Tuesday, May 5, 2026

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• The new employee Performance Development Program has launched
• Enabling Encounters: Build Peace conference issues call for proposals
• Your small steps could make a big difference during Emergency Preparedness Week
• Podcast examines tensions between professionalism and humanity
• Waterloo marks Red Dress Day and other notes

The new employee Performance Development Program has launched

A message from Human Resources.

The new Performance Development Program has launched, and the supporting tools are now available as of May 1 to employees in the Talent and Performance module in Workday.  Employees and managers can access critical components of this module, including goal setting, check-ins, and feedback, in their personal dashboards, which facilitates continuous performance development. As well, the Talent Profile component in Workday provides a centralized space for employees to showcase their experience and skills, which supports long-term career development at Waterloo.

This new program prioritizes real-time feedback and connection, replacing the outdated annual evaluation and rating system with a more meaningful, growth-focused approach to performance development at Waterloo. This model keeps performance development active, visible, and connected to your day-to-day work, while fostering a more human-centric, development-focused culture.

“The new Performance Development Program is a shift in how we support growth and development at Waterloo, making it a more natural part of day‑to‑day work,” said Lisa Yuhasz, Chief Human Resources Officer. “It’s designed to encourage regular conversations, clarity of goals, and stronger connections between managers and employees.”

Resources to support this program are available on the website, including:

• Performance Development Program guide (PDF),
• frequently asked questions, and 
• Talent and performance demo/information session recording (April 2026).

We encourage you to explore the website for learn more about the guiding principles, helpful steps, more supporting resources of this program to promote trust, alignment, and growth while strengthening manager-employee relationships

Questions can be directed to performance.development@uwaterloo.ca.

Enabling Encounters: Build Peace conference issues call for proposals

A message from the Kindred Centre for Peace Advancement.

The call for proposals has been released for Build Peace 2026, the 13^th edition of an annual conference that will bring peacebuilders, technologists, and artists from around the world to Waterloo from November 13-15.

This year’s conference is co-organized by Build Up and the Kindred Credit Union Centre for Peace Advancement, with the support of the Balsillie School of International Affairs and the Global Centre for Pluralism.

The Build Peace conference explores emergent challenges to peace in a digital era, and peacebuilding innovations to address these challenges. It holds an interdisciplinary space to address the most pressing topics and transformative practices in peace, conflict and innovation.

This year’s conference theme is “Enabling Encounters.” Recent crises in finance, health, energy, and geopolitics point to the fact that we are in the midst of a rupture, not a transition, in the international rules-based order. Ruptures are also increasingly evident within our communities, organizations, and even our inner selves. How can peacebuilders, technologists, and artists enable meaningful encounters in the midst of a world increasingly marked by ruptures?

Contributors and participants will be invited into a space where they can dwell in the dissonance of this reality. The conference will lay the groundwork for deeper understanding and the possibility of generative connections by enabling:

• Encounters between rural and urban. Economic prospects and political fault lines increasingly align with distinct geographies. How can both rural and urban sensibilities inform our peacebuilding, technology, and art?
• Encounters between origins and diasporas. Global mobility, as well as displacement and dispossession, has fuelled both opportunities and challenges. How can the capacity of individuals and communities who find themselves in new contexts play a constructive role in old contexts, and vice versa?
• Encounters between resisters and fixers. In response to the role that technology is playing as a driver of conflict, resisters are eager to mobilize publics and advocate for practices and policies that get in the way, while fixers have a penchant for diving in and developing solutions to particular problems that move the needle in a better direction. How can we get better at both opting out and opting in?

Across these three sub-themes, the organizers will particularly welcome perspectives, approaches and actors (including migrant, diaspora, indigenous and spiritual) that are often underrepresented in international conversations about cultivating a culture of peace.

Applications are due by May 22 for proposals to present short talks, workshops, and art installations or performances at the conference. Registration for the conference will open in June.

