Making percentages fair (creating new system for employee bonuses)

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davemva

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May 12, 2016
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I've just taken the job of academic manager at a small private school. Teachers get a quarterly bonus based on their student retention rate. payments are in five groups. above 50%, 85-90% 90-95% 96-99% and 100%. There is quite a big financial difference between the top and bottom group.

The problem is that class sizes are not standard. So a teacher with a class of 4 students who loses 1 student has a retention rate of 75% and gets the lowest level bonus. A teacher with a class of 10 also loses one student but has a retention rate of 90% and gets a much higher bonus.

I don't feel this is fair. I was hoping I could find a different calculation to use to create a fair system.

I have considered using a z-score system but I don't think the school has the right data available to do this.

I'm employed due to my teaching and management abilities. My maths level is embarrassingly basic so this has been my only idea. Any suggestions would be very welcome and appreciated. By me and the teachers.

Thank you in advance.
 
davemva said:
I've just taken the job of academic manager at a small private school. Teachers get a quarterly bonus based on their student retention rate. payments are in five groups. above 50%, 85-90% 90-95% 96-99% and 100%. There is quite a big financial difference between the top and bottom group.

The problem is that class sizes are not standard. So a teacher with a class of 4 students who loses 1 student has a retention rate of 75% and gets the lowest level bonus. A teacher with a class of 10 also loses one student but has a retention rate of 90% and gets a much higher bonus.

I don't feel this is fair. I was hoping I could find a different calculation to use to create a fair system.

I have considered using a z-score system but I don't think the school has the right data available to do this.

I'm employed due to my teaching and management abilities. My maths level is embarrassingly basic so this has been my only idea. Any suggestions would be very welcome and appreciated. By me and the teachers.

Thank you in advance.
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As stapel said, we would need to know your idea of fair before we could begin to help in a specific way. However, if you do not feel that a percentage is fair, do you feel an individual basis is fair? That is, so much for each student retained? And, if you do, why? [Not for us to know particularly but think of that teacher which had a 90% retention getting the same bonus as the one with 75% retention].

Just as an aside, I have long had the feeling that teachers are likely to be left out of administrative decisions like this so maybe you should talk to your teachers and see what they think. Even to something like, each teacher gets five votes and votes for the teachers they feel should get the highest bonus [must vote for five different teachers and can not vote for yourself]. Then the bonus pool is split somehow between the teachers with high ratings from other teachers and those retaining students, i.e. 30% of the pool the old way, 30% for the each student retained type and 40% to the ten highest rated by the other teachers]
 
Back with a new name

Hi, it was me who posted the original question but for some reason I couldn't sign into my account. I requested a new password 3 times but never received the email so I had to set up a new account,

One of you asked for a description of what I considered mathematically fair. So here goes. Some background first. Our Bonuses are paid quarterly, each teacher has on average 9 classes with student numbers ranging from 4 to 16 per class . A single course is 26 weeks. All courses start at different times. We are a private school so we don't run September to July like a public school. I worked for the company for 6 years before I became manager. My own look at the data seems to show that all teachers lose 1.5 students per class each year. This appears to be consistent across ages and class sizes. The bonuses are calculated on numbers from how ever many classes have finished a 26 course during those 3 months. This can be anything from 1 to 5 classes.

The first thing I find unfair is - As a teacher works for longer and longer the class size reduces, the 1.5 becomes a bigger percentage and their bonus reduces.

Second - This is compounded as students leave for a large number of reasons the majority of which have nothing to do with the teachers teaching

Finally - Class size upon opening is totally out of teachers hands, they get what they are given

(the second and final points relate to my opening issue with the class of 4 vs the class of 10)

I know the obvious solution is to get rid of the retentions system. That was my first choice. But our owner highly values it and I lost that fight. My only option is to chance/ recalculate it so it accurately reflects what is happening.

Thanks again in advance, I really appreciate the time people have put into helping me out. I'm a bit lost.
 
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