Staff Pay Range Changes a Year Later

In late March 2023, Reed’s Human Resources (HR) department reconfigured the staff pay scale without prior discussion or warning to staff members. This change set a minimum and maximum range that employees could be paid within their role, and the maximum salary an employee could earn in any given position had been capped at lower rates than before the change. Some employees were assigned to a lower pay level with a maximum salary below what they had earned at the time, which meant that many staff members could not receive a raise for their work at Reed as long as they remained in the same position. For more information, a comprehensive explanation of the issue can be found in last year's coverage of the issue. The proposed changes caused much uproar among staff, faculty, and students alike, and as a result, they were put on hold indefinitely, but since then, not much has been said of if any of this has been changed and/or fixed since news about it came out last year.

Curious about whether there have been any changes since the controversy last year, the Quest sat down with two anonymous staff members to get an update on what is currently going on. 

In the Quest’s interview with the first staff member, their overall feelings seemed to be described as a general lack of communication between those involved in the staff pay changes to staff members. “Nothing was said regarding the issue for quite a long time,” they said, and further, according to them, the first major communication about the issue came to staff members in an email this past December. In the email, Lynn Valenter, Vice President of Finance & Treasurer, explained that Treasury had worked with supervisors to develop job descriptions for staff positions, and to date, 50% had been approved or were in development. The email says, in summary, that HR examined the impacts that job grades have, and has determined that broadening job grades to expand minimum and maximum pay will be an improvement. They then said that they would share the current steps of job grades with expanded ranges in January 2024.

There was then an update in January 2024, in which an email was sent out according to this staff member, and an all-staff meeting took place. Here, staff received an update from all the working groups that were dealing with the issue; workplace flexibility, supervision and management, compensation and communication, etc. According to this staff member, the update essentially consisted of; “‘We're working on things and it's gonna be great. And we're hearing from you, and we're working really hard on things.’” Again according to them, at the most recent staff meeting, staff members were expecting more updates on the situation, but none were given. Staff were instead told that more updates would be given at the next staff meeting, which will take place in May. This will have been over a year since the issue began last March. 

On top of this, another issue that this staff member raised was that of experience in one’s position. They explained, “The way that the raises work is there are only merit raises and cost of living raises. And the cost of living they pull a number from somewhere and…everybody's paid by that.” The merit raise, on the other hand, allegedly comes from a pool of money that is then divided 6 ways into six different divisions, with each department getting a certain percentage of the money based on the number of people in their subdivisions. They explained, “Within each division, there are no rules for how managers should give out merit raises, so each division can have very different strategies than another. On one hand, this might be nice, but on another hand, it really leads to a lack of transparency in the merit raise process. How are things handled differently if one division has a large amount of staff while another has fewer? I don't know.” The HR website highlighted the fact of “experience” being taken into account. The website explains that “Experience is based upon relevant internal (Reed) and external experience to the position. That will vary based upon role and managers insight to the candidate work history. Education is factored into positions where a specific education requirement exists.” Further, the website confirmed that HR was assessing differences in experience. “There will be no negative impacts to pay. In some cases, pay increases will be recommended for those with relevant work experience compared to their peer group and market. Staff receiving pay adjustments will receive communication from their managers mid-June 2024 with a July 1, 2024 effective date.”

The staff member also reported that HR is now doing “one-time career and experience pay reviews”  for some staff, the format of which has not yet been explained. This leaves things up in the air, and leaves faculty wondering things like; How is HR evaluating experience? Why is this a one-time review instead of an ongoing process? What is the difference between a merit pay review and an experience pay review? Which jobs are being evaluated for experience raises? This can be confirmed on the Compensation System FAQ part of HR’s website, which states that “The goal is still to maintain long-term earning potential. The job grades are a starting point to a larger process and not a way to eliminate merit pay. Once the grades are reset, they will continue to be reviewed and evaluated. In prior years, fewer than 5 employees were outside of range. In 2023, there are still 5 or fewer. However, for those NOW outside range, the lump sum process this year does not apply. We cannot guarantee a long-term employee won't eventually hit the top of grades. But the hope is to increase internal promotions and properly address those at or above range in a consistent manner. Also, grades will continue to expand over time to adjust for inflation.”

Another thing this staff member noted was that the midpoints for most of the salaries were less than what most places would consider a living wage in Portland. Pictured below is the hourly living wage in Portland according to the MIT Living Wage Calculator as compared to Reed staff’s hourly pay. As one can observe, there are some inconsistencies, and some pay grades fall below Portland's living wage.

Hourly living wage in Portland according to MIT (above) as compared to Reed staff hourly pay (below)

This staff member then highlighted a new form of staff performance evaluations that is possibly being put into place this year. According to them, there is a process in which you as a staff member set three goals that you have for the year, and then after the year, you go back and evaluate how well you did with those goals. An email in April from the Treasurer, Lynn Valenter confirmed that these will be used when evaluating merit raises. This might have been a fine thing to implement, but according to this staff member, there has not been much clarity around the whole thing. While Treasury did address the new evaluation process in an FAQ letter to staff, it seemed vague and reads as follows: “The primary purpose of the merit pool is to reward exceptional performance during the past year. Merit increases will be informed by several criteria within the process. One factor is the evaluation form. Other elements are under development, but may include positive contribution to culture, and employee’s experience compared to internal peers.” According to this, experience will be mixed in with merit in the cases of raises.

