Inside Iowa State

Nov. 17, 2006

Flexible pay program will start in January

by Erin Rosacker

Iowa State will launch its "flexible pay" program in January, interim associate provost Eric Hoiberg announced at the Nov. 3 Professional and Scientific (P&S) Council meeting. The program financially rewards staff for "extra-meritorious" performance.

At its June meeting, the Board of Regents, State of Iowa, gave regent universities permission to develop campus-specific programs. ISU's program was modeled after a successful, one-year pilot program the University of Iowa used for its P&S staff.

The awards are available for non-organized P&S employees only, despite early discussions about including faculty in the program. Hoiberg did not rule out the possibility of a future program tooled specifically for faculty.

"We will really be piloting this for probably at least a year and then re-evaluating it at that point," Hoiberg said.

Proposed eligibility requirements include:

• Employment at ISU in a full- or part-time position for at least six months.
• A current above-average performance evaluation on file.
• Approval in the employee's unit and at the organizational level.

Funding for the program is the responsibility of the departments and major administrative units, and participation is voluntary.

Two types of awards -- a "spot performance" award and an "exceptional performance" award -- have been established. The spot performance award is a $75 bonus for what Hoiberg called "positive kinds of acts around campus," or recognition for extra efforts or community-minded behavior.

An exceptional performance award is more generous, but cannot exceed 10 percent of the employee's salary. Awards greater than $5,000 must be approved by the vice president that oversees the unit. Examples of exceptional performance include project completion, revenue generation or long-term meritorious behavior.

The awards are one-time, lump-sum payments and are not added to the base salary. An employee cannot receive an exceptional performance award more than twice a year, or a spot performance award more than four times per year.

University-wide, no more than 10 percent of P&S staff can receive these awards in a fiscal year. A "blackout" period has been established from June 15 to July 15, which Hoiberg explained would discourage the use of year-end money.

"The provost advisory committee seemed to be very excited about it," Hoiberg said. "It's a tremendous management tool that will be available for us. We're suggesting to people that they not use this in lieu of base salary increases, but rather in addition to the base salary increase."

According to Hoiberg, the provost office plans to complete a template that outlines the minimum requirements and distribute it to the university's major units, including the colleges. Those units will be asked to generate their own criteria based on these minimum requirements. If a unit chooses a more rigorous set of requirements, that plan must be approved by a review committee that will ensure adherence to the regents' approved guidelines.

Not all of the details have been finalized.

"We're anxious to see how it actually works out operationally, but we're hopeful that it will," Hoiberg said. "There's going to be a bit of reporting and bureaucracy associated with this, so we'll have to deal with that and try to streamline that as we go forward."

"It's a tremendous management tool that will be available for us. We're suggesting to people that they not use this in lieu of base salary increases, but rather in addition to the base salary increase."

interim associate provost Eric Hoiberg