Staff Career Architecture
The Staff Career Architecture is the overall structure of staff jobs reflecting the discipline/occupation of work and the level of work performed. The framework introduces the concepts of job family groups, job families, streams, levels, and job profiles to describe and organize jobs that make it easier to see how staff jobs are related to one another across the University.
The framework is the foundation of RIT’s staff compensation program and ensures consistency and transparency in how staff roles are classified and compensated. This structure provides a clear link between staff job responsibilities and pay decisions, supports internal equity, and aligns compensation practices with market benchmarks. It also enables career development by illustrating pathways for progression within and across job families, ensuring that compensation decisions reflect both the nature of the work and the level of responsibility.
Staff Career Architecture Framework
Staff Career Architecture Components
Job Family Group
A broad grouping of staff jobs that involve work in the same field or occupation.
Examples:
- Student Services
- Facilities Operations & Infrastructure Services
- Information Technology
Job Family
A specialized group of staff roles within a job family group that perform similar work and require similar skill sets.
Examples:
- Academic Advisement (within Student Services)
- Grounds & Landscaping (within Facilities Operations)
- Applications Engineering (within Information Technology)
Career Streams
Streams represent the nature of the primary duties and responsibilities of a job, independent of the functional or occupational nature of the work.
Operations, Administrative, Service, or Technical Support
Specialized Contributor
Management and People Leadership
Job Levels
Levels describe progressive differences in staff jobs within a Career Stream across four key criteria.
Job Profiles
Job profiles describe the overall nature and function of the work. They outline (at a high level) the core responsibilities, minimum requirements, skills, and competencies required to perform the job.
Job profiles are created, administered, maintained, and updated by Human Resources and are visible to the campus community via an online Staff Job Profile Catalog. Job profiles are an essential management tool and can be used for recruitment, organizational planning, compensation benchmarking, FLSA classification, and communicating expectations for job duties and performance.
As part of the Staff Career Architecture, staff positions are assigned to a job profile and level that reflects the majority of the position's responsibilities. Each job profile is then assigned a pay grade based on the job’s responsibilities, skill requirements, complexity, scope, and market value as informed by market data.
Position descriptions for staff are not required. If desired, a job or position description can be developed locally. Position descriptions should contain all information from the job profile while allowing departments to add unit-specific responsibilities.
Resources
Staff Job Profile Catalog
Search and browse standardized staff job profiles across RIT.
Staff Job Title Guidelines
Review guidance for staff job titles and how titles are used across RIT.