Career Tracks Project
 

• What is Career Tracks?
• Career Tracks is a job classification framework that aligns jobs at the University to their respective labor market by occupation and supports the development of possible career paths designed to enhance career mobility.  Levels for individual contributor, supervisory and management roles within each distinct functional area are defined consistently across occupations and with the labor market for comparable jobs.
• Who has been impacted by the Career Tracks project?
• All UC staff who are not represented by unions and are not part of the Senior Management Group (SMG), Academic or students have been mapped to a job title to the Career Tracks structure.
• Why has Career Tracks been implemented?
• Our previous classification system was built on UC systemwide classifications that have become outdated.  Career Tracks more accurately reflects current job duties, organized within job families and functions.  This new structure sets the foundation for a more transparent classification and career planning process going forward and allow us to better align our jobs to the external labor market.
• How has Career Tracks affected employees?
• Each employee has been assigned a new payroll job title that is part of a designated job family and function.  Each job title has been assigned a personnel program (MSP or PSS), an exemption status and corresponding salary grade and range.   The personnel program and exemption status have been applied consistently throughout UC as locations transition into Career Tracks job titles.
• For different job families and functions, there are categories of jobs, and career levels in the new job structure. What do those terms mean?
• These terms distinguish the work that people perform. By looking at the differences in scope and responsibility between jobs, we can describe each job more accurately in relation to other jobs.
  
  The family is a group of jobs that involve work in the same general occupation. These jobs have related knowledge requirements, skill sets, and abilities. Finance is an example of a family.   It is a general way to organize job functions into bigger groups to ease searching through the numerous job functions available.
  
  The function is a more specialized area within a family. In a function, the same or relatively similar work is performed, a similar skill set is required, and it is possible to move within the function with minimal training.  For example, Purchasing is a function within the Finance family.
  
  The category defines the type of work performed, as opposed to the occupation or subject matter. The three categories are:
  1) Operational & Technical
  2) Professional
  3) Supervisory & Management.
  
  A job function can include more than one type of work, so within Purchasing, you could have jobs in both professional and supervisory & management categories. 
• What if a Job Standard does not fully represent an individual’s job duties?
• The “boiler-plate” or generic job standards rarely reflect the unique work each individual may be asked to perform as part of his or her regular responsibilities. The work performed by an individual reflects the organizations goals and structure.  The goal is to capture at least 50% - 60% of the predominant job duties for a given job. Supervisors and managers can use the job standards as a starting point in developing customized job descriptions that reflect the positions unique responsibilities, yet still align to the job standards for all UC staff in that job. 
• Is Career Tracks a systemwide initiative?
• Yes.  All locations (Office of the President, campuses and medical centers) have shown an interest in implementing the Career Tracks structure for their locations.  This will provide greater career mobility and transparency within and across all UC locations.  The Office of the President, UC Berkeley, UC Merced and ANR has already implemented career tracks for their non-represented staff.
• Have working titles change as a result of Career Tracks?
• No.  Career Tracks only changed payroll titles.  Employees may still use the current working titles of coordinator, assistant director, director, etc., as appropriate.
• Have job duties change as a result of Career Tracks?
• No.  Actual job duties and expectations did not change.  Employees have been assigned a job title in the new Career Tracks structure that best fits the current job/role performed.
• Has my pay changed as a result of Career Tracks?
• No, there has been no immediate impact to pay (either upward or downward), although the new classification system will provide a better foundation for determining appropriate market-based salaries in the future. 
• Were staff able to review the classification change before it went into effect, and how were they informed?
• Employees received individual notices delivered by their supervisor or manager informing them of their new title codes, job standards and pay grades, prior to implementation in the payroll system.   

Mapping to New Job Structure
 

• What does it mean to be “mapped” to the new job structure? 
• The process of moving a job from the current classification/job title into a new job title that is part of a designated job family and function is referred to as “mapping.”
• Many individuals wear multiple hats.  How were positions handled that incorporated duties from multiple job functions?
• The major duties of a given job, (i.e. the reason the position exists), determined how to map it to a new job function. Positions that are multifunctional were mapped to the job function that constitutes more than 50 percent of the job.  If no one component of the job was 50 percent or more, the job function that has the greatest percentage of duties, or the function that was emphasized during recruiting was used. 
• Is there an overview describing each job level in the new job structure?
• For a description of each professional, supervisory and management job level, see the Categories and Levels (PDF) for more information. 
• Two employees are currently in the same job title.  Their new Career Tracks job titles are different.  Why might this be the case?
• It may be the case that when comparing current job descriptions for employees in the same job titles, the responsibilities, scope, required knowledge and skills, staff size, or other key variables were different.  Or, over time job duties changed for a given employee but the job description on record was never updated to reflect assumption of additional responsibilities.  
  
  The implementation of Career Tracks job titles provides the organization with a fresh review of the current role and responsibilities for each employee.  New titles were assigned in consultation with managers to ensure that the most current information for each job was taken into account for assigning a job title in the new structure.