Principles for UW-Madison personnel system – DRAFT 8/8/11
Introduction
The purpose of the UW-Madison personnel system is to recruit, develop, retain and advance the best talent in higher education to support UW-Madison's missions as Wisconsin’s land grant university and as a world-class research and teaching university. UW-Madison is committed to personnel practices that maximize the development of all its employees. The personnel system will be based on the civil-service concept, will facilitate achievement of workforce diversity at all levels, and will ensure a positive discrimination-free environment that encourages employees to balance their work and personal lives.
University process for deliberation regarding the new personnel system shall:
· Be transparent and collaborative in developing the new personnel system.
· Include regular consultation with the elected governance bodies of the faculty, staff and students; alternative, non-elected groups may not substitute for the formal governance processes.
· Include regular consultation with other stakeholder groups affected by the personnel system.
· Maintain open communications with UW System, which also will be developing a new personnel system for all system employees except those at UW-Madison.
· Include an examination of other organizations, particularly higher education institutions, with the goal of identifying best practices for UW-Madison.
Guiding principles for the new UW-Madison personnel system
· The system will incorporate, as appropriate, good practices and principles that currently exist in Wisconsin State Statute Chapters 36, 111 and 230, Faculty Policies and Procedures, Academic Staff Policies and Procedures, labor union contracts, UW System administrative codes and Board of Regents policies.
· It will apply a civil-service system to all non-student employees of UW-Madison. The system will: be based on merit (e.g., hiring, retaining, developing and advancing employees based on their qualifications and ability to do the work); provide employees with due process to achieve fairness; apply a just cause standard when a negative job action is being pursued; protect employees and the personnel system from political interference and influence; and safeguard employees from discrimination. Where applicable, civil-service standards will apply to all employees, whether or not they are included in the civil-service system.
· It will be a more unified, integrated and rational personnel system.
Attachment 1 to principles for UW-Madison personnel system 8/8/11
In addition to adhering to the process for deliberation and guiding principles, development of a new personnel system for UW-Madison should address the following issues:
· Address and eliminate inequities in current personnel system that lead to a perceived “caste” system on campus and create campus climate issues.
· Develop processes for recognizing merit and outstanding work performance so that employees may be rewarded without leaving for other positions; improve mechanisms for employee evaluation and promotion.
· Provide and ensure that employees have advocacy/representation when requested.
· Provide and ensure the employee advocate/representative may give assistance without loss of pay or benefits and free from retaliation.
· Develop compensation system that reduces existing pay disparities, particularly for employees at the lowest pay ranges.
· Continue to support existing living-wage policy.
· Create mechanisms for measuring the effectiveness of the new personnel system.
· Address needs of student employees, including graduate students, with focus on tuition remissions for graduate students, and competitive wages.
· Promote diversity in the university workplace.
· Respect UW-Madison’s longstanding tradition of statutorily mandated shared governance, which requires that faculty, academic staff and students are actively involved in running the institution. Changes to the staff system will include classified staff representation in shared governance: a mechanism should be established by which classified staff members may elect unit representatives.
· Create a more effective program to develop talent and remediate underperformance, which includes assessment for continuous improvement of individuals and units.
· Develop effective rules to address and minimize outsourcing. Reasonable and transparent mechanisms must be established for outsourcing agreements. These will include: cost-benefit analysis, competitive bidding, protection for existing employees and for any new positions created that would logically perform similar work, compensation at prevailing / living wages. An oversight committee will review all current and prospective agreements.
· Move forward on limited-term employee (LTE) conversions.
· Student living wage – what does this mean for undergraduate hourly workers and different types of graduate student employees?
· Consider the potential impacts on the UW-Madison mission of non-permanent employees, including contingent instructors.
Establish reasonable and equitable methods for distribution of pay increases. The system will minimize inequity in pay for the same job across campus, but will be responsive to market forces.
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