Compensation Objectives

Washington and Lee University strives to maintain a compensation program directed toward attracting, retaining and rewarding a highly qualified and diverse workforce to serve students, faculty and staff. The compensation program focuses the University's efforts on maintaining both external competitiveness and internal equity, making decisions that support the overall rewards philosophy, consistently administering pay policies, and responding to and supporting organizational priorities, changes and needs. Program objectives include:

Maintain external competitiveness by developing and maintaining a pay structure based on benchmark market data and pay targeted at the median of our market competitors. The market for our positions includes those organizations we compete with for employees, or with whom we have decided to compare ourselves. For the majority of positions, we use the US News and World Reports identified top 25 liberal arts colleges (excluding the United States Naval and Military Academies). The list can vary somewhat from year to year, but currently comprises the following schools:

Amherst College	Davidson College	Swarthmore College
Bates College	Grinnell College	University of Richmond
Bowdoin College	Hamilton College	Vassar College
Carleton College	Harvey Mudd College	Wellesley College
Claremont McKenna College	Haverford College	Wesleyan University
Colby College	Middlebury College	Williams College
Colgate College	Pomona College
Colorado College	Smith College

Establish base pay rates that meet minimum standards of living according to Rockbridge County guidelines for a living wage.

Maintain internal equity by reviewing pay ranges to determine whether or not jobs with comparable skill sets and responsibilities have similar pay opportunities.

Support the rewards philosophy by conducting salary reviews on a regular and consistent basis, in order to determine current market-related data so as to maintain external equity.

Establish salaries for new employees at levels that recognize the individual's skills and experience, while considering the salary levels of current employees within the same position or role.

Make salary-increase decisions based on recognizing performance, retaining our best employees, maintaining market alignment, and supporting internal equity.

Create compensation structures and strategies that respond to and support organization priorities, changes and needs.