University of Iowa employee performance awards, resignations surge

IOWA CITY — In the face of pandemic-related hurdles, economic headwinds and heightened competition for employees, the University of Iowa in the 2022 budget year increased its use of monetary prizes to award “exceptional” and “outstanding” performance by its employees — nearly doubling the total distributed in 2021.

Awarded in up to $300 lump sums to employees who exceed expectations, the UI in 2022 distributed 17,483 of these “spot” awards, totaling $7.3 million. That’s more than double the $3 million distributed through 8,070 awards in the 2021 budget year, and more than 243 times the $29,939 awarded a decade earlier in 2012 through 403 awards.

“The large increase in spot awards is primarily due to the pandemic and specifically the health care enterprise and the units that support it, directly or indirectly,” according to Board of Regents documents outlining its universities’ use of award programs.

“Staff efforts increased considerably during the pandemic, and non-recurring monetary awards have proven to be an effective way of recognizing employee contributions,” UI officials said in an email response to The Gazette’s questions.

The university in 2022 also increased its number of “exceptional performance awards” — which can be higher than the spot awards but can’t exceed 10 percent of an employee’s base wage — from 575 in 2021 to 667.

The regents report on the program to reward good work comes as UI Health Care reports 500 to 600 open nursing positions; UIHC workers report low morale and demands for higher pay; and the broader campus reported its most faculty resignations since 2016 — with 92 in fiscal 2022. Of that, 57 were clinical-track faculty; 22 were tenure or tenure-track faculty; and 13 were research or instructional faculty.

“Clinical track faculty devote a significant portion of their time providing or overseeing the delivery of professional services to individual patients or clients,” UI officials said. “The COVID-19 pandemic added significant stresses to our health care professionals, including those on our faculty, which may have contributed to some resignations.”

To retain and attract top-tier faculty and staff, the UI in recent years has employed several strategies and programs — including a transformational faculty hiring program in 2022 to help colleges hire “outstanding faculty” with up to $1.5 million per hire.

Additionally, since creating an endowment fund with revenue obtained through a new utilities partnership in 2020, the UI pulled nearly $12 million for faculty retention and recruitment efforts.

Money for the exceptional performance and spot awards — which are separate programs — are paid out of “departmental operating budgets,” UI officials said.

UIHC nurses and other health care professionals told regents Wednesday they’d prefer that money go toward increasing their wages — having recently asked for a 14 percent pay raise.

“So much money was spent on (traveling nurses), during COVID,” UIHC Senior Physical Therapist Barb Stanerson told regents during a public comment portion of their meeting in Urbandale. “If that money would have been put towards retaining staff, not with bonuses but with wages, I can't help but think we’d be in a much better situation than what we're in now.”

Program expansion

Although the number of UI exceptional performance awards increased in 2022, total dollars distributed under the program dropped $46,460 to just under $2.5 million due, in part, to a largest-ever $100,000 award in 2021.

That went to UI head football coach Kirk Ferentz, who made a base wage that year of $2.7 million. Ferentz received his contracted $100,000 bowl game bonus through UI’s exceptional performance program because the team — while qualifying for a bowl — didn’t actually participate as the game was canceled due to COVID-19.

His contract stipulates bowl-game participation triggers the bonus.

In the 2022 budget year, 11,777 employees were deemed eligible for the exceptional performance awards — a 12 percent increase from five years ago. Over 16,300 employees were eligible for the smaller spot awards in 2022 — a 54 percent increase from five years ago.

Those increases are due to the UI’s expansion of the type of employees eligible for the awards. Where only “non-organized professional and scientific” workers could receive awards five years ago, today members of the health care union can receive both types of awards and “merit” employees — like blue collar, technical and clerical workers — can receive spot awards.

Although faculty members weren’t eligible for the awards before, both faculty and institutional officers became eligible to receive spot awards July 1.

UNI, ISU

Regents approved the UI program in 2005 and later expanded it to Iowa State University and the University of Northern Iowa.

UNI for the first time in the 2022 budget year began offering both exceptional performance and spot awards, distributing $75,000 through 22 exceptional performance awards and $800 through five spot awards.

ISU since fiscal 2011 has been offering only exceptional performance honors to professional and scientific employees, granting 197 last year worth a total $705,860 — which also was above previous years.

At the UI, where spot awards historically had been capped at $150, spaced 30 days apart, and limited to four a year, the campus for the 2021 and 2022 budget years upped the cap to $300 each and allowed up to eight a year without a time limit between.

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