Merit bonuses

[spork]

In my first tenure-track job, at a small, private university ranked as "master's comprehensive," there was a merit bonus system. It was a mathematical formula whereby a faculty member would earn points for certain achievements, like a publication in a peer-reviewed journal. Higher admins would tally up points earned by each faculty member, look at the budget, and the points would be converted to percentage additions to base salaries. I think. It was a long time ago.

In my current job at a similar institution, there are no merit bonuses. If the university's financial projections look good, all faculty get the same percentage increase in salary, regardless of how badly they teach, how little they publish, or how few committees they serve on. If the projections don't look so good, no faculty members, other than those who have been promoted in rank, get a raise. So basically the incentive is to do as little as possible while still getting promoted.

[ciao_yall]

Everyone here is on a very strict union pay scale. No bonuses, but there are lots of politics around how extra pay assignments are doled out.

You would think that this would also make people less political about resources because they don't have a "profit target" but my goodness, just asking to borrow a whiteboard marker from another department wreaks havoc!

Ask me about the time I received a flood of emails from a longtime department chair who claimed she was owed $11,000 from my department piling up from many years past - like Clinton Administration. "We should honor past agreements." Um, I just got here, the surplus in my department isn't even close to $11,000 and I did offer to cover a $500 expense for a mutual project already, few questions asked. What are you going to do with another $11,000 that you haven't managed to spend yet?

[Puget]

Private R1. We receive what are described in our annual salary letters as "merit raises" (not bonuses)-- how they are determined is entirely opaque at least to me, as is how much of our salary increase is actually for "merit" and how much is normal CoL and years at rank step increases. If we all compared we could probably figure that out, but would also assuredly reveal some disparities that would be uncomfortable for everyone to overtly recognize. I just take the money and run.

[mahagonny]

According to the prevailing wisdom, keeping my job for the purpose of earning a living is a poor life decision. So can I get a merit bonus for quitting?

[Cloudwatcher]

My previous institution had small merit bonuses determined by the Chair's evaluation and scoring of faculty. That seemed problematic since the chair was a rotating position and my chair was trying to satisfy all parties so when he went back to being faculty the next chair wouldn't punish him for his decisions.

My current institution doesn't have merit pay, which I initially thought was a good thing. However, now having done various admin jobs and seeing how unequal faculty loads are—some cannot be induced to do anything except teach their classes whereas others are doing valuable service and are productive scholars—I wish I had a way to reward faculty who are making genuine contributions in a variety of ways.

[larryc]

My old school had a merit system of sorts--a formula the president came up with during one of his half-witted Eureka! moments. It involved increasing student evaluations and a couple of other things, for a one-time $1 grand bonus. It caused a shocking amount of resentment and jealousy for such a small bonus and was eventually dropped.

[peitho]

My current U only has COLA raises, but this infinitesimal amount is based on merit and tied to annual evaluations, which are truly opaque.

[RatGuy]

Definitely no merit bonuses here.  Sometimes our pay raises are the same percentage for everyone, and other times they're based on our scores on our annual reviews.  In the latter case, it's still done as a percentage of base pay (just slightly different percentages for different people), so it doesn't fix inversions and inequities.  There's a separate process for that.  And other years, of course, there are no raises for anyone.

This is my experience, as well. As part of the annual review process, the chair "scores" each faculty member in research-teaching-service on a 6-point scale. The criteria for each score is clearly defined, and during the meeting with the chair there have rarely been surprises. The chair submits all that to the Dean's Office, who decides "merit raises" based on scores. As others have said, this part is fairly opaque, and rarely do the "raises" align with the chair's recommendation. Indeed, one of my colleagues scored a 5.5 for service based on a national-level award, but her bump in salary was no different than anyone else. (That's had the consequence of she no longer tries for awards of any kind).

[Kron3007]

Where I am there used to be merit based raises, but following unionization this was done away with.  Now, we all get standardized raises for COL and seniority.  There is also a merit based bonus system, but it works out to a lump sum of  few hundred a year if you do well (based on research, teaching, and service).

I realize we have it good overall, but the merit based bonus is really not enough to encourage harder work.  A few hundred extra dollars (before tax) is hardly enough to motivate people that are making decent wages.  Further, I can make a lot more than this by taking an overload course or consulting (which I do).  I think merit based raises would be much better since it has long term implications.

As much as I support unions, this is really the down side, especially when combined with the tenure system.  There is really no financial reason for me to work hard, and I could coast for the rest of my career or focus on external gigs and come out the same or ahead.  I suppose this is why the hiring process is so vital.

[ciao_yall]

As much as I support unions, this is really the down side, especially when combined with the tenure system.  There is really no financial reason for me to work hard, and I could coast for the rest of my career or focus on external gigs and come out the same or ahead.  I suppose this is why the hiring process is so vital.

Not just hiring, but performance reviews that create peer pressure to continue producing. Not to mention an organizational culture that emphasizes and encourages personal growth.

Maybe you can't fire people, but if you encourage them every day to do their best work for the institution you have a shot at getting people who want to coast to either up their game or "self-deport."

[Kron3007]

As much as I support unions, this is really the down side, especially when combined with the tenure system.  There is really no financial reason for me to work hard, and I could coast for the rest of my career or focus on external gigs and come out the same or ahead.  I suppose this is why the hiring process is so vital.

Not just hiring, but performance reviews that create peer pressure to continue producing. Not to mention an organizational culture that emphasizes and encourages personal growth.

Maybe you can't fire people, but if you encourage them every day to do their best work for the institution you have a shot at getting people who want to coast to either up their game or "self-deport."

Perhaps, but if performance reviews don't have any teeth (which they don't) and are confidential (which they are within the committee) this is not a lot of pressure.  It is also hard to put pressure or influence  people who are hardly ever around.

In my department I think most faculty are pulling their weight, but it is mostly because that's their personality rather than any external pressure to do so.  Meanwhile, there are others who are very good golfers...

[MaterialIssue]

We do not have "bonuses" but nearly all of our yearly salary increase is on "merit" which is completely bogus. It does not really reward meritorious practice in an any sense nor does it incentivize anyone to do anything better or worse than they already are.

And, as others have noted, it often leaves too much discretion to admins or is otherwise confusing and/or opaque. COLA plus % of salary or flat dollar amounts is fairer, predictable, and not ambiguous in calculation. For many at my institution, our raises do not even keep up with inflation.

[pink_]

You people get raises???

But seriously. You get raises?
We haven't seen even COLA in a couple years and though there is a system in place for merit based increases, it's only ever been a factor twice in my 12 years.

[mythbuster]

Never heard of a merit bonus (one time shot of $$). Merit raises are mythical here. There is a mechanism for them but no one has seen one implemented in over 20 years. This is because the admins are open to raises so infrequently that the union rightly aims to get COLA's for everyone and deal with compression and inversion instead. Our last COLA was 3 years ago.

[Ruralguy]

Our raises tend to come only every 5 years or so as we are a very tuition driven college and sometimes over-perform in getting 1st year students, and sometimes under-perform.These are called "COLA" increases, but are usually only a fraction of the true COL increase. As I stated prior, merit increases come on top of these and are both rare and unclear.