1. Why did this Faculty Compensation Study take place?
As noted in the CSU's guiding principles on compensation, “It is the intent of the Board of Trustees to compensate all CSU employees in a manner that is fair, reasonable, competitive, and fiscally prudent with respect to the system budget and state funding. The goal of the CSU continues to be to attract, motivate and retain the most highly qualified individuals to serve as faculty, staff and executives, whose knowledge, experience, and contributions can advance the university's mission." Conducting salary studies on a regular basis is a good practice and informs the CSU of the competitiveness of its faculty compensation.
2. Who requested this study?
This study was initiated by the CSU.
3. Who is Mercer?
Mercer is a global consulting firm specializing in providing advice and solutions to organizations in the areas of health, investments and retirement, workforce and careers, and mergers and acquisitions. While serving all industries, Mercer has worked with over 500 US higher education institutions across its lines of business.
4. What were the objectives of this compensation study?
The objectives of this study was to evaluate and assess:
- Faculty base salaries and benefits by conducting a market analysis of base salary and benefits programs for all faculty ranks and disciplines, including lecturers, as well as coaches, counselors and librarians.
- The effectiveness, relevancy, and competitiveness of CSU's faculty compensation system: job classifications, salary structure, compensation policies, pay practices and mechanisms utilized to advance pay and reward performance of faculty employees.
- And lastly to propose recommendations for improvement.
5. What are the phases of this compensation study?
The phases of this study are:
- Project planning and strategy development
- Compensation market analysis
- Pay compression, inversion and equity analysis
- Stakeholder analysis
- Propose recommendations for improvement
- Communication
- Board of Trustees presentation and final report
6. When did the focus groups take place?
The faculty focus group sessions took place November 4 - 10, 2022. Refer to the Focus Groups section for schedule.
7. What is compensation benchmarking?
It is the process of identifying market compensation data from established and reputable survey sources and then matching the data to CSU jobs in order to identify gaps, if any, to market.
8. Who will decide to implement the recommendations?
Mercer presented the results and recommendations to the CSU Board of Trustees in open session on March 22, 2023 and published their findings in a final report in September 2023. The CSU intends to work collaboratively with its faculty union (CFA) to find a solution that uses available funding to meet everyone's interests, The terms and conditions of implementation will need to be negotiated with CFA through the collective bargaining process. Any agreements on changes must be ratified by CSU's Board of Trustees and CFA .
9.Will the compensation study automatically result in changes to my salary?
No, following the compensation study, the collective bargaining process will determine any changes to salaries that will affect employees.
If you have additional questions you'd like to ask, email us at
facultystudy@calstate.edu.
We will strive to respond to questions within 48-72 hours, and if appropriate, questions will be posted in this section.