Ithaca College

We are pleased to provide the campus community with an update regarding our work with Sibson Consulting (a Human Resources consulting firm that is nationally recognized in Higher Education) on the staff compensation study and high-level review of current benefit offerings.  As previously communicated, this initiative began in early March and is expected to run through winter 2017.

Since our last communication, the Sibson team visited campus and met with various representative focus groups to begin to understand the current perspectives around the College’s compensation and benefit programs.  Our employees were also provided the opportunity to participate in the data gathering phase of the project through an on-line survey covering the staff compensation program and the College’s benefit programs. 

Great progress has been made on the review and assessment of the Staff compensation program.  We were pleased with the level of participation in the interviews, focus groups, and survey.   The wealth of information gathered through these opportunities has served to inform the development of a draft compensation philosophy and a comparison set of institutions that will be used in the compensation market assessment.  Our next steps are to share the draft compensation philosophy and comparison set with the Senior Leadership team and the Board of Trustees for review and approval.  

As part of the high-level review of benefits, we worked with the Staff Benefits Committee of the Staff Council, to build upon the survey they had conducted in early spring of 2017.  The broader survey conducted by Sibson Consulting that included compensation and benefit questions, many of which came from the Staff Benefits Committee survey, was conducted in May and the survey closed in June.  Participation in both surveys was excellent.  There were 358 responses in the Staff Benefits Committee survey (49 % participation rate) and 473 responses in the Sibson Consulting survey (52 % participation rate). Additionally, the benefits portion of the survey was distributed to faculty where Sibson received 190 responses (38 % participation rate).  The survey feedback from both the Staff Benefits Committee and Sibson Consulting was in alignment. 

The key themes regarding benefit offerings from both surveys indicate:

• The vast majority of staff are somewhat to extremely satisfied with their overall benefits.
• Most staff are satisfied or very satisfied with Ithaca College’s retirement benefits, paid time off, medical and pharmacy benefits.   
• A majority of the respondents have concerns about medical benefit cost and some have concerns about the limits to coverage and extent of coverage/limit to medical reimbursement.
• The Sibson survey indicated Mind, Body and Me (36 %), BalanceWorks (Employee Assistance Program) (26 %) and Teladoc (12 %) were the three lowest ranked benefits in terms of importance (for very important and important), which all relate to wellness and consumerism.
• There are some newer benefits available that the majority of employees are unaware of which include will writing services, travel assistance, ID theft and beneficiary assistance/counseling.
• Overall the majority of faculty and staff are somewhat to very satisfied with tuition benefits but some would like to see tuition assistance extended to other local colleges or any institution.
• There are a number of non-traditional benefits that employees indicated an interest in, such as, pet insurance, group home and auto, and identity theft protection insurance.

In summary, the majority of employees are satisfied with the benefit package, but have concerns about the continued rising cost of health care including limits to coverage and medical reimbursement. We recognize the need for continued communication to the campus community of the many programs offered by the College and we hope you will attend the upcoming benefits fair (October 31, 2017) where benefit offerings will be highlighted in detail. 

Complete reports of the survey results from the Staff Benefits Committee and Sibson Consulting can be found by clicking on the links that follow: https://www.ithaca.edu/staffcouncil/docs/  or https://www.ithaca.edu/hr/compensation/.

We will continue to keep you informed of our progress with regard to the Compensation Program review through regular updates. We are pleased with the progress of the study and appreciate your continued support. Please feel free to contact Cindy Reckdenwald at (4-3850) if I can provide any additional information or answer any questions.