As things wind down for the summer, I hope everyone can take some time for themselves! Don’t forget to take breaks when you can, whether it be a walk on campus or maybe participating in staff events.
Welcoming new directors
We want to extend a warm welcome to Kelan Hirtle and Kosi Ike-Orji who are our new directors on the Board for UWSA. We are confident that they will bring forth many fruitful contributions to our association.
Our next information session about elections will be in August. You can watch a recent session in our members area on Confluence. (You will need to sign in with your UW credentials to access the members' area. If you’re on a laptop or desktop computer, sign in using the button in the top right to be redirected back to the page you’re trying to access.)
Meeting staff
UWSA was happy to visit Finance and Procurement last week. We want to give a special thank you to Alex Kerstens, Chloe Pottier, and Ashley Schatz for their help in coordinating. Once again, it was a pleasure to meet everyone and let them know about our services. Often times these presentations provide departments with a moment to do an environmental scan; taking a look at concerns or just checking in to see how everyone is doing. If you are interested in a visit, please do not hesitate to contact us. We are eager to meet everyone!
We also just had a workshop on “how UW works.” The workshop was illuminating and collaborative and we hope to run it again.
Participants in the How UW Works workshop creating their university governance maps.
Update on Pay Cycles Working Group
A short but sweet update here: The working group has been very hard at work. They are working on making some final tweaks to a report that will be presented to the Provost's Advisory Committee on Staff Compensation as soon as it is possible. If you have any questions or concerns, please contact me.
Contract Staff Working Group
We are happy to let you know that we’re kicking off this new UWSA working group this month. Staff with temporary appointments (“contract staff”) now make up 1/5 of the UWSA membership and we recognized that we needed to learn more about the unique needs of these members.
We’re looking forward to seeing what this working group recommends!
Meeting with Vivek
In my most recent meeting with the President, Vivek Goel, he kindly lent me his ear to consider many issues pertinent to our campus today. Some of the topics we touched upon were:
- Staff safety
- Budget reductions and job stability
- Overall staff morale
- Institutional memory and succession
- Staff accommodations and Policy 57
- Staff training opportunities/career paths
- Other relevant policies such as 12 (compassionate care & bereavement leave), 33 (ethical behaviour), and 36 (dispute resolution)
I want to assure staff that the administration is going through great efforts to show care and consideration for these matters. It is our understanding that a new resource will be brought on to oversee and develop policies. Although the President does recognize that there is much work to be done, and it cannot be done overnight, the intention is for this dedicated resource to help move the policies along their due process more efficiently. More information on this should come from the administration. In tandem with this, we received an update that the draft new Institutional Values would be going to the Board of Governors on June 18—you can see them in the agenda package (PDF)—at which point UW would be switching the project into implementation mode. Using these values as a cornerstone in all the work being done, we are certain to see fruitful outcomes within our campus. Many thanks to Melanie Will, Michael Dorr, and all other volunteers who participated in the Values Working Group.
Another aspect of our conversation involved the Strategic Talent and Performance Framework and the wonderful work that has been done to date. It is my understanding that this framework will address several issues that have been identified through the Employee Engagement Survey. Career progression (job families), clear job responsibilities, and training (for both staff and managers), are just some of the benefits that will resulting from implementing this framework. There are many moving pieces and we must recognize vastness of UW; we know this will take some time to implement but I am confident we are moving in the right direction.
I’m happy to report that staff consultation and engagement is not only welcome but sought after in many of the projects and committees to which I have been privy and it is a clear reflection of the kind of leadership Vivek has fostered. In the same vein, we want to thank Mark Weber (Special Advisor to the Provost on Leadership Strategy and Development) for his work in facilitating leadership training and development for chairs and school directors, which is the first iteration of such for UW. President Goel also expressed an intention to see a similar kind of development be offered for administrative leadership as well in the future.
Salary discussions
By now you have all seen the memo from PACSC and I understand that there may be more questions and so we encourage staff to direct these to a member of the PACSC. We are all aware of the pressures, from all sides, and I ask that you bear with us as we navigate unprecedented times on our campus.
I will add that President Goel did make it clear that the budget deficit is also the result of provincial government policy and that we are under real financial constraints despite major advocacy efforts. The administration, to its best ability, has committed to transparency in providing answers on this front.
