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Merit Pay question - responses [LONG]



Thanks to all who responded to my query about merit pay for
librarians/archivists.  I really appreciated your input.  Here is a summary
of responses:

Original question:
Fellow listers-Our university is looking at merit pay increases.  Each
department has to come up with concrete guidelines about when, how much, and
why merit-based pay increases would be applied to someone's salary.  This
increase would be in addition to cost of living increases and promotion and
tenure raises (or as some of us suspect-in lieu of).  If any faculty status
archivists or librarians are willing to share their departmental guidelines
on merit pay please email them to me.  Not only do we need to come up with
guidelines, the powers that be want to see how others have done it.  Also if
you have arguments for or against merit based pay increases, send those as
well.
--------

Responses:

Well, just as an opinion, ours here are in lieu of c.o.l. raises and are
subject to the whims of our very unpredictable boss - regardless even of our
annual performance evaluations.
So, just be forewarned.
Good luck.
-------

I have been active in developing merit criteria for our library faculty
here.   Frankly, most of us find this a very divisive issue because each
librarian is essentially doing a different task and with slim staffing,
there are many of us for whom there is no one else to evaluate.    For
example, most of the library faculty who work on a different floor than I
do, say 'we don't know how or what Dean does' and by that, they're not being
negative, they simply voice that none of us are close enough to do merit
evaluations.

Our personnel policy lets the Director give each librarian an evaluative
ranking of  distinguished, excellent, good, satisfactory or unsatisfactory.
We wrote our merit policy which says that 50% of the funds will be divided
equally among those with a rating of "good" or better.   The remaining 50%
is divided among distinguished, excellent, and good by a ranking of 4, 3,
2...

For example, say you have 10 library faculty, all get good or better
evaluations,  2 get distinguished, 4 get excellent and 4 get good.....and
the merit funds are $10,000.

First, $5,000 would be divided among all 10 with good or better
evaluations...so $500 each.    Second, the remaining $5,000 would be divided
this way.   A distuinguished evaluation is good for 4 units, an excellent
for 3, and good for 2... So   2 fac x 4 (8) + 4 fac x 3 (12) + 4 fac x 2 (8)
or (28 units). $5,000/28 = $178.57...so a distinguished faculty would
receive 4 x 178.57 (714.28), an excellent 3 x 178.57...and so on....so a
distinguished total would be $500 + $714.28...

Do you follow this?    We chose this method because we recognized that each
librarian's responsibilities were different. The Head of Cataloging was
upset that the Head of Special
Collections (me) could get distinguished for all the speaking to community
groups, publications, etc...whereas the Head of Cataloging did not have
those opportunities....and so on. By halving the merit, we are recognizing
that each is meritorious in their own job.....the breaking of the merit to
units based on overall job performance allows recognition of these levels,
but does NOT permit merit pay to create vast unequal pay grades for the
librarians.    If you gave merit amounts in large chunks ($2,000) to base
pay, this would do nothing but create
morale problems.

The overall job performance categories--distinguished, excellent,
good...each begin with satisfactory performance of your job classification,
and then add things like service on university committees, service to the
profession, publications, etc. Distinguished would include these but might
say leadership of committees, outstanding service to the profession,
noteworthy
professional book, etc.

--------------------
For info on merit pay for University of Hawaii faculty, go to:

        http://216.235.48.82/media/01-03Contract.pdf
        (takes a long time to load!)

That is a pdf copy of the latest contract between UHPA (Univerity of Hawaii
Professional Assembly - faculty union) and University Board of Regents.

On page 55 is Special Salary Adjustments with a reference to a Memorandum of
Understanding, represented in this contract as Reference Section 18.

Ref Sec 18 is on pp. 161-162 and is titled: Memorandum of Understanding on
the Procedures for Special Salary Adjustments.

Item "B" refers to merit pay, but other info there is relevant too.

I know very little about all this, but I belive at the moment there is
little concrete movement for actually awarding merit increases.  Merit pay
at Univ. of Hawaii has come and gone in various forms over the years as one
group or another is pro/con/dissatisfied/etc.

You may wish to get in touch with someone at UHPA for more info:

        University of Hawaii Professional Assembly
        1017 Palm Drive
        Honolulu, HI  96814
        voice: (808) 593-2157
        fax:   (808) 593-2160
        www.uhpa.org
----------------
American University Library has a merit pay document serves as a basis for
meri increase considerations.  We note that the elements of equity and
market value are not addressed in this process but simply merit reviews
based on fairness, efficiency, and confidentiality.  Some of the points in
the document:  from Jim Heintze

1)  The annual merit review of library faculty members is 50% peer and 50%
administrative in process, evaluation, and outcome.

2)  The peer review portion of the process is conducted by a Merit Review
Committee established by the University Library Faculty Council [the latter
is made up of all library faculty]

3)  The Merit Review Committee consists of four Library faculty members, two
elected each year to a two-year term.  The first year, two members shall be
elected for one-year terms.  Committee members are not eligible for election
to a consecutive term.

4)  Members of the Rank and Tenure Committee, the Assistant University
Librarian (s), and the University Librarian are not eligible for service on
the Merit Review Committee.  In the interest of fairness, the effective
principle is that no person shall have more than a single voice or vote in
the evaluation of a faculty member.

5)  Scores for any year in which no merit money is available shall be
considered equally with the next review year when merit money is available.

Criteria

1) Library faculty are evaluated on three criteria: professional
effectiveness; creative, scholarly, and professional development; and
contribution to the University

2)  The Merit review evaluation is weighted according to the University
Faculty Manual.
     70% effectiveness in fulfilling primary responsibilities
     15% creative, scholarly, and professional development
     15% contribution to the University

3)  The following scale is applied to each of the three criteria for each
faculty member:
     5 = exceptionally meritorious
     4 = highly meritorious
     3 = meritorious
     2 = not meritorious

4)  The merit review is based on the personal annual report which describes
individual accomplishments organized according to the three criteria.

Communication

1)  The Merit Review Committee communicates the score for each of the three
criteria, as well as the composite, to the individual faculty members.

2)  The Committee forwards its evaluations to the University Librarian along
with the annual reports submitted by the faculty members.

3)  Scores are communicated to each Library faculty member by the University
Librarian at the end of the review process.

-----------------------

>>Each department has to come up with concrete guidelines about when, how
much, and why merit-based pay increases would be applied to someone's
salary.<<