Merit Pay For Performance Plan

Weyerhaeuser uses a pay for performance system and utilizes a performance management process (PMP) to evaluate employee’s annual performance and that performance rating is used in calculating the individual’s merit pay increase. Over the years, Weyerhaeuser’s pay for performance compensation strategy has undergone several changes and improvements. The company utilizes merit increases where an individual’s yearly increase is based on how well they have performed against objectives. Performance management is directly tied to compensation in a pay for performance system and is based on how well an individual performs during the year against specific, measurable goals is tied to how much they will receive in a merit pay system. According to Milkovich, Newman and Gerhart (2014, p. 337), ‘a merit pay system links increases in base pay (called merit increases) to how highly employees are rated on a performance evaluation.” How well your merit pay system works and is seen by the employees as effective, fair, and a tool to increase motivation and retention is based on how well performance is actually measured and the ability to quantify performance. Though there are challenges with the merit pay system, Heathfield (n.d., par. 9) shares, “even with the limitations that exist in the awarding of merit pay, merit pay is your best opportunity to ensure that your outstanding performers remain with your company and continue to make their

Good performance is rewarded through timely job promotions, special recognition and in some cases monetary rewards and incentives.

It is vital that FastCat employees understand how merit pay works. Ensuring they are educated about the pay system will give them a clear understanding of how each person is paid and will show them that each employee has the same potential to move up the pay scale by attaining more education, increasing their skill level, being accountable and having good communication with customers. During employee orientation, new hires will be provided both verbal and written education with regard to merit pay. They will be given an opportunity to ask questions to make certain they understand how it works. The merit pay will be discussed with each employee during their yearly review so they know where they stand and give them a

* Reward for good performance, for example, positive appraisal. Before a company promotes an employee to a particular

The Leapfrog Group defines pay-for-performance to include any performance-based provider payment arrangements that target performance on cost or efficiency measures. Pay-for-performance programs offer financial

The first problem arises with the nature of merit. Merit can be defined differently for each individual, so how can the standard for reward be defined? Is a sense

A well-articulated compensation philosophy drives organizational success by aligning pay and other rewards with business strategy. It provides the foundation for plan design and administration and anchors current and future plans to the company's culture and values (Kaplan, 2006, p.32). Recognizing and rewarding achievement is the cornerstone of the company A’s compensation philosophy. The mission of the company is to attract, select, place and promote all individuals based on their qualifications. The company believes that performance-based compensation helps attract, develop and retain talented professionals. In addition to base pay which based upon local market conditions and targeted to be above market, the company provides the following types of potential compensation to reward performance:

The company’s compensation programs are result oriented market focused and flexible. Pay for Performance is one of the key compensation program, which includes various pay, benefits and special programs offered by the company.

Small State University has 40 full-time and more than 30 part-time faculty members and enrolls about

According to all the facts we have on the Fit Stop, we chose that the best suitable organizational performance pay plan for employees would be employee stock plans which are a plan through which employees acquire shares in the Fit Stop. We have chosen the three main employee stock plans i.e. employee stock bonus plan, employee share purchase plan and employee stock option plan. (Long, 2013)

Incentive pay, also known as "pay for performance" is generally given for specific performance results rather than simply for time worked. While incentives are not the answer to all personnel challenges, they can do much to increase worker performance. (Billikopf) Performance pay has various names: merit pay, pay for performance, knowledge-and-skill- based pay, or individual or group incentive pay. (Delisio)

O’Neil (1998) suggests six minimal criteria for the design of a performance based pay system. The first of these criteria is that the reward system should be self-funding, that is, the performance increases should as a minimum offset the cost of the rewards provided. The second criterion is that the distribution of the rewards must be consistent, fair and justifiable. In addition reward plans must be transparent and clearly communicated. The third criterion

Although research generally confirms that pay-for-performance plans can influence greater outcomes, it is unclear how effective different pay plans are relative to each other (Park, 2012). Like most things in business, compensation is something that requires evaluation, study, assessment, strategy, modeling and integration.  Achieving a pay for performance culture does not happen without paying attention to the behaviors, activities, rewards and motivations that have to be linked and reinforced through a well engineered and successfully executed process.  Actually if that process does not tie rewards to shareholder financial objectives, employ the proper mix of compensation elements, result in meaningful dollars, embrace performance that employees can impact and are effectively communicated and reinforced, then the results it produces will likely fall short (Vision Link Advisory Group, 2013).

The final problem that we identified is the incoherence of inclusion of the cumulative merit in the calculation of salaries. In the case-study we can read that the system includes cumulative merit. However it is not clear how it is included in the compensation system. In one hand it is said that they measure performance over time at Vitality but in the other hand it is not accounted for rewarding employees.

Pay for performance is to link employees’ salary or salary increase to his or her performance. It seems to be a reasonable or attractive idea but it often does not work well in organizations. Please use at least 4 motivation theories or models to explain why pay for performance may not work as expected—particularly in government and nonprofit organizations.