For most academic institutions, it is the summer break.  Many students are away from campus pursuing that internship or summer employment that will boost their resume, or simply  taking some time for a little rest and relaxation.

One of the interesting employment dilemmas for colleges and universities involves summer teaching.  They want to serve the interests of students by offering a diverse array of classes so that a student can get ahead if he or she wishes to graduate early, or so a student who may have withdrawn from, or failed a class can make those credits up.

However, many faculty are on 9-months contract that covers only fall and spring semesters.  Summer teaching provides an additional stipend or an opportunity to offer a class that might not typically fit into the semester rotation.  Yet, there are opportunity costs - teaching in the summer takes time away from leisure, time away from family, or, for many, time needed to work on research and scholarship that could not fit into a busy semester schedule of teaching, service to the college or university through committee governance, and advising.

The challenge for many academic institutions is to find the price point that will be attractive to students to take away their own opportunity costs of leisure and/or summer employment, yet offering a stipend significant enough to entice a faculty member to incur those opportunity costs, while providing an additional source of revenue to meet budgetary demands.  

For some colleges, the stipend offered might be a percentage of salary, say 6-8%.  For others, it might be based on some combination of academic rank and student enrollment (i.e., a full stipend if some threshold is reached, say 8 students, but only 75% of that amount if only 6 students are enrolled).  

With the latter, the situation is complicated by when the college sets that enrollment date.  Does the college set it two weeks prior to the start of the summer session, and risk the enrollment numbers dropping by the time the class begins, resulting in less revenue for the institution?  

Or, does the college base the enrollment on those remaining in the class after the drop/add deadline, and shift the risk to the faculty member?  That faculty member might have reached the full threshold by the first day of class, only to find his or her stipend reduced, through no fault of his or her own, when some students drop the class.

Just another HR challenge faced by your colleges and universities every year.

Three charts have kept my interest for the past few months.

1.  Corporate profits are at an all-time high

2.  Wages as a percent of the economy are at a low

3.  CEO pay continues to grow

 4.  Workers are more productive, yet wages haven't matched that productivity


Given the combination of the above, I make the following modest proposal to address the above issues:

1.  Overall compensation increases for Key Employees and Highly Compensated Employees, as defined by the IRS, will be capped...UNTIL
2.  Compensation increases for the rest of the employees averages 5%.
3.  Thereafter, the cap is removed.

A simple enough example:
a) It would take $500,000 to raise the compensation of the bottom 92% of employees by 5%
b) The top 8% could not see their overall compensation raised by more than a total of $500,000 until part a is reached.

RATIONALE
1.  If you want to pay exorbitant amounts of money to your top level people, go wild....as long as most employees see some gain from the success of the organization
2.  By averaging compensation at 5% for lower-level employees, it provides flexibility to recognize high performing employees.

HR SEO Gold

Yes, a movie about male strippers is the workplace movie of the year.

Its a perfect parable for these times.  "Magic" Mike (Channing Tatum) is a budding entrepreneur working a roofing job, and stripping on the side with the hopes of raising enough capital to overcome his poor credit score and poor housing market to run his own custom furniture business.    He meets Adam (Alex Pettyfer), a former college football player, who is down on his luck after getting into a fight with his coach and deciding college is not for him.

All the characteristics of a good workplace movie are there.  Its got...

Recruiting - Magic Mike recruits Adam to work for the strip club.

Orientation - Adam is shown around backstage, meets his fellow employees.

In today's wonderful edition of The Cynical Girl, Laurie Ruettimann cites that 82% of recruiters find evidence of discrimination against the employed.

This brings up the following conundrum:

1.  If recruiters and employers are not looking at the unemployed to fill vacancies, they must be looking at job seekers who are currently desiring to leave their current position, or trying to entice those who may be content at their current job.

2.  Wages have stagnated for the past 30 years....see graph:



So, riddle me this Batman, how are vacancies being filled if higher real wages aren't increasing.  Or, is the only way to get a wage increase in today's economy is to switch jobs with the expectation, that once the job is secured, one is unlikely to see significant increased in salary for several years?  Is pay compression (or even pay inversion) the "new normal?"

I am the son of teachers. My dad was a professor of psychology for 35+ years at Michigan State University. My mom was a Grammy-award winning choir director who taught at all levels of education. Growing up, I never was deprived of much. As public sector employees, they earned a reasonable salary and received reasonable benefits. They were home when I went to school, and they were home when I returned. Plus, they had summers off (though dad often taught summer courses).

So, I am quite intrigued and dismayed by the recent action of the Wisconsin governor toward public sector employees, and, in particular, school teachers.

Some may think that public sector teachers are getting rich off taxpayers. But, let's look at what compensation public sector school teachers do and do not receive.

Unlike most private sector employees, there is no promotional ladder to climb that promises higher compensation and benefits. A human resources professional can go from a specialist to a generalist to a VP of HR. An AP History teacher in 1995 will still be an AP History teacher in 2005, 2015, and 2025 (if they are still teaching). There is no corner office one can strive to achieve. He or she cannot aspire to the Senior Executive VP of AP History.  At best, there will be negotiated salary increases from year to year.

Unlike some private sector employees, school teachers receive no double digit percentage raises for excellent performance. Kids score higher on the statewide test or on the ACT, the teacher is not going to be showered with incentives.

Unlike some private sector employees, school teachers receive no profit sharing when the school district does well.

Unlike some private sector employees, school teachers do not receive stock options that could blossom down the road. There is no IPO money available for the local high school.

Unlike some private sector employees, school teachers are not offered a 4-5 digit signing bonus to teach 4th grade science.

Unlike some private sector employees, school teachers do not receive significant perquisites at their workplace. My grandma's neighbor use to work at Stouffer's and her refrigerator was stocked with the latest food stuffs. Another friend worked for Chrysler and would get significant discounts on the latest automobile. School teachers don't get a discount on pens or erasers. There are no free Post-It Notes. Postal workers do not get stamps at a 40% discount.

Certainly, those who choose the teaching profession because they are passionate about what they do. They are not expecting an extravagant compensation package. However, a social contract developed over several decades that basically said please take care of our children, and we will provide you with quality health care and a strong defined benefit plan (which was a common benefit offering in the private sector as little as 30 years ago).

That social contract is in danger of being broken.

What is a school teacher really worth? Who will choose to teach your children as those rights earned over decades of negotiation are challenged and eroded?