Your small steps could make a big difference during Emergency Preparedness Week

A message from the Safety Office.

This week is Emergency Preparedness Week across Canada. This year’s focus is on personal preparedness, and the simple actions people can take to be better prepared for everyday emergencies such as severe weather, extended power outages, or transportation disruptions.

Preparedness does not require specialized knowledge or equipment. Federal guidance encourages everyone to start with three basic steps:

• Know the risks most likely to affect you where you live and work;
• Make a simple plan for how you would communicate and reconnect if systems were disrupted; and
• Build and maintain a basic emergency kit, with enough supplies to be self‑sufficient for at least 72 hours.

Even small steps can reduce stress and improve resilience during unexpected events.

Community members may also notice additional emergency alerts this week. The National Public Alerting System (Alert Ready) test will take place on Wednesday. This is a scheduled federal/provincial test delivered broadly to mobile devices and broadcast media and is not related to the campus emergency notification system, Regroup.

Emergency Preparedness Week is a reminder that preparedness starts with individuals and households, and contributes to a safer, more resilient campus community.

Learn more about personal preparedness.

Podcast examines tensions between professionalism and humanity

A message from the Office of Equity, Diversity, Inclusion and Anti-Racism (EDI-R).

What does it mean to stay fully human in spaces that ask you to hold it all in?

In many institutional spaces, professionalism is often defined by restraint, composure, and emotional control. But what happens when those expectations ask people to suppress parts of themselves in order to be heard, respected, or taken seriously?

In Episode 3 of The Conversations We Need to Have, we sit down with Dr. Naila-Kaleta Mae, Canada Research Chair in Race, Gender and Performance and Associate Professor in the Department of Communication Arts, to explore what justice work looks like when it moves beyond performance.

Drawing on scholarship, artistry, and lived experience, the conversation expands what counts as knowledge and expression. It invites us to consider how joy, rage, grief, and laughter are not distractions from justice work, but essential ways of understanding and responding to the world. Some truths, as this conversation reveals, cannot be reached through analysis alone.

Centering the experiences of Black women, the episode raises critical questions about what is lost when people are asked to shrink themselves to fit institutional norms. It examines what righteous rage makes visible, particularly the realities that systems often attempt to soften or ignore. At the same time, it explores joy not as an afterthought, but as a powerful force of resistance, freedom, and imagination.

Ultimately, the conversation challenges us to rethink the environments we are building. What would it take to create spaces where people do not have to leave their humanity at the door in order to pursue justice?

The answers are not simple, but they begin with listening.

Listen to Episode 3 now.

Waterloo marks Red Dress Day and other notes

The Stories Carry Us: Honouring Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls event is going ahead today beginning at 10:30 a.m., but will no longer feature keynote speaker Tamara Bernard, who is unable to attend. Instead, there will be a screening of a short documentary called “This River” followed by a guided reflection and Q&A. The event will still feature a ceremonial fire and a red dress hanging ceremony on the BMH Green and all are welcome to attend. May 5 is Red Dress Day, a national day of remembrance and activism honouring the lives of Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women, Girls, and Two-Spirited People.

Two employees are being honoured with retirement celebrations today. Co-operative and Experiential Education (CEE) will be celebrating Carol Ann Olheiser at an event that runs from 3:00 p.m. to 5:00 p.m. in TC 2218. The Registrar's Office is hosting an event for Dorothy Chapman from 3:30 p.m. to 4:30 p.m. in NH 2001, with speeches beginning at 4:00 p.m. "All are welcome to attend and celebrate Dorothy’s contributions," says a note from the Registrar's Office. Congratulations both!

The latest in the TRuST lecture series, Trusting health care in the age of AI, takes place tonight from 7:00 p.m. to 9:00 p.m., at the Centre for International Governance Innovation (CIGI) in uptown Waterloo. A reception will follow the lecture at 8:30 p.m.