Award program funding for the past few years has been retained by this campus as budgetary savings. Equity increases have been frozen. Small units are held accountable for adhering to the same merit control figure as large departments are. This can prove overly restrictive in terms of managing those very limited funds to recognize a peak performer. Award programs have been centrally administered and often lack the motivational value given the timing and lack of relationship between the eligibility and performance criteria to the actual contribution being rewarded.
Most employees receive the general increase regardless of position in relation to the market rate.
Consequently some employees are significantly lagging the market, while others are over-paid. When these systems fail the manager, they turn to the reclassification process. In summary, the above illustrates that managers lack the ability to modify base pay and provide non-base building awards when needed to meet market demands, recognize and reward achievement, or skill acquisition. When the structure, policies and practices restrict the proper form of compensation, managers turn to the only viable means of increasing pay left - the reclassification process. Through its personnel and budgetary policies, this has remained the only available option for compensating employees.