Elon University
PA-9: Employee Compensation

Elon University complies with all laws governing compensation and pay practices, including the Fair Labor Standards Act (“FLSA”). FLSA governs compensation in many ways including establishing minimum wage, requiring overtime pay for non-exempt (hourly) employees and establishing pay classifications and accompanying rules on deductions for those classified as exempt (salary) or nonexempt (hourly). Elon makes every effort to assure that salaries are competitive with or above those in the community, local industry and among peer institutions. The university has as part of its long range plan, the Elon Commitment, a specific goal aimed at employing a world class faculty and staff. To achieve this goal, the university understands the importance of offering very competitive salaries in order to secure the best employees to move the university forward. In its effort to assure that salaries paid at Elon rank in the top three of the university’s peer institutions, the university has implemented a salary plan that will further increase compensation of faculty and staff in a three-year program that began in December 2013 and concluded with the completion of Phase three on June 1, 2015. The university’s three-year salary initiative provided an additional salary pool each year which targeted employees based on identified salary bands. The salary amounts being paid to employees were divided into three bands – lowest to highest. The first year of the initiative provided the additional salary pool for those employees who were earning salaries in the lowest band. The second year targeted those employees in the mid-range among all employees, and the third year targeted those employees above the mid-range. This three-year salary initiative was in addition to the university’s annual review process and salary increase pool for employees. The university has had a salary increase pool each year unlike many other colleges, universities and businesses which have not provided salary increases for employees. Additionally, there have been no layoffs at Elon despite the economic downturn in the country which began in the fall of 2008. To further support the goal of competitive salaries, the university is also completing a review of its current salary ranges to re-establish a minimum, midpoint and maximum annual salary for each pay grade. Elon will again be collaborating with its contracted food service vendor and campus book store vendor requesting that they consider using the same overall minimum salaries for pay ranges so as to maintain alignment with the university’s initiative. Pay ranges are being determined using local, regional and national survey information. More specifically, the university is utilizing the College and University Professional Association for Human Resources’ annual salary survey, the HEITS Salary Survey for employees working in Information Systems positions and numerous state and regional salary surveys of positions at the university that are commonly found in business and industry. Elon has also sought to identify salaries for positions that can be found at other colleges and universities that are considered to be Elon’s peers as well as a number of institutions that the university aspires to be more like. The university has contracted with Willis, Inc. out of Atlanta to assist in the development of its pay range system, and the salary study will be completed in the near future.