UC Career Tracks being implemented at UC Santa Cruz

To: UC Santa Cruz staff

From: Sarah Latham, vice chancellor, Business and Administrative Services

I write with an update on our campus implementation of Career Tracks. As a reminder, this is part of a UC systemwide effort. This project will transition non-represented employees into new Career Tracks job titles. The Career Tracks job structure has four goals:

  • Implement a system-wide series of job classifications/titles that reflect primary job responsibilities and UC systemwide norms 
  • Provide employees with better-defined career paths 
  • Align future pay practices with the local labor market 
  • Provide more transparent classification decisions and enhance reporting and analytic capabilities

Career Tracks is not a salary or compensation program, and therefore is not intended to affect employee pay when it is implemented at UCSC. The new classification system will provide a better foundation for making future salary decisions. It will also help align unit objectives with organizational structure as well as resource and budget allocations going forward.

Implementation of Career Tracks at all UC locations is a high priority of President Janet Napolitano. It has already been implemented at several campuses, as well as at the Office of the President. Implementation is underway at all remaining locations.

UCSC conducted a Career Tracks pilot for information technology jobs in 2015. There were many lessons learned from that pilot, and we will apply those lessons as we get set to implement Career Tracks for the rest of campus. All affected employees will move into new payroll titles and classifications at one time. The current project scope applies to Managers and Senior Professionals (MSP) and Professional and Support Staff (PSS) jobs only. Senior Management Group (SMG), academics, and represented employees will not be affected.

Our campus implementation is being managed by Staff Human Resources with support from the UCOP project team. Elvia Moreno is the UCSC project manager. The project timeline and milestones have been developed with a goal of having all eligible employees converted by February 2017./p>

We are enthusiastic about implementing Career Tracks. It lays the foundation for initiatives related to career development, staff recognition, reward programs, and performance management, all of which are crucial to recruitment and retention of the staff who help make UCSC an outstanding institution.