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BYU's Compensation Principles

Brigham Young University strives to provide compensation and benefits that are competitive with comparable local and national external labor markets to attract, motivate, and retain excellent employees who contribute to its mission. BYU’s goal is to pay within five percent of external market base pay rates and to offer employee benefits that promote work-life balance and provide affordable high-quality healthcare.

Using extensive and trusted third-party salary survey data, the compensation department reviews BYU’s pay relative to the market for administrative and staff positions at least annually.

For 2022, BYU’s administrative and staff salaries, on average, continue to be within five percent of average salaries in the comparable external market.

Our Practices

A professional HR team evaluates jobs to assign each position a pay grade. Multiple tools and elements are factored into this process, including important department input.

Pay Grades

A pay grade, also known as “pay level” or “job level”, is a numeric place marker on the pay structure that denotes a range of competitive pay for a given job. Each pay grade has substantial overlap to adjacent and even more distant pay grades.

Job Evaluation

BYU uses the job evaluation approach to determine the appropriate pay grade for each job. Our goal is to have periodic updates and reviews of job descriptions--each job description should be ideally no older than five years. When a job changes the department must update its job description and submit to the Area HR Consultant.

The Job Evaluation Committee, a select group of HRS employees, thoroughly evaluates each individual job description based on a position’s duties. BYU uses a balance of market data and internal factors to assign a pay grade to each job. The committee utilizes as many tools and resources available to facilitate job evaluations which may include desk audits (meeting with the supervisor and the employee to discover job specifications), salary surveys, job family grids, department insight, field expert consultation, and routine job description reviews.

Job Evaluation - Market Data

BYU currently subscribes to several reputable third-party salary surveys that provide pay-related data for similar jobs in the labor market. Examples of salary survey subscriptions:

  • College & University Professional Association for Human Resources (CUPA-HR)
  • Salt Lake Area Salary Survey (Western Management Group)
  • Mercer Salary Benchmark Data (Mercer)
  • PayFactors (PayScale)
  • Towers Watson Salary Benchmark Data (Willis Towers Watson)
  • Radford Global Compensation Database (an AON subsidiary)
  • National Association of College & University Food Services (NACUFS)
  • Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS)
Job Evaluation - Internal Factors

Different duties-related internal factors determine a position’s Pay Grade including:

  • Accountability
  • Authority
  • Autonomy
  • Complexity
  • Decision-Making
  • Independent Judgment
  • Problem-Solving
  • Organizational Impact
  • Scope & Scale

Salary Setting

BYU strives for pay equity and consistency in setting salaries. Therefore, BYU relies on a robust and objective salary setting process. Based on a position’s pay grade, a salary is determined by an individual’s relevant amount of experience and expertise. Salaries are consistently calculated using quantifiable variables and provide hiring managers with a measure of flexibility using good judgment.

Area HR Consultants act as agents for the Compensation department to work with Hiring Managers in the salary setting process. Hiring Managers work with their Area HR Consultant to compile factors and arrive at an appropriate salary.

Use the “Find Your HR Connection” tab.