Updated: Feb. 6, 2024, at 11:56 a.m.

Staff said employee rewards are limited under the University’s bonus merit pay model, a system that some experts deem a flawed practice due to its subjectivity.

Officials use a pay-for-performance model, also known as merit pay, to annually award additional compensation to staff who go beyond their duties, which University President Ellen Granberg said was the standard in higher education at a Staff Council meeting last month. Experts in performance incentives said pay-for-performance models may not effectively reward high-performing staff depending on who determines the bonuses.

All of GW’s 12 peer schools except for Wake Forest University utilize annual merit increases to reward staff.

Benefits-eligible staff can receive a certain amount of merit pay based on the start date of their job and their performance rating, which includes “Exceeds Expectations,” “Achieves Expectations” and “Needs Improvement,” according to the Staff Performance Management and Salary Planning Guide. The performance period during which officials determine merit pay begins April 1 and ends March 31 the following year.

Caroline Kemp, a Staff Council representative for the Division for Student Affairs, said at the council meeting last month that her unit leaders say they’ve been told they cannot give the “exceed expectations” performance rating to their employees.

“I fear that that model is broken,” Kemp said at the meeting. “It’s not being utilized in a way that it should be or could be.”

Chief Financial Officer Bruno Fernandes said at Friday’s Staff Council meeting that officials wanted to allot more money to merit pay in fiscal year 2023 but that some revenue, like donations, is limited to what the donors want the money to be directed toward. Granberg said at the meeting that officials use additional tuition revenue to fund merit pay.

“We certainly are looking at improving that going forward,” Fernandes said at the meeting. “We understand the cost of living, inflation are certainly challenges.”

Staff said their merit pay feels predetermined due to a small merit pool, which is not enough to award all staff who have been performing well. They said staff want their overall compensation to match the cost of living in the District, Maryland and Virginia, whether it be through merit pay, cost-of-living adjustments or a combination of the two.

Nicole Mintz, the chair of the council’s Staff Experience Committee, said staff have felt that the pay-for-performance model is a “demotivator” because few employees can receive the highest level of bonus merit pay. She said staff have to seek out new ways to raise morale and motivation.

“It’s more of a lack of understanding or feeling,” Mintz said. “I’m working so hard and it’s not going to get noticed or recognized related to salary increase.”

She said staff can feel “conflicted” after working hard but are unable to be compensated for going beyond their duties when the pool for merit pay is small.

Officials review the merit budget for each unit or school in May every year, and school and unit leaders cannot use the merit budget for other expenses. Faculty are not included in the “regular” staff merit process.

Mintz said Granberg and human resources officials have been transparent about her administration’s active work to improve the merit pay pool. She said she appreciates that Granberg is open about not having an answer at the moment on how to increase the size of the merit pay pool but is working on a solution.

Granberg said at a Staff Council meeting in December that resources are “tight” and pledged to help increase the size of the merit pay pool for staff. University Vice President and Chief People Officer Sabrina Minor said her office is researching performance management to see how beneficial it is for the University at a Staff Council meeting in August.

“They’ve been very clear they’re working on it, so we don’t want to fall back in silence,” Mintz said. “We also want to allow space for that to be worked on. And trusting in the process is a big part of our commitment.”

Emily Lewis — the lead of the Compensation Subcommittee of the Staff Experience Committee, which elevates staff voices on concerns like hiring and compensation — said merit pay is one component of helping staff feel “taken care of” in addition to promotions and ratings. She said living in D.C. is “ludicrously expensive” and staff want an increase in compensation to accommodate for the cost of living.

The guide states that cost-of-living adjustments to compensation do not adhere to GW’s “pay philosophy.”

“We’ve definitely had staff that are like, ‘Well, why don’t they just abandon merit pay and do the cost of living increases?’” Lewis said. “We’ve had staff say the other way around, we’ve had staff say, ‘Why not both? Why can’t we do both?’”

Robert Engvall, a professor of criminal justice at Roger Williams University who published an essay on merit pay in 2010, said bonus merit pay is a fair concept but is more subjective in practice because it is difficult to consistently determine who is a high performer in higher education institutions.

“There’s nothing wrong with paying good people for doing good work,” Engvall said. “That’s a wonderful, beautiful thing. It’s motherhood and apple pie. But the problem is in how we actually distribute that money.”

He said universities have adopted merit pay systems as higher education institutions have adopted a more corporate model over the past few decades because performance-based bonuses allow administrations to have more control over their employees, which parallels corporations’ use of merit pay to entice their employees to follow objectives.

“If we could really trust those above us to make the kinds of conscientious, great decisions that certainly come and some administrators are capable of making, then there wouldn’t really be conceptually a problem with merit pay,” Engvall said. “But it can also be used as a real bludgeon to get people and keep them in line.”

David Longjohn, a systems specialist at Western Michigan University who published a report on pay-for-performance, said university employees nationwide are split on pay-for-performance because some believe that supervisors may not accurately determine who is deserving of the bonus.

“Everyone has a different notion of what constitutes fairness so I have to wonder if whatever potential morale boost might arise out of PFP might be more than offset by morale decline coming out of another corner,” Longjohn said in an email.

This post was updated to correct the following:

The Hatchet incorrectly reported that Kemp said her unit could not afford to give merit pay to its employees. The unit could not give the “exceeds expectations” rating to its employees. We regret this error.