KING’S CORNER

INSIDE THIS ISSUE:

I hope all of you had a nice Thanksgiving holiday and that you got to enjoy the extra long weekend with family and friends! In a few days, we will be off for the Christmas holiday break—a truly special time of the year. One of the great benefits of working for Auburn University is the generous amount of time off they give us over the holidays. Let me wish you all, in advance, a wonderful holiday season. I hope you get a chance to relax, spend time with loved ones and experience the spirit of the season. I would just ask all of you to be safe, particularly as you travel. I want all of you to come back safe-and-sound in early January!

DAN KING

Holiday Wishes

Associate Vice PresidentFacilities Management

By the time this version of King’s Corner is published, you will have received your “One Time Salary Supplement” for FY2017. I hope that you find the additional pay a very welcome and positive addition to your compensation just before the Christmas holidays. I am pleased to tell all of you that this year’s One Time Supplement was the highest we have ever given! For employees with a “Leading” performance appraisal rating (the highest level), here is the recent history of One Time Supplements:

One Time Supplement for FY2017

20172016201520142013

6.00%5.00%4.50%3.25%5.00%

Let me make a few comments about the One Time Supplement:

First: Let me explain what the One Time Supplement is all about. It started five-to-six years ago when the university could not afford to give permanent pay raises to employees because of recession-related budget reductions. In an effort to compensate Auburn personnel for their excellent work, the university developed a program that gave employees a “One Time Salary Supplement”— additional pay above-and- beyond one’s normal salary. The reason One Time Supplements were more affordable, is that unlike actual permanent pay increases, the One Time Supplements were not an ongoing requirement that had to be paid every year -- as do pay increases. In this manner, the university could provide employees with a benefit, without being at risk of permanently increasing costs, during a period when the ability of the university to meet its budget obligations was uncertain. The One Time Supplement was intended to be a limited time program, to be used until the budget situation improved and permanent pay increases could be resumed. Not surprisingly, since this program started, everyone has really liked getting the One Time Supplement just before the holidays. So now, even though the university’s budget situation has recovered (for the most part), the One Time Supplement remains popular, and the senior administration is reluctant to eliminate the program. I suspect one day they will have to do so, and go to slightly higher permanent pay increases, but in the meantime, they remain a great benefit for all of us.

There are two criteria for receiving the One Time Supplement: One, it has to be merit based. In other words, it has to be based on performance, as captured in your performance appraisals (as I keep telling you, performance matters). Two, the other criteria is that you have to be on the payroll as of May 31 of the year to receive the One Time Supplement in December.

DECEMBER 2016

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One Time Supplement for FY2017Pay Evaluator UpdateFall 2016 APPA “Supervisors Toolkit” Class

Performance Rating FY17 Supplement %

Leading

Strong-High

Strong-Medium

Strong-Low

Building Performance

Improvement Essential

5.00%

6.00%

4.00%

3.00%

1.00%

0.00%This year, we also adjusted the One Time Supplement scale for those personnel under the new appraisal system for the skilled trades. This helped us to ensure no one was penalized as a result of the way the appraisal “rounded down” the overall rating average. As a result, we made sure that the top two highest levels received the largest One Time Supplement percentage of 6 percent. The chart to the right illustrates the One Time Supplement scale for the skilled trades. >>

Bottom Line: This year’s One Time Supplement is a good news story, and well deserved by all of you for the great work you did in 2015-2016. Congratulations! I am not sure what 2017 will bring, but as I said earlier, we will try to compensate you as best as we can, when we have the opportunity to do so.

Initial PayEvaluator ResultsAnother very positive development on the pay and compensation side of things is that we have worked through several job position groups using the university’s new PayEvaluator system. As I described in the last King’s Corner, the PayEvaluator system works by trying to place a person at the appropriate level within the pay range for the grade of that position. In doing so, this takes into account the following factors: education, experience, certifications, credentials and performance.

The PayEvaluator review process for a given job series and grade is triggered when we hire a new person and find that the other personnel in the same position and series are not being paid appropriately to market. Thus the timing and selection of what job series and grades are reviewed is not ours to choose.

The reviews are happening based on the timing of current and upcoming recruitment and hiring actions. Personally, I would prefer a more planned and prioritized approach, but that is not how the reviews are being conducted at this time.

