Merit Salary Criteria: One Academic Library's Experience

Abstract

Merit salary increases are common in academia and are often applied to professional librarians in university and college libraries. That is the case at Colorado State University; however, prior to 1998, only brief merit salary criteria for library faculty positions existed. In 1998 the Libraries Faculty Council established a task force to draft merit salary criteria. A literature review was conducted and input from other libraries and individuals was sought. The criteria were approved by the library faculty and were used for performance evaluations for the calendar years of 1998 and 1999. In May 2000, a survey was conducted of the library faculty soliciting their opinions on the overall effectiveness of the criteria. Results of the survey are given and conclusions are drawn.

Without Merit: One Library’s Attempt to Put “Merit” Back in “Merit Pay”

“…The task force acknowledged that the success of the instrument and process developed would depend on the development of credible, comprehensive measures of performance criteria. 25 Frederic W. Cook noted that two requirements are needed for a successful plan. The first is a "credible system of measuring and evaluating performance" and the second is that "employees must perceive that differences in performance will be recognized and rewarded."…”

Without Merit: One Library's Attempt to Put "Merit" Back in "Merit Pay"

“…The task force "decided that the criteria should be descriptive, focus on outcomes, and emphasize that each faculty is responsible for documenting his/ her contributions in terms of outcomes on the annual summary activity report." 3 David A. Baldwin's 2003 book Library Compensation Handbook defines merit pay as "pay for performance." 4 "Merit pay is defined as individual pay increases based on the rated performance of individual employees during a specific time period."…”