Every year, University of Regina publishes salaries of employees with a total salary of $100,000 or greater. I would like to go through the data and check about the accuracy of the data, and see if there is any uncertainty in it. I would also like to discuss if this information should be published, if it is the right way to pass the information to the public, or is there any other way to meet the public rights as well as an individual’s privacy protection.

This is the data of University of Regina employees with total annual salaries of $100,000 or greater in 2018 and 2019.

JSGS 807 Assignment 1 Nanawa Drummond

The spreadsheet shows the salary information of 540 university employees who have a total salary of $100,000 or greater. It contains 10 columns, which includes: Last name, First Name, 2018 Salary, 2019 Salary, 2018 Administrative/Research Stipend, 2019 Administrative/Research Stipend, 2018 Market Supplement, 2019 Market Supplement, 2018 Total and 2019 Total.

According to the Collective Agreement, salaries are determined as follows.

“The salaries of academic staff members in the faculty, librarian, laboratory/clinical instructor, and instructor categories shall not exceed the relevant normal ceilings specified in the salary-range tables above except by the awarding of merit or by initial appointment above the normal ceiling and below the merit ceiling.” This is the base rule of the salary.

It also says that “Stipends” shall be paid when people have extra work beyond their normal, required tasks. Such as academic staff members teaching a credit course that is not part of their normal duties, or sessional supervisors who supervise interns and pre-interns outside of the city of Regina.

The University of Regina Trust Fund can be given as one of the stipends. Expenditures such as materials, course supplies, fees for professional training courses, travel or local expenses related to research activities not covered by normal travel grants, membership, and payment to casual assistants who have been employed directly in the research.

Also there are Department Head stipends, Library Department Head Stipends, Other Administrative Stipends, and Program Chair Administrative Stipends and they shall receive equivalent stipends.

Description of the Market Supplements in the Collective Agreement:

“Market Supplements is to assist in recruiting academic staff members into, or retaining members in, positions at the University. It shall be paid when it can be demonstrated that competitive pressures in the academic market require such payments.”

That said, when the university needs to compete to recruit a person who could be paid at another comparable university, market supplements should go to the person.

Let’s check the accuracy of the data.

I used a formula and calculated the total of each column, and added the salary, stipend, and supplement of the year. The calculated total salary number of 2019, $69,203,654 (See the cell, J550) is different from the 2019 Total of $69,207,212. (J544)

Also I checked the minimum and maximum values for 2018 and 2019 total columns and the maximum values are obviously not falling within the correct range. (2018, $365,998 (I552) and 2019, $388,025 (J552))

Original data is provided by the PDF, and the sum was computed without formula. This may cause inaccurate data, and I would suggest computing in several ways to make sure the data is correct before publishing.

You may have noticed that some people are in the 2018 data, but not in the 2019 data and vice versa. The first question came to my mind was why it happened. You may have the explanation such as people are hired or left the university, although, I know a professor on the list whom, to my knowledge, didn’t leave the university, but he is only in the 2018 data. I checked the university website and his information is still there. I don’t know if this is something resulted by some personal reason (such as privacy protection) or if he is taking a leave. The data doesn’t include such information, and the cells are just blank. These blank cells are missing values and I cannot accurately say that all the information in the data is clear and correct.

As for the summary data, when you compare the type of average, median and mean (Median: 2018 $130,005(1546), 2019 $131,972(J546), Mean: 2018 $135,473(i548) and 2019 $137,316(J548)) can be close enough, but the mode shows a much lower amount. (2018, $106,571(i547) and 2019 $103,385(J547)) That means there may be more people who have lower salary, but mid-point of the data is higher as some of the people who have higher salary may pull up the average.

Additionally, when you calculate mean and median, the average salary at the university increased between 2018 and 2019. But when you calculate mode, it decreased.

The percentage increase in total salaries from 2018 to 2019 is about 9.4%, which is computed by ((2019 total salary -2018 total salary)/2018 total salary)*100. (J588)

I would like to point out that there were 468 people in the 2018 data, and 505 people in the 2019 data. If you considered the number increase of the employees, the percentage increase in total salaries can differ.

With my findings above, you may agree that the data’s accuracy is questionable. What about the information itself? Does it meet your wishes to know all about the university salary information?

Firstly I would argue if it is enough information to publish only the salaries of employees who have 100,000 or greater. How many employees are not in this category? How much in total salary expenditures has the university given out? How do we know people on the list are receiving the appropriate salaries with the tasks they are doing?

