Concluding Thoughts
The Compensation Committee recognizes that the recommendations contained in this report represent a significant culture shift for Missouri State University. If these recommendations are adopted, Missouri State University will move from a culture of equal, across-the-board pay increases and an entitlement attitude toward annual increases to one of differential pay based upon performance, a move that the Compensation Committee believes is in the best overall interest of the University and its employees.
The Compensation Committee feels strongly that one key to the successful implementation of a new compensation system will be to keep the campus community informed. If these recommendations are adopted, regular and open communication must occur throughout the transition process. The committee recommends that the Public Relations Advisory Team assist in development and implementation of a plan for communicating with the campus community throughout the implementation process.
The recommendations in this report are targeted to faculty and staff performance evaluation and compensation. The Compensation Committee did not address the performance evaluation of administrators. As mentioned in Section 2, the committee recommends the formation of a Presidential committee that includes representatives from faculty, staff, and administration, to develop a performance evaluation approach and a performance assessment instrument to evaluate the performance of all University administrators at the level of Dean and above (except the President, who is evaluated by the Board of Governors). The committee recognizes that administrative compensation involves salary negotiations based on market and also on the nature and level of the administrative position; however, the committee believes that performance evaluation should be an important consideration in determining salary increases for administrators, just as with faculty and staff.
Finally, as noted earlier, the Compensation Committee recommends that a standing University Compensation Committee be appointed to monitor and refine the University's compensation system as changes to current practice are put into effect. A standing Compensation Committee could assist in monitoring and assessing the sufficiency of the annual salary pools and could also assist in determining an appropriate course of action in years when the salary pool is insufficient to warrant full implementation of the Compensation Matrix approach for distributing salary increases (see Section 1). The standing committee could also work with other appropriate constituencies to determine processes for appealing performance evaluations (see Section 2). The committee continues to be concerned about finding ways to provide assurances of fairness, especially during the transition to a new system, without creating a burdensome and unworkable system. The members of the Compensation Committee recognize that no compensation system is perfect, and we do not presume to have thought of and anticipated every ramification of the proposals that are put forward in this report.