Thus far, we have conducted PayEvaluator reviews for the following job series and grades:

Performance Rating Skilled Trades

FY17Supplement %

5

4

3

2

1

6.00%

6.00%

5.00%

4.00%

0.00%

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Second: I am happy for everyone that received the record-setting One Time Supplement. As I have told many of you, we will try (whenever possible) to compensate you as best as we can. For this year’s One Time Supplement, the university gave us 2 percent of the total Facilities Management salary budget. We then used some of our reserve funds (money not spent from prior year budgets) to augment the university portion, which enabled us to develop a One Time Supplement scale. The scale is shown in the chart to the right. >>

Custodians I and II

Floor Care Technicians I

HVAC Technicians II

Groundskeepers I and II

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The following table summarizes the results of the PayEvaluator reviews conducted to date:

PayEvaluator Summary Table December 2016

Position Series Grade # Positions Reviewed

Average Pay Adjustment* Total Budget Impact

Custodians I and II & Floor Care Technician I

HVAC Technician II

Groundskeepers I and II

25 & 26 39 $2,220 $53,285

31 28 $6,458 $154,996

25 & 27 27 $3,625 $36,246

*Not all reviewed positions received pay adjustments, since many were already in the 33 - 66 percent range of their pay range.

I am very pleased that, to date, the PayEvaluator has resulted in pay increases for the personnel in these job series. These pay increases were well deserved and long overdue in my opinion. I do have a couple of concerns moving forward.

First: I would like the PayEvaluator process to be more structured to allow us to develop a multi-year plan to prioritize and conduct the compensation reviews in a more substantial manner. I am not a big fan of the approach by which the random order of individual job recruitments trigger the PayEvaluator process.

Thus, as I write this, I do not know what job series we will review next because it depends on what recruit-ments highlight a pay discrepancy. As a result, I cannot answer the question many of you may ask: “When will my job series be reviewed in PayEvaluator?” It seems to me, that I should be able to answer that question for all of you, but I cannot.

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Second: It is unclear how the university will support the salary and pay increases that result from the PayEvaluator process in terms of additional budget dollars to help fund these pay increases. As you can see from the table above, the impact to our budget thus far is almost $250,000 per year.

We made the pay increases, to date, by absorbing the increases within our existing budget without additional funding from the university. As we review more and more job series using the PayEvaluator process, sooner or later we will run out of the additional funds to make the necessary pay increases unless the university budget process supports this effort. My plan is to communicate these concerns to the university leadership, and with luck, some adjustments can be made.

“I want to emphasize that I am glad the university is allowing us to adjust pay using the PayEvaluator process, and I am very pleased that many of our excellent staff have received pay increases as a result. Congratulations!” -- Dan King

DECEMBER 2016

Layout & Design

Photography/RenderingsNickey Jackson

Dan KingEve Wald ‘16

Martha Gentry

Eve Wald ‘16

Writer Dan King

Editor Martha Gentry ‘98

Please remember to recycle this newsletter.

One goal of the Facilities Management People Master Plan is to continue to grow our supervisors leadership and management skills. One of our strategies to do this is to do a better job training our existing supervisors and provide them a consistent foundation in supervisor and management practices. Last month, we took the first step in this process by hosting a one week “Supervisors Toolkit” class. This class was sponsored by the Association of Physical Plant Administrators (APPA). APPA is the leading professional organization for facilities management personnel in

Some of our best ideas, from holiday luncheons to innovative methods for addressing campus repairs, have come from Facilities Management employees.

Introducing the FM Suggestion Box

Congratulations to the First APPA “Supervisors Toolkit” Class

By all accounts, the class was a success! Participants reported that they came out of the class with a stronger knowledge base in the following areas:

• Communication• Listening

• Having Difficult Conversations• Counseling Subordinates

We know you are busy and do not always have time to send ideas via email, so we are placing a suggestion box in the Building 7 breakroom. Suggestions placed within the box will be reviewed on a regular basis. Depending upon the success of the box, we may place others at different locations throughout the Facilities Complex in the future.

Suggestions will be held in strictest confidence. Placing your name on the suggestion card is optional.

• Directing work

We will offer a second APPA “Supervisors Toolkit” class at Facilities Management in the spring or early summer of 2017.

Pictured above are the participants of the November 2016 APPA “Supervisors Toolkit” class.

higher education. It was taught by two facilities professionals, Casey Charepoo of Georgia Tech and David Schmidt formerly of Valdosta State — a real benefit because these instructors fully understood and had experience with the types of problems and issues that arise in facilities organizations. Forty-eight personnel attended the course: managers, supervisors, assistant supervisors, and aspiring managers and supervisors.