The lack of agency is also alarming, with another FAQ about staff needing a 360-degree process answered as follows: “While a well-designed and thoughtful 360-degree process may add value to overall assessment of performance, this is not a goal within the current process. It could be considered in the future.”

An update relating to compensation and working groups was sent out just a day before I spoke to this staff member. Luckily, it was a substantial report, but unfortunately, “This was the first time I think that they've sent out or given a substantive sort of update on anything, maybe since last year,” the staff member explained. From the emails' general report, the Compensation Advisory Committee is reviewing jobs, and HR is theoretically reviewing a large number of positions. They are also allegedly looking at workplace flexibility/ability to potentially work from home. “It's just been a very slow process,” the staff member continued, “with all the announcements on [pay] basically coming in the last few weeks…They now have a theoretical date of July when they will reveal things to us, and then they're anticipated to have these things effective July 1…It's as if last year we couldn't do anything, and this year we can't do anything because we're not probably going to know much about it before July 1.”

From general observations, it seems as though the staff turnover rate at Reed is generally quite high. When asked if they had observed this as well, the staff member agreed. They pointed out that to some degree, that is happening nationally as a result of COVID, “but it's at a place like Reed that is small and values its tradition and everyone understanding the mission…that kind of intense turnover really messes things up…I don’t know how you're supposed to continue with Reed’s vision of what it wants itself to be when you don't have anyone who remembers what that actually is.” They then added their own observations that many of the new individuals who are coming to work at Reed come from a corporate background as opposed to an academic background, which make things more hierarchical. They ended this line of thought by saying, “Just the collaboration and the transparency that we theoretically pride ourselves on is totally absent.” It seems as though this corporate influence might have more of an impact, with an observable shift in honesty and accountability noted by staff; “There's just zero transparency and sort of zero accountability…At these staff meetings, they just announce things, but don't explain any of the motivation behind why.”

Top chart; 2023 salaried employees, Bottom chart; 2024 salaried employees

In speaking with another staff member, similar sentiments were shared as far as the Reed administration’s response to the situation and the general attitudes of staff members as a result of all that is going on. When asked about changes that have occurred since last year, they responded, “Supposedly some minute changes have been made according to a campus news article that went out in February. The changes are outlined on the HR website.” 

This part of Reed's website highlights many things, but the crux of the important information can be seen, as previously mentioned, in the Compensation System FAQ. Updated in February 2024, the website claims that “Previous ranges have been eliminated, but we understand current grades need further review specifically to spread and some job grade placements. The pause is for current grades to not affect range maximum until further review.” It goes into further explanation, claiming, “We examined individual impacts to the job grades and have determined that broadening the job grades to expand the minimum and maximum pay for each grade will be an improvement. The midpoints remain unchanged and will continue to be used for internal pay evaluations for new hires per the Pay Decision procedure. The college targets 100% of market compensation for each position and will eliminate the lump-sum practice for across-the-board increase for those in excess of the top of their job grade, a change already implemented in December 2022 and July 2023. We will share the current status of job grades with expanded ranges in January 2024.”

In response to the question of general staff attitudes about this issue, the staff member replied, “It's hard to speak for all staff, but from what I can tell the general attitude is that the whole process was gravely mishandled and all the ‘work’ that is being done tends to obfuscate more than elucidate.” 

In this staff member’s own personal experience, they claimed that when they looked at their personal pay grade history in Banner as the HR website suggests, their pay grade had been changed twice; once in December 2022 from grade 2 to grade 4 and once in January 2023 from grade 4 to grade 3. Apparently, the reason for the changes was noted as a “data input correction.” It seems as though there is a great amount of obscurity surrounding important matters such as one’s own pay grade being changed; As a result of this, one can understand the frustrations of the staff members who are dealing with this. This staff member then reported that many staff have left or are leaving “because of these revelations about their pay” or else “it has been a contributing factor in the reason for departure.” They closed out their interview saying, “Overall, it seems like what happened is that upper-level administration did what they wanted to do anyway, but are painting the picture as though it was a collaborative effort that incorporated staff feedback. In reality, staff asked to be paid more and that has not happened.”

Again, looking at the Compensation System FAQ, one of the questions highlights this problem of dispiritment that so many staff members are currently experiencing, with the question; “What do you suggest for supervisors and departments who are now dealing with demoralized team members as a direct result of this pay-scale reconfiguration?” HR’s answer? “The intention remains to improve our compensation system, but we made some serious communication missteps in January 2023. We hope Reed staff who have been working in their managers and human resources, will see how the changes encourage equitable pay practices consistent across the college.” Based on the question and answer, it seems as though there is quite a disconnect between staff and HR. For real positive changes to be made, staff need to feel as though they are heard, communicated with, and most importantly, supported by the institution that they put so much of their time and efforts into.