As of May 2025, the Total Compensation and Benefits (TCB) Project is complete. Human Resources, in partnership with the Office of the Provost, is now implementing the project recommendations.
This page will be expanded to provide information related to Puget Sound's new Total Compensation Program, including the Staff Career Framework, in addition to resources related to the work of the TCB Project.
As we begin to roll out information related to the Total Compensation Program developed as an outcome of the Total Compensation and Benefits Project, we want to ensure staff and supervisors feel supported. As part of the Learning & Development Program offered by HR, we have developed a series of 4 quick-watch videos that provide an overview of the Staff Career Framework. Please take the time to watch them.
Why does this matter?
The university has committed to providing each staff member the details about their job family, career track, job level and pay grade in spring semester. The video series below will provide us a common language for having meaningful conversations about staff compensation. Watch the videos and make an appointment during our office hours if you have questions about anything included in them.
Benchmark Job: An industry-specific job commonly found in higher education or across industries outside higher education. Benchmark Jobs have well-defined roles and responsibilities that are consistent across organizations. Data from benchmark jobs anchor Puget Sound’s staff pay structure, supporting a market-informed approach.
Career Tracks: Broad categories that define the primary type of work a role is expected to perform. At Puget Sound, the four career tracks are: Support Contributor, Specialist Contributor, Manager, and Unit Leader. While tracks can guide growth within a track, their main purpose is to clarify the scope and nature of roles across the university.
Compensation Philosophy: A statement that guides the design, management, and communication of Puget Sound’s compensation program. It reflects the university’s values around pay, provides guidance on allocating compensation resources, and informs decisions about policies, practices, and program design.
Career Framework: The combination of Job Architecture and Staff Pay Structure, the Career Framework clarifies roles and work responsibilities, defines competitive pay practices across Puget Sound, and supports focused discussions between managers and staff about compensation and career growth.
Job Architecture: A comprehensive map of all roles at Puget Sound, showing the level, nature, and type of work performed in each job to support the university’s mission. It is the first component of the Career Framework for staff.
Job Family: A broad category or field of work that groups related jobs together within Puget Sound’s Job Architecture. Job Families help organize roles with similar skills, responsibilities, and purpose across the university.
Job Level: Differentiates the varying levels of expertise, responsibility, and impact within a Career Track or Job Family. Each level is defined by the competencies and responsibilities required in the job.
Pay Grade: A level within Puget Sound’s pay structure. Each job is assigned a Pay Grade based on its Job Level and Job Family, which determines the associated Pay Range.
Pay Range: The minimum-to-maximum pay span for a Pay Grade. Pay Ranges are divided into zones (Growth, Proficiency, and Mastery) that indicate progression within the grade.
Staff Pay Structure: The second component of the Career Framework. It defines how staff pay is managed to ensure equity and market competitiveness. Pay Ranges, based on market data for Benchmark Jobs, anchor the structure to the external market. All other roles are positioned within this structure according to their responsibilities, level, and scope of work as defined by the Job Architecture, ensuring consistency and fairness across Puget Sound.
Total Compensation: The full set of pay, benefits, and career development opportunities for staff. It reflects the total value of working at Puget Sound beyond base pay alone.
The Total Compensation and Benefits (TCB) Project was completed in May 2025. Efforts are now underway to fully implement project recommendations.
Through the work, research, and recommendations of the project team, this project was designed to
achieve the following future state of compensation and benefits programs at Puget Sound:
For full details, please see the Project Charter.
The project team held an open session for faculty and staff to learn about the outcomes and recommendations of the Total Compensation and Benefits (TCB) project on Monday, April 21, 2025. The presentation deck is available to faculty and staff who would like to review what was covered.
All faculty and staff are encouraged to read the full project report, which details all project work, deliverables, outcomes, and recommendations. With the delivery of the open session and this report, the project team completed their work.
President Crawford brought forward, and the Board approved, the slate of recommendations from the Total Compensation and Benefits (TCB) Project. As a result of this significant milestone, the implementation phase of the work to advance our total compensation and benefits offerings is now underway.
