Total Compensation & Benefits Project

Through the work, research, and recommendations of the project team, this project is designed to
achieve the following future state of compensation and benefits programs at Puget Sound:

1. A commonly understood compensation and benefits philosophy and strategy for both faculty and staff that, when coupled with other measures of employee engagement, position Puget Sound as a desirable career destination for faculty and an employer of choice in our region;
2. Market-competitive compensation and benefits structures, offerings, and practices that facilitate recruitment of excellent candidates and retention of current faculty and staff members;
3. Clearly articulated compensation and benefits programs and practices that reflect the values of the institution and are responsive to the needs and interests of our faculty and staff;
4. Clarity for faculty about salary advancement throughout a Puget Sound career and supplemental pay practices;
5. Clarity for staff about opportunities for career advancement and compensation within the framework, including supplemental pay practices;
6. Clarity for faculty and staff about leaves of absence rights, benefits, opportunities, and procedures;
7. Equitable compensation structures and resulting practices that are based on clear job-related criteria; and
8. Financially and administratively sustainable compensation and benefits practices, procedures, and policies for faculty and staff.

For full details, please see the Project Charter.

While project team members were selected to represent a broad range of faculty and staff employment categories, experiences, and perspectives, the project success depends on broader campus community involvement. Get involved by: 

• Signing up for a one-to-one session with a project team representative to discuss the project and any other feedback about Puget Sound’s compensation and benefits you may have. Reminders for these opportunities will be sent via Faculty and Staff Communication emails and in the Human Resources newsletter; 
• Attending Faculty Senate meetings (for faculty members) and hear from Provost Drew Kerkhoff about current and upcoming activities related to this work 
• Attending Staff Senate meetings (for staff members) and hear from our HR leaders about current and upcoming activities related to this work. Executive Sponsors may also be scheduled for specific Senate meetings to give project updates–watch the Staff Communications for more information.
• Consulting your faculty and staff peers who are participating as a project committee member. 

Spring 2025

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 have now turned their attention to the development of a faculty and staff compensation philosophy and project recommendations.

Fall 2024

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 has affirmed that the following deliverables were satisfactorily completed:

• Staff pay market assessment
• Educational webinar series (recordings available under "Project Resources" below)
• Faculty pay market assessment
• Faculty and staff compensation and benefits survey
• Market assessment of benefits programs

Summer 2024

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:

• Collaborating with university leaders to finalize the placement of staff positions into the job architecture, thus allowing Lockton to begin conducting the market assessment of staff compensation;
• Remaining available to answer questions and provide necessary data to enable Lockton to continue the market assessment of faculty compensation, including assessment by status, rank and discipline;
• Reviewing Lockton’s market assessment of current university benefits, which will be shared with the full project team this fall along with the compensation market assessment results;
• Continuing to prepare for the comprehensive compensation and benefits survey, including continued draft development and logistics planning; and
• Finalizing the project team’s working plan for the remainder of 2024, leading to the delivery of recommendations to President Crawford early in 2025.

Spring 2024

During the spring term, the project team focused on the following activities:

• Validating the currency and accuracy of job functions in staff position descriptions;
• Developing a staff job architecture, including development of clearly defined job families and levels and placement of staff positions into the structure;
• Reviewing and making adjustments to the University’s list of peer institutions for compensation and benefits benchmarking; and
• Beginning development of the Total Compensation and Benefits Survey for faculty and staff, set to be launched in Fall 2024.

The project is led by executive co-sponsors Drew Kerkhoff, Provost, and Kim Kvaal, Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer. The executive co-sponsors oversee 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 are led by Nancy Nieraeth, Chief People Officer, and Amy Spivey, Dean of Faculty. Director of Compensation and Benefits Matt Borchelt provides subject matter support to the project team, and project management support is provided by Megan Tahiri, HR Project Manager.

Internal Advisory Committee

Co-Executive Sponsors

• Drew Kerkhoff, Provost
• Kim Kvaal, Executive VP & CFO

Board of Trustees Representative

• Sarah Lee - Human Resources Director, Seattle Fire Department

Cabinet Representatives

• Joanna Carey Cleveland - VP, General Counsel, Chief of Staff, & Secretary to Board of Trustees
• Lorna Hernandez Jarvis - VP, Institutional Equity & Diversity

Faculty Members

• Peter Hodum - Professor, Biology and Director, Environmental Policy & Decision Making
• Karin Steere - Clinical Associate Professor, Physical Therapy
• Nila Wiese - Professor, Business & Leadership and Director, Latin American Studies

Staff Members

• Robin Aijian - Director, Undergraduate Admission, Office of Admission
• Nichole Lindquist-Kleissler - Director, Annual Giving, University Relations
• Greg Lynch - Assistant Director, Security Services

Faculty Working Group 

• Amy Spivey - Dean of Faculty Affairs (group leader)
• David Chiu - Professor, Mathematics & Computer Science
• Garrett Milam - Professor & Chair, Economics
• Lea Fortmann - Associate Professor, Economics
• Rachel Pepper - Professor, Physics and William D. and Flora McCormick Chair in Biophysics
• Benjamin Tromly - Professor, History

Staff Working Group

• Nancy Nieraeth - Chief People Officer, Human Resources (group leader)
• Najhan Bell - Student Success Advisor, Academic Advising
• Patricia English - Manager of Administration, Facilities Services
• Carol Odland - Senior Developer, Technology Services (also Staff Senate Compensation Committee member)
• Elizabeth Wormsbecker - Associate Director Student Employment Programs, Career and Employment Services

The University of Puget Sound has 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 guides 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

Click here to view the 2025 Project Timeline 

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. 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:

February 2025

December 2024

November 2024

October 2024

September 2024

August 2024

May 2024

March 2024

January 2024

December 2023

October 2023

August 2023

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.

Click here for more detailed information about how the peer group was developed, including the full list of peer institutions.