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Source: Verbatim from the University of Houston
"Progressive employee benefits are another approach to alleviating the problem of salary compression. ... Under the scheme of progressive employee benefits special additional benefits are available to the more senior employees. Some examples of additional benefits that could be provided to the more senior faculty include: sabbatical leave, modified course loads, choice of hours and courses taught, research assistants, priority in summer teaching (if on a 9 month contract), special parking privileges (i.e. covered, free, reserved), and a professional development account based on longevity and merit." 2
“Each rank and step has an associated salary or increment tied to that rank. In this case the differentials between ranks and steps are maintained preventing this form of compression. However, hiring new faculty into the system can result in subjective and/or objective compression if the step and rank are out of line or perceived as being out of line with those faculty already working within the pay structure.”
“Employees may also turn to other sources of income to supplement their salary and offset the effects of compression. One traditional source available outside the University has been consulting. A source available inside the University is additional compensation for teaching overloads.”
“Another solution to the problem of salary compression is to set aside an equity pay fund. As suggested by Gomez-Mejia and Blakin (1987), these funds should not come from the regular salary budget. In their model, part of the equity pay should be provided across the board to the higher ranks to maintain the differentials, and part of it would be used for merit increases to retain the most highly regarded professors. A central equity pool could also be used to maintain pay differentials between ranks.” The University of Houston used this strategy.
Primary strategies to reverse faculty salary compression, as identified by the University of Houston's Faculty Affairs Committee of the Faculty Senate Salary Compression Study.