We anticipate that it will take three to five years to fully implement the board-approved recommendations beginning with the upcoming salary increase pool distribution this June. We are committed to keeping faculty and staff informed during the implementation phase.
In January 2025, the project team completed the data gathering phase of the project and affirmed guiding principles for both the faculty and staff wage and salary structures. They turned their attention to the development of a faculty and staff compensation philosophy and project recommendations.
In August 2024, the project team reconvened to review all work completed by the core project team and our partners at Lockton. The project team affirmed that the following deliverables were satisfactorily completed:
The Internal Advisory Committee (IAC), faculty working group, and staff working group continued their project work, which was primarily focused on survey development, through the end of May. In June and July, the core project team worked with our external consultants at Lockton Companies to continue to make progress on project work by:
During the spring term, the project team focused on the following activities:
The project was led by executive co-sponsors Drew Kerkhoff, Provost, and Kim Kvaal, Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer. The executive co-sponsors oversaw the Internal Advisory Committee, comprised of Cabinet representatives, a representative of the Board of Trustees, and faculty and staff representing key stakeholders, and the Working Group, comprised of representatives from the staff and faculty who have administrative or scholarly expertise in the project areas and reflect varying employee experiences. The working groups were led by Nancy Nieraeth, Chief People Officer, and Amy Spivey, Dean of Faculty. Project management support was provided by Megan Tahiri, HR Project Manager.
The University of Puget Sound engaged Lockton Companies, a privately-held professional services organization, to partner with us on the Total Compensation and Benefits Project. Throughout the selection process, Lockton displayed not only technical competency, but also flexibility, a clear understanding of our needs, and strong communication skills, in addition to a desire to serve the mission and values of Puget Sound.
Lockton is a full-service consulting firm that provides a broad spectrum of human resources and talent management capabilities to its clients. They are engaged with clients in higher education and have experience in flexible benefits, organizational strategy and effectiveness, and compensation. Lockton has demonstrated they are well-equipped to augment our internal capacity for project work, improve our access to market data, and provide objective analyses, based on similar work at other private, independent liberal arts colleges.
Lockton began their work by holding listening sessions on campus with various members of our community to better understand employee experiences related to total compensation and the University's ability to attract and retain talent. They have aggregated and de-identified their learnings into a key themes document that will help inform the project team's work.
The Project Charter guided the work of the project team by describing the objectives and desired outcomes, scope, and deliverables of the project. It also lists the project team and describes the various roles and responsibilities of its members.
Click here to view the Project Charter.
The following project timelines are visual representations of project activities. The 2024 Project Timeline reflects work undertaken throughout the 2024 calendar year, while the 2025 Project Timeline reflects work from January 2025 through the remainder of the project. The documents linked below are accessible pdfs; please zoom in as needed.
Click here to view the 2024 Project Timeline
On March 11, 2025, we held a webinar to share the results of the Total Compensation and Benefits Survey and external market assessments related to compensation and benefits ("benchmarking") with the campus community. In this webinar, our partners at Lockton provided more detail on the recent faculty and staff survey results, along with additional benchmarking data comparing Puget Sound's current compensation and benefits programs to those of other organizations. This information supports understanding of the project recommendations.
TCB Survey, Benchmarking, and Market Assessment: Report of Findings
Click here to view the recording.
In response to the community’s strong desire for transparency and clarity with regard to the university’s total compensation and benefits offerings, we held a series of educational webinars during the week of September 9, 2024. These sessions are a helpful precursor to the comprehensive compensation and benefits survey, the annual benefits open enrollment process occurring in November, and eventual project recommendations.
Financing the Mission: Puget Sound’s Financial Resources and Practices
Click here to view the recording
Compensation at Puget Sound: How the TCB Project Will Inform Our Approach to Pay
Click here to view the recording
Current University Benefits: An Overview of Puget Sound’s Offerings
Click here to view the recording
Please click on the links below to view previous months' project updates:
The project team, in partnership with Lockton and in consultation with the Faculty Salary Committee, developed a list of peer institutions to benchmark our compensation and benefits practices in the higher education market.
© 2025 University of Puget Sound