It seems that there are a ton of ways to create bonus plans for every other aspect of the company as you can very easily tie it to the bottom line or to budget numbers.

I wanted to see if anyone here as a bonus plan that uses different metrics besides budget and "up time".  Since network up time can be affected by too many outside sources (the telecom vendor for instance) I don't want that to hinder the ability of the manager to get his bonus.

I have thrown out the idea of an annual survey to rate the level of "customer service" that is being provided to the end users, but I need something more.

So currently I am looking at budget, network availability and customer service (based on survey)...are there any other ideas out there?  Anyone willing to share their plan?

Thanks in advance.

Do you track help desk incidents or bugs? You could look at average completion times meeting a specific standard. Or number successfully resolved vice number reported. The standards would have to be set at the beginning of the year and based on past performance not some pie in the sky unrealistic thing such as all requests resolved within 24 hours or other nonsense. You could look at due dates met (a due date that is moved with the agreement of the client(internal or external depending on what you do) would still count as being met if the slipped date is met and the client agrees more than 24 hours in advance of the orginal date. Senior managers should have the ability to identify problem requests that they felt the IT department
handled correctly but the client did not and exclude them from the analysis).

"NOTHING is more important in a database than integrity." ESquared

babcockc,

If you read SQLSisters post it doesn't take much imagination to figure out that it is going to be complicated to try and get a fair formula to use to determine the bonus amount per head.  What may be a better solution is to define the stars on staff, the ones that get their projects in on time, and deliver quality work, and do more of the heavy lifting.  Give them a certain % more of the bonus pool.  Instead of giving them (1)share of the pool give them 1.25 or 1.5 shares.  Add up the shares and divide the bonus pool by that number, and that is the payout per share.

Jim C.

JCreamerII,

Thanks for the information and I will definitely take that into account, however, I not so much concerned with the amount to be giving out...that is fixed, but rather the criteria that needs to be met.  

I was hoping that someone out here might have a bonus struture in place that they would be willing to share...specifics aren't necessary, I can come up with that, but the general criteria would be nice.

For instance, I don't need to know that you need to hit 96% customer satisfaction for internal customers and 99% for external...just that you have to hit a percentage.

Again, thanks in advance for any help.

"Uptime" is a useful statistic for one part. One that may be better is "downtime" meaning how long was it down from  you manager/director's perspective (they have done all they can and are now screaming at the phone company to get the lines back up or waiting on the vendor to replace dead equipment).

Also I think looking at First call resolution and ownership of issues would be really important too

--Dan
Whenever you find yourself on the side of the majority, it is time to pause and reflect.
Mark Twain

When looking at network uptime, you may want to separate internal and external uptime.  External is certainly affected by outside vendors, such as your telecom and ISP.  Internal network uptime is affected by the IT staff.  If the external is up but the internal is down, that's IT's problem.  

Or at least it is in my case

pay for performance on an indvidual basis for those that do, not those that manage.   managers should get bonuses based on retention of staff as the highest factor, since anyone who is released for cause was their mistaken hire in the first place.   

Totally agree - both team and individual factors drive bonus entitlements.

Your 'exceeds' performers will get their 'exceeds' increases in salary, and to a degree in their bonuses as well. Things like innovation, business value generated for clients - these are hard to quantify but are factors I take into account during the decision process around staff bonus as well.

An example, ..a dba came up with a way to automate a complex and manual process. this individual with help of their mgr marketed and packaged the idea and got sr mgt buy in to implement the idea. With buy in came a top down and mandated approach, saying that all were to use the process, and that there were to be formal measures to track progress and how well the process works. this is one way to determine how to rank and weigh factors driving bonus amounts.