To add a little more depth and clarity on the data, I would add “Department”, ”Title” and “Gender”.

If you know who is in which faculty, you can analyse which department would need more stipends, or the market supplies. Also if you compare more years (not only two year’s comparison), with the increase and the decrease of the salary transition of the department, you may analyse the trend of department needs.

If you put Title, you can also analyse which rank and what kind of job would need more salary and may be useful to prepare for the better budget planning. Which may not be necessary for public, but adding their title could give the public more understanding of the responsibilities of the individual.

Adding gender can be a bit tricky, but may help to analyse the truth of gender equality.

I would like to have these columns for analysis purposes, and I would think it would be proper to release the information if required. Especially if their department and title are already in the university website, and it is already public information. Although, for just informational purposes, the majority of the public may not require details. Also gender can be recognized as a sensitive information, especially recent transformation in the system with deeper understanding of LGBTQ people, it will need deeper considerations on how and if it would be necessary to put it there.

Now, I would like to ask you if you are satisfied with the action of the university to publish their salary information for publics’ right to know. What about if you are an employee, and your salary information is in the public? Are you happy because you contributed to the society with releasing your financial information, or do you feel scared that the consequences might be happen over the release? You may not have a robbery, but you may feel uncomfortable to think that your neighbour knows how much you earn and may talk about it during casual conversation.

I think balance and care is the key of publishing personal information. The public wants transparency, and has a right to know how the government’s funding is used in the university and students would like to know if their tuition is fairly used, especially the rapid increase of tuition costs in recent years.

Although, financial information is very sensitive information, and it has to be managed with great care. Providing the information publically can be a concern of personal safety and privacy rights.

Previously it was available only in the library as a physical copy, but now it is online. Does it make any difference? I would think so.

It sure makes differences if the information is online, or only in the library. The Internet is now a major tool for people to collect information, It would make more sense to use the tool to be able to spread information widely. That way public interest is being served.

However privacy concerns arise higher if anyone in the world can access the information. If it was only in the library, the people who have access would be limited, and it is easier to manage the safety protocol.

I should add that the website says “This listing may exclude certain salaries of 100,000 or greater where such disclosure could threaten the safety of an individual.”

So that means, the policy can exclude some people who might have some severe situation, such as, I would guess that people who have experienced traumatic incidents such as targeted robbery or any threat after their financial information was revealed. Although, it might not be fair for others as there might be people who are seriously concerned about disclosing their financial information, and feel threatened by the open data. Even if it is not a safety concern, disclosing the financial information may change relationships with surrounding people as well. It is necessary to have well considered policy to protect their privacy and safety. For that, I think more detailed policies would be needed to make it clear who are eligible to be excluded, and how you can balance the open data and the privacy protection.

It might not meet the intention of open data, but I would argue about the necessity of putting the names on the public data, because they are not criminal, or any threat for the public. But open data can be a threat for the people who are on the list. One thing we can consider is to publish salary information without putting individual’s names. Instead of names, you can put other detailed information such as their title (yes, if you have lots of time, you can find out the names and identify who’s information they are, but at least it is not an obvious set deal) and it still can meet the public’s rights to know. This suggestion may not be supported by many, but I would put the safety concern and privacy protection of the individual first. With the recent transition to a more technology governed era, we are urged to identify the gap of the public’s rights to know and protecting privacy simultaneously.

 

References:

University of Regina. n.d. “Collective Agreement 2017-2021.” Accessed October 11,2019.

Click to access 2017-2021-Academic-CBA-Final.pdf

 

 

This article was written by Marc O. Opresnik.

Negotiation happens in all kinds of situation in our life. This article prepares you how you can bring yourself in the efficient negotiation and achieve your goal.

<Summery of the article>

The author is describing that “negotiation” happens “when persons or parties pursue different interests and communicate with each other to reach an agreement.”

He says that we should recognize we are constantly negotiating in our daily life, which is found in “conflicts, relationships and transactions”.

And here is the conditions must be met.

– At least two parties or people, sometimes more

– A certain degree of interdependence

– A roughly well-balanced power relationship

– A conflict of interest

– A mutual willingness to concede

– To see an agreement as the goal of negotiation

And the aim must be to achieve a common agreement.

So, how can you measure the success of a Negotiation? The author suggest the three criteria to assess, which is Effectiveness, Efficiency and Negotiating climate which is to make sure not to destroy the relationship between parties and improve the relationship. Therefore a good negotiation should be feasible, fair, and useful for the parties and the outcome should be sustainable for both parties.

