Understanding K-State's staff job architecture
A job architecture is a framework that organizes jobs in a consistent and transparent way. It helps make job titles, career paths and pay clearer and more consistent across the university. K-State’s job architecture, which includes unclassified staff and university support staff job titles, is a key part of how compensation is structured at K-State.
The architecture groups similar work into career streams - individual contributors, leaders/managers, and executives – and into job families and subfamilies, which allow jobs to be better matched to market competitors. Each position’s title is based on factors including responsibilities, required knowledge and skills, decision‑making authority, and whether the role supervises others.
The job architecture also connects each job to the appropriate pay range, which is determined based on a consistent market data approach. This ensures competitive, equitable and market-aligned compensation. Learn more about K-State’s market-based compensation approach.
Through regular updating and maintenance, K-State’s job architecture is designed to stay responsive to and aligned with the external job market. The HR Compensation and Organizational Effectiveness, or COE, team regularly reviews the architecture to ensure job titles, descriptions and pay ranges reflect how work is evolving and how similar jobs are compensated by competitors.
Staff positions are classified by the COE team. Each position’s duties are compared to general job profiles and evaluated for a 70% or greater match. The COE team considers the level of responsibility and primary duty of the role when classifying a position. Learn more about position descriptions.
K-State’s job architecture includes two career streams.
- Individual contributor: A role focused on performing specialized or general work independently, without responsibility for supervising other employees as a major focus of their work.
- Manager/leader: A role responsible for leading people or directing work and resources to achieve goals, typically with formal supervisory duties as a major focus of their work.
Leadership titles typically have two levels, such as Director I and Director II. A level II role must supervise at least two full‑time employees (2.0 FTE) and is placed two pay grades higher than Level I to reflect the added supervisory responsibility.
If the number of employees a leader supervises changes, their position description may need to be reviewed to ensure the title and pay level still align with the job’s actual responsibilities.
K-State sets minimum qualifications for staff job titles based on experience and/or education required to ensure candidates are qualified to perform the duties of the job. Minimum qualifications are established using comparisons to similar positions across higher education and relevant industries as well as through consultation with subject matter experts at K-State. Minimum qualifications for staff positions must align with the established job profile within the staff job architecture and are verified during the position description review process.
Learn more about minimum qualifications, preferred qualifications and education/experience equivalencies.
HR Compensation and Organizational Effectiveness reviews business titles (also referred to as working titles) to ensure they reasonably reflect the job duties, responsibilities and level of the position.
Business titles may be used to:
- Provide a more specific description of the function or work performed.
- Better facilitate business communications.
- Align with professional/industry practice.
Business titles should not:
- Use elements of another official K-State job title.
- Misrepresent the level of authority or responsibility of the position.
HR Compensation and Organizational Effectiveness reserves the right to deny a business title that does not follow the university's guidelines.
At K-State, staff positions are established using Unclassified Staff (UNC) and University Support Staff (USS) job codes. All job titles covered by KSU Local 6400 use USS job codes. Some job titles will have both USS and UNC job codes as needed. Find job codes on the staff job architecture and in the PageUp applicant tracking system.
Learn more about the similarities and differences between USS and UNC positions.
The staff job architecture includes an “Additional Titles” job family, which includes job titles that are not formally market indexed but are required to have a position description submitted in the applicant tracking system (PageUp). These job titles are in the 001 pay grade. Special guidance regarding pay may apply and will be provided by COE when the position description is reviewed.