Saint Louis University
PAE-11: Sustainable Compensation

Saint Louis University is committed to a compensation administration philosophy which, consistent with its mission as a Catholic Jesuit institution, will provide fairness, internal equity and competitive pay rates for the purposes of attracting, retaining, and motivating employees. To accomplish these goals, the compensation plan: *Should be structured to help attract and retain the numbers and kinds of employees required to operate the University. *Must be reasonably competitive with pay levels and practices that prevail in the various labor markets in which the institution competes. *Should help to maintain the University in a reasonably competitive position in its product market. The resulting level of compensation must not place the University in a non-competitive cost situation in which the overall compensation results in tuition, fees, and other charges being too high. *Should be designed in such a way that the associated administrative time costs will be reasonable and in proportion to the other priorities and time demands on the University's financial resources and available management time. *Must gain employee acceptance. This does not necessarily mean that employees must "approve" pay actions, or that compensation policies and practices are somehow subject to popular vote. It does mean that employees must understand the policies and practices and accept both their concepts and specific actions as being reasonable and impartially administered. *Must play a positive role in motivating employees to perform their duties to the best of their abilities and in a manner which supports the achievement of institutional goals. *Must gain acceptance by the institution's "public," which includes, but is not limited to, the Board of Trustees, the government and, to some extent, the general public. *Must provide opportunity for employees at every level to achieve their reasonable aspirations in a framework of equity, impartiality, and reasonableness. Annually, University administration will review recommendations, taking into consideration competitiveness of the current labor market, availability of labor (especially in critical-skill occupations), turnover data, and "replacement cost" data, and set the institutional pay policy for the coming fiscal year. The pay policy will reflect the market position at which the University wishes to recruit and pay employees based upon organizational objectives and philosophy. This philosophy is carried out through compensation policies which have been approved by the President's Coordinating Council. The lowest hourly rate the University pays is $9.62/hour; minimum wage for the state is $7.25/hour