“In Negotiations the zone of agreement is referred to as ZOPA (Zone of Possible Agreement) which defines the bandwidth of a possible bilateral agreement between two parties in any negotiation.”

You have to establish the zone with the negotiation partner with asking him/her what would be absolutely unacceptable and how we can reach agreement. The bigger the negotiation zone, the easier to determine it. As well as you should know clear what the best result for you, you should also prepare the alternative solution in case you do not reach the target.

“To evaluate the success of a negotiation, it is necessary to know its best realistic alternative (BATNA) and of course to know that of the other party.”

How to determine your best alternative is that creating a list of your alternatives and actions and select your BATNA (Best Alternative to Negotiated Agreement). And you should never accept a worse outcome than the BATNA.

Author examines the mistakes to lead people to failure in communication.

– Exerting pressure: One partner has bigger rank or position to the other, the pressure comes out consciously or unconsciously and makes negotiation harder to lead to the success.

– Lack of flexibility

– Aggression

– Compliance: When people are afraid to have conflict, they become submissive and fail to achieve their goal

– Inadequate preparation: Without preparation, it is hard to reach the mutually acceptable agreement. You have to analyze your alternatives and opponent’s in advance.

There are two fundamental forms of negotiating types and the patterns.

Hard- Competitive, and Soft – Cooperative.

In the hard bargaining, the other party is considered the opponent, not a partner.

In the soft negotiating style, the other party is considered as a partner and aim to make a long term, mutually acceptable agreement.

Depending on the situation, either style can be effective and efficient.

According to Harvard University’s Negotiation Project, there are four aspects for appropriate negotiation.

<People> Treat People and problems separately

Harvard concept states the SOPHOP principle, which is soft on people, hard on points. To make sure to be soft on the people but hard on the matter so that you can see the opposite position and find mutual benefits and increases the changes of sustainable outcome. For achieving the successful result, you have to recognize the relationship problems and treat them separately and before tackling the tangible problems. Mutual trust and communication are the key.

< Interests> Put the interests at the center, not the position. Find as many interests as possible

The author brings the metaphor by Roger Fisher and William Ury about the dispute over an Orange. Two parties are arguing over an orange and came to a conclusion to cut it and take half each. However both parties were not satisfied as they didn’t get the result they wanted. As one party could be happy with the peel to make marmalade and the other could be happy with the pulp to make juice. If they had an open communication and reveal their underlying interests, both parties could get winning result. It is very important to identify as many interests behind the positions to get the satisfactory conclusion in both parties.

<Options> Develop range of options before deciding

You should develop as many options with all the stakeholders and know their hopes and fears so that you can react better in negotiations and find the solution to meet for all parties.

<Criteria> Build the result based on objective decision making principle

Focus on objective criteria such as reports legislation, scientific studies etc. for potential solutions. So that you can develop fair standards to evaluate options that both parties can commit.

The author finally states that “Negotiation is not a single event but a process.” Effective preparation and follow-up would be the key for the success of the negotiation.

<Evaluation and Comment>

The article states clear and concise how we can be prepared for achieving the successful result in negotiation. Understanding and establishing ZOPA and BATNA is the key of successful negotiation. The author explains well the importance of communication with the other party, which people tend to forget or ignore with rushing to get his/her own target. I would like to know further detail and efficient approach on the different type of people and style in negotiation, such as to the cooperators or to the individualists.

As we learned from this article, successful negotiation is not defeating the opponent, but finding an agreement and to aim for the mutual achievement for both parties. For that, we should develop good communication skills, and research and prepare enough so we can make our situation better for each other.

As negotiation happens all the time in our life, having good negotiation skills would be the key to make our and other’s life better.

In the public sector, it is especially important to understand how we develop effective communication and find a mutual trust in negotiation. We should always keep in mind to have a clear and fair view to the people who have different needs and who seek support. Working collaboratively with other ministries and departments also require a lot of preparation and consideration to the other parties prospectives for achieving the mutual goal. We should be able to see the multiple positions of people and bring the best possible outcome to everyone.

After all, a negotiation is not a fight, but a tool and responsible action to lead us to create better world for everyone.

Reference:

Opresnik, Marc O. 2014. “The Hidden Rules of Successful Negotiation and Communication. Getting to Yes!” Springer International Publishing. 1-11.