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Career Tracks Implemented in September
UCR's New Job Classification Structure already in place at UC Berkeley, UC Merced, UCOP
By Kris Lovekin on September 14, 2015
Career Tracks, the University of California's new job classification system for non-represented staff, has a number of benefits for employees:
Clear career paths and better tools for managing your career at UCR, within the UC system and beyond
Helps you and your manager enhance your skills and improve promotability
Helps you identify career advancement opportunities
Provides better career mobility for advanced and expert technical and professional employees without requiring them to move into supervisory positions
Results in more accurate classification and compensation decisions because positions are classified into much smaller groups and each employee can be compared to other employees doing the same type of work at UCR and in the external job market; and
When fully implemented at all campuses by Fiscal Year 2017–18 it will provide for transparency and mobility across all of UC — the second largest employer in California.
The new classification system will affect about 1,600 UCR non-represented employees, but will not affect academic positions, unionized staff, student workers, or members of the Senior Management Group.
Career Tracks will be implemented in September.
Process to Determine New Classifications
Human Resources, working collaboratively with every organizational unit, completed a detailed analysis and classification of every one of the 1,600 non-represented positions. The new classification, using the system-wide Career Tracks Job Standards as the basis of decision-making, was the result of a consistent, collaborative, and comprehensive year-long process. The job standards that UCR used will be used at every campus to ensure consistency and equity in the implementation of Career Tracks across the UC system.
In the Career Tracks classification process, Human Resources:
Classified positions not people [based on the official job description]
Used salary surveys to compare the newly classified positions to the higher education and/or general industry external job market, as appropriate
Developed new salary ranges for UCR.
Career Tracks organizes jobs into families, functions, categories and levels, which will then correspond to specific job codes and salary grades.
Job Family: A group of jobs in the same general occupation (e.g. Finance)
Job Function: A more specific area within a family (e.g. General Accounting)
Job Category: Jobs will fall into one of three categories: Operational and Technical, Individual Contributor, or Leadership
Job level: Recognizes different levels, from entry level to expert
Defining jobs using consistent definitions of family, function, category, and career level (rather than using generic titles such as "analyst" or "manager") allows accurate pay comparisons with other employers in our labor market for comparable jobs.
Career Tracks Is Not:
A compensation program and thus will not impact current base pay [except for approximately 100 employees who are below the new Career Tracks range minimums and whose salaries will be increased to the range minimum.]
Connected in any way to the current 2015–16 Staff Merit Salary Program and does not impact the merit increases provided for any staff member — however both changes will be effective on the 9/27 (biweekly) and 10/1 (monthly).
Between now and September 26, managers and supervisors will be meeting with each employee to communicate his/her new classification in the Career Tracks structure. For most employees — approximately 1,300 — the change will simply mean a new Title Code, Payroll Title, and Salary Grade and Range [not a new salary]. For approximately 200 employees, there is either a change in personnel program (MSP or PSS), or exemption status under the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA). Exemption status determines eligibility for overtime and is governed by the FLSA, a federal law that provides employers with requirements regarding minimum wage, overtime pay, and recordkeeping standards for employees. In particular, the FLSA provides employers with criteria, called "tests for exemption," to help them determine the exemption status of a job or category of jobs. The exemption status for all Career Tracks title codes was determined by UCOP. Campus leadership has asked for a review of salaries of the job function for employees impacted by an exemption change to ensure that calibration of salaries reflects the change in FLSA status. Additionally, a short term loan program will be available for employees whose pay period transitions as a result of this change.
Career Tracks has been successfully implemented at: UC Berkeley, UC Merced, UC Office of the President, UC Agricultural and Natural Resources. Implementations are underway at UC, San Francisco, UC, Davis, UC, Santa Barbara, UC, Santa Cruz, and UC, San Diego with initial planning occurring at UC, Irvine and UC, Los Angeles. It will eventually be implemented at all UC locations.
For more information, please visit http://hr.ucr.edu/salary/careertracks.html or email careertracks@ucr.edu. You can also reach Career Tracks Project Manager Chrystelle Zimmerman at chrystelle.zimmerman@ucr.edu.
J.D. Warren
E-mail: john.warren@ucr.edu
Archived under: Inside UCR, Career Tracks, human resources, press release
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