What it means to have a market-based structure
The “market” refers to the external labor environment where employers compete for talent — made up of organizations or institutions that hire people to perform similar work. Being market‑based means we use reliable and defined external data to understand how similar jobs are paid in the labor market.
We align pay for K-State’s jobs to the 50th percentile, or market median, as compared to a defined list of market comparators. This means that 50% of competitors pay more than the median and 50% of competitors pay less than the median. This is a common approach for employers and helps K-State stay competitive for talent while being good stewards of university resources.
K-State uses a set of comparator institutions from which to benchmark faculty and staff pay. The list of comparator institutions was developed based on similar attributes — such as institution size, revenues, research activity and location type — and approved by university leadership.
In addition to institutions of higher education, industry data is included for staff roles when determining the market median. This is because most staff roles exist both within and outside of higher education, so including industry pay data provides the most holistic picture of the market.
Human Resources Compensation and Organizational Effectiveness team utilizes validated salary survey sources to gather pay data for comparison to K-State’s roles. Roles are matched to the market using job responsibilities, not simply matching on title. Using validated, professionally collected survey sources ensures that our market comparisons are accurate, legally compliant and based on roles with clearly defined duties — while also meeting antitrust standards that prohibit organizations from sharing individual pay information or informally coordinating compensation with peers.
Salary information from publicly posted online sources is not used because it is often self‑reported, inconsistent across roles and not validated for job duties, making it unsuitable for accurate market comparison.
Each job in K-State's staff job architecture has a job profile, or short description, that briefly explains the work performed by the role. Based on duties described in the job profile, the job is matched to roles in the market performing the same work. This match provides information about typical pay for the role. Using that information, the job is then matched to the most closely corresponding pay grade in K-State’s staff pay structure.
For additional details or answers to common questions, employees may visit:
- Compensation terms and definitions – Includes a list of common terms used in compensation
- Staff job architecture – Full listing of staff job titles and pay grades
Employees are encouraged to work with their manager or HR liaison for questions related to pay and how pay is determined for their role.
HR liaisons may also engage HR Compensation and Organizational Effectiveness for additional information on pay and K-State’s market-based structure.