enhance effectiveness, improve morale, etc. of the College.

  • Assist with developing and conducting associated training workshops.

  • Provide content to the HR website.

Position Qualifications 

Minimum Qualifications:

Education: Bachelor’s degree or the equivalent in education and experience.

Experience: 

  • Minimum of five years of progressively responsible professional compensation experience.

  • Workday experience is preferred but not required.

Licensure, certification, registration or other requirements: None

Knowledge, Skills, and Abilities

  • Broad based compensation experience with thorough competency in core total rewards items.

  • Demonstrated ability to embrace change and lead change efforts.

  • Knowledge of compensation regulations, policies, procedures, and best practices.

  • Experience with developing strategic solutions to a broad range of classification, compensation and organizational design issues.

  • Specific experience managing or overseeing an annual salary increase program, evaluating positions including FLSA classification, and utilizing market data to inform salary recommendations.

  • Demonstrated ability to work collaboratively with client groups and other areas of human resources and complete multiple assignments on time.

  • Strong knowledge base of classification and compensation theory, practices and guiding principles.

  • Ability to apply critical thinking skills, excellent decision-making, problem-solving, and analytical skills.

  • Working knowledge of employment-related regulations and applicable statutes.

  • Contemporary knowledge general compensation plans/programs, design, plus knowledge of wage and hour state and federal laws that apply to compensation plans/programs.

  • Ability to convey conceptual information to a variety of audiences.

  • Capability to develop, monitor and ‘dashboard’ employment-related metrics via analysis of data; capable of developing, reporting and presenting HR metrics including meaningful statistics with supporting interpretations and graphical representations.

  • Knowledge of, and ability to interpret and apply, federal and state regulations regarding all facets of employee/employer relationships – human resources.

  • Advanced working knowledge and ability with personal computing applications – specifically Microsoft Office Suite (e.g., Word, Excel, Outlook, and PowerPoint), Adobe products (e.g., Reader, Professional), as well as database management systems. 

  • Ability to read and interpret instructions in oral, written, or diagrammatic form (e.g., a flow chart of a process). Ability to read, interpret and consider possible applications of business literature and legal documents.

  • Skills and abilities to perform as an organized, self-starter, and able to handle expeditiously, accurately, and confidentially the rapid receipt of communications from all sources—written, email, voice mail, one-on-one with attention to detail; able to act on own initiative while exercising reasonable judgment.

  • Excellent customer service skills; ability to communicate clearly with a variety of people, in one-to-one and small group settings – either face-to-face, by telephone, or by other electronic means – ability to communicate in an informative manner, effectively listen, and be able to handle escalating situations with concern and confidence.

  • Ability to support time-based requests; able to function effectively in a multi-tasking, fast-paced environment with deadlines, frequent interruptions, and some interpersonal pressure.

  • Ability to deal effectively and professionally with people; proven capabilities in establishing appropriate professional rapport, with courtesy and tact, to accurately determine other’s needs, collect necessary information, and follow-through when requested. 

  • Ability to respond to common inquiries from college faculty and staff, regulatory agencies, vendors, regional business community, and others as may be necessary.

  • Knowledge of basic office equipment including (but not limited to) personal computer and associated peripherals, fax machine, multi-line telephone, voice recorders, and other electronic devices.

Physical/Mental Demands

The physical demands and work environment characteristics described herein are representative of those that must be met by an employee to successfully perform essential functions of this position and/or may be encountered while performing essential functions.  Reasonable accommodations may be made to enable individuals with disabilities to perform the essential functions.

 

  • To successfully perform the essential functions of this position, an employee must be able to maintain appropriate confidentiality with regard to employee data, documents, issues, etc., and respect privacy needs of employees and past employees with regard to the same.

  • The ability to comply with highly inflexible deadlines is required to successfully perform the essential functions of this position; there will be multiple occurrences of sudden, urgent task completion required. 

  • There may be occurrences of employees, past employees, members of the general public, and others who express opinions, may exhibit strong emotions, which will require the employee to interact professionally, diplomatically, and appropriately in such situations.

  • While performing the essential duties of this position, an employee would frequently be required to move around the office space as well as within hallways, meeting rooms, and other parts of the campus facilities.  

  • There may be multiple/daily instances of prolonged personal computer use which would include keyboard and/or mouse usage as well as viewing a computer monitor.

  • An employee must frequently lift and/or move up to 10 pounds and occasionally lift and/or move up to 35 pounds to perform essential position functions.

  • Specific vision abilities required by this position include close vision, distance vision, and ability to adjust focus. 

  • The overall work environment requires the mental ability to shift focus quickly due to interruptions; an employee must be able to mentally track multiple projects and tasks as well.

  • The noise level in the work environment is usually moderate; however, there may be unexpected instances of somewhat loud sounds.