But as far as Jo Romero, president of the Colorado Federation of Public Employees, is concerned, all Peak Performance has really accomplished has been to rile public employees. While merit pay and bonus plans have long been a source of potential friction between labor and management, there are places where such systems seem to be working. The common characteristic in these jurisdictions is that they're used more as a carrot than a stick. In fact, two of the more interesting experiments in performance pay being tried right now allow employees to receive bonuses above and beyond what they would receive in salary increases anyway. What's more, both experiments are being conducted with the support of organized labor, which, as a rule, fights merit pay and bonus plans at every turn.
Teachers can get extra cash for professional development.
A similar avenue for bonuses is available on a group basis, where teams of educators can apply for performance pay if they can prove, likewise, that they have contributed in an exceptional way to the educational goals of a school and the district. The bonuses are one-time payments and don't build base pay. The two-year pilot, which was approved by labor and management this year, will ultimately involve about 650 teachers in the city's public schools. You have to put in the groundwork to nurture that culture change, and not everybody is going to like it. Indiana's Hmurovich adds that bonuses and merit pay in and of themselves won't necessarily ensure the level of performance that you're after.