University announces additional details on employee recognition plan

Purdue University is announcing further details on employee recognition programs, including retention and referral programs and events, the latest in a series of steps intended to recognize, reward and retain top talent.

“As we strive to become the most consequential public university in the country, we know that it takes thousands of people to accomplish our goals,” said Amy Boyle, interim vice president for human resources. “From faculty to graduate students to support staff, everyone plays a crucial role, and we want to reward them financially and with special events.”

Special employee recognition payments will be introduced after the new year. This is a one-time program where divisions will nominate up to 10% of their employees (including faculty, staff, post-docs, and grads) to receive $1,500 payments at the end of February.

Recognition categories and criteria are:

• High-Profile Projects
  • Bonuses may be given to employees that have participated in a project with wide impact to the university. A bonus can either be given upon completion of the project or upon attainment of significant project milestones.
• Efficiency Improvements
  • Merit awards can be granted to employees who have developed and implemented processes that provide substantial improvements in overall department/university efficiency. These can be either individual awards or group awards if the improvement was the result of a team project.
• Departmental Achievements
  • When a department achieves a significant goal, it may be appropriate to use a merit award to recognize all those employees within the department.
• Program Creation
  • A faculty member who creates a new program of study may be recognized with a merit bonus.

These new recognition programs follow several initiatives previously announced. The university previously announced the Bravo+ enhanced employee recognition program. It includes a $2,000 award limit – double the previous limit – with the possibility of higher amounts. Employees are now allowed to earn four awards per year, up from the previous limit of two.

Additionally, multiple programs have been established to recognize and reward faculty, including PIs with sponsored program awards in excess of $5 million, salary supplements to pursue competitive national center grants, FERAP to enable increased compensation from external awards and incentive payments for the publication of high impact review papers, monographs and academic books.