Senior Compensation Analyst

Department: Human Resources

Campus Location: Wichita, KS - WSU Main Campus

Hire Type: Full Time

Pay: Range from $65,700/yr, slight adjustment available based on qualifications

Work Schedule: Monday thru Friday; 8am to 5pm

Export Compliance Requirement: No export control requirement.

Job Story

In this position, you'll be at the heart of ensuring fair and effective compensation decisions across the university. You’ll handle complex compensation requests, balancing best practices with the unique needs of various departments and colleges. Your work will involve deep data analysis—pulling internal and external data, identifying trends, and helping leadership make informed decisions. You’ll also assess programs, policies, and procedures to ensure the university’s resources are being used effectively and that compensation strategies align with broader strategic initiatives.

To be successful in this role, you’ll need to be highly analytical and detail-oriented, with strong time management skills to juggle multiple priorities. Collaboration is key—you’ll work closely with leadership, providing well-communicated recommendations that ensure consistency, fairness, and strategic alignment. At the same time, you’ll need the flexibility to navigate complex, non-standard situations. Patience and persistence are essential, as compensation work requires mining through data to provide consistent and efficient results rather than simply reacting to immediate needs. Strong communication skills will also set you apart—you’ll need to clearly explain guidelines and processes, know when to pull in leadership for strategic planning, and know when to push back when necessary with compensation requests. Initiative is critical in this role; you’ll be expected to proactively find the information needed to support decision-making and present it in a way that enables leadership to move forward with confidence.

If you’re someone who loves diving into data, enjoys solving complex problems, and wants to play a key role in shaping the university’s compensation strategy, we’d love to hear from you. Apply today and help us build a compensation structure that supports both our employees and our mission!

Job Summary

Plans, organizes and performs highly complex professional, technical and analytical work to implement human resources programs, policies and procedures related to human resources functional area.

Essential Functions

Consults with and proactively advises Human Resources Business Partners and leadership on human resources programs, policies and procedures. Provides prompt resolution of requests and questions specific to functional area, which may have been escalated due to the specialized and highly complex nature. Serves as a subject matter expert in functional area; works closely with leaders to understand, refine and prioritize their needs. Performs complex data analysis utilizing internal and external data to assist with decision making. Retrieves and organizes data for internal utilization and reporting. Evaluates programs, policies and procedures to assess effective utilization of resources and ensure progress on University's strategic initiatives. Formulates, develops, recommends and/or implements action for program and/or process improvement. Leads and/or participates in human resources projects.

Job Duties

• Gather and research information for compensation analysis using available resources
• Work with organizational leaders and HR Business Partners to create/revise job descriptions
• Follow documented processes and best practices to analyze appropriate pay change requests
• Establish effective business relationships with stakeholders
• Ability to communicate efficiently and assess complexity of various requests
• Review complex compensation requests from all levels of hiring.
• Translate compensation best practices, to meet business needs of depts/colleges.

Required Education and Experience:

• High School diploma or equivalent. Every 30 hours of college coursework can be substituted for one (1) year of experience.
• Six (6) years of experience in human resources or related field

Required License/Certifications/Training:

None

Knowledge, Skills and Abilities:

• Industry business practices for compensation (preferably higher education institutions)
• Firm understanding of applicable compensation laws, rules, and regulations
• Adaptive communication skills
• High business acumen for compensation complexity resolutions
• Proven skill in advance level of compensation research and analysis
• Intermediate to advance Microsoft Excel experience
• Ability to establish effective, productive business relationships with all level stakeholders

Preferred Qualifications:

• 2 or more years of compensation analysis, research and structuring experience
• Bachelor's degree in Human Resources or closely related field preferred

Preferred License/Certifications/Training:

• HR Certification (SHRM-CP)

Physical Requirements:

Ability to communicate with others and accurately exchange information. Ability to operate a computer and other office equipment including but not limited to phone, printers, copiers, and calculators. Ability to remain in a stationary position.

Additional Physical Requirement: