Beginning in August 2011, three campus retreats were held to identify and prioritize a series of action-oriented climate initiatives.
With the objective of making UWM "the best place to learn and work for students, faculty and staff," the UWM Best Place to Work Coordinating and Action & Leadership Teams have worked together over the 2011-12 academic year to develop and implement climate action plans.
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Need more information on BP2W and workplace climate? Check out the resources section.
A key component to building a great university is making sure it is the best place to learn and work for students, faculty and staff.
I wholeheartedly support this concept, which emerged as a central campus element when UWM faculty and staff came together to discuss the future of our university. We will continue to work together to create that best place to learn and work, and I invite you to explore this website to learn about our latest progress.
Leadership
Initiatives focusing on professional development to empower leaders at UWM.
Career
Initiatives designed to foster meaningful career progression while at UWM.
Workplace
Initiatives addressing civility and supporting an employee-friendly workplace.
Rewards
Initiatives recognizing contributions to making UWM the Best Place to Work.
Current Initiatives
Professional Leadership Development Across the Campus
Culture change is occurring across the UWM Campus driven by institutional leadership and external forces including human resource changes, technology, student demographics, and community and employer expectations.
Our desire and need for validation of our contributions to the UWM educational mission and goals requires workplace satisfaction, engagement and ultimately retention. At the core of our quest to be a best place to work stands our interdependent relationships as students, teachers, researchers, and employees at all levels and ranks.
Hence, it is incumbent upon us, as a campus seeking to become a best place to work, to invest in and assure that as an institution, UWM is providing practical, helpful, and empowering development for all.
Objectives
- To create and establish a campus-wide leadership model that is synergistic and empowering (25%)
- To develop a plan for ongoing professional development for supervisors/leaders across all employment categories to support institutional culture change (75%)
- To develop a campus-wide leadership toolkit that supports best practices of effective supervisors and leaders (25%)
- Team
- Emily Frazier
- Joe Maddalena
- Kathy Miller-Dillon
- Jean Salzer
- Stacy Van Kleef
- Fred Helmstetter
Faculty and Staff Career Paths
The goal is to ensure that all faculty and staff are provided with the necessary information and assistance in advancing in their careers at UWM. This will include:
- Training of department chairs and supervisors on the procedures related to promotion and career advancement including tenure and indefinite status
- Developing a systematic way to provide information to faculty and staff about the procedures
- Providing assistance to faculty and staff in the form of effective and responsive mentoring programs suited to their career interests
- Training of chairs and supervisors to provide meaningful evaluation and feedback to faculty and staff onthe promotional track
Objectives
- Develop program for department chairs on faculty tenure and promotion policies and procedures by Fall, 2012
- Develop program for supervisors of staff on policies and procedures related to career advancement by Spring, 2013. Develop programs (panel discussions, seminars, workshops, drop in sessions, etc.) for mentoring faculty and staff for achieving success in t
- Vice Provost will hold a drop-in open session for chairs and supervisors each week to address questions related to the above. Already implemented
- Secretary of the University will maintain current versions of policies on the web with keyword search.
- Team
- Deb Anders
- William Barrett
- Randy Bennett
- Vicki Bott
- Paula Rhyner
- Trudy Turner
- Dev Venugopalan
- Gary Williams
The Advancement of UWM Climate Initiatives: Parking
Improve the campus parking climate, as perceived by students, faculty, staff, administration and neighbors through better communication, information content, real-time information, diversity of options and pricing policies.
Objectives
- Improve communication between students, staff, faculty, and administration (80%)
- Improve flexibility for student, staff, faculty, and administration commuters (60%)
- Improve level of satisfaction with Parking and Transit access and services (50%)
- Improve level of UWM neighbor satisfaction with Parking and Transit Policies (50%)
- Team
- Geoff Hurtado
- Nelson Ogbuagbu
- Scott Peak
- Mike Priem
- Claude Schuttey
- LeRoy Stoner
Development of Bullying and Cyberbullying Policy
The University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee seeks to promote a working and learning environment where all members of the UWM community can work together in a mutually respectful, psychologically-healthy environment. UWM strives to foster an environment that reflects courtesy, civility, and respect because such an environment promotes learning, research, and productivity.
Because a respectful campus environment is a necessary condition for success in its mission, UWM is committed to providing a respectful campus, free of bullying in all of its forms. Bullying is pernicious and unacceptable in all working, learning, and service interactions.
Objectives
- Develop and institute Anti-Bullying (Respectful Campus) Policy
- Amend existing Acceptable Use of University Information Technology Resources Policy (Faculty Doc. 2460, http://www4.uwm.edu/ secu/facdocs/2460.pdf) to prohibit Cyberbullying on UWM resources
- Develop campus webpage to explain what bullying is and is not, and make clear UWMs stand against it. Website should set forth what steps individuals should take should they experience, or witness, bullying.
- Develop campus awareness in conjunction with policies and web information
- Team
- Francene Botts-Butler
- Shannon Bradbury
- Isaac Brooks
- Alex Kleppin
Complaint Assistance
The goal of the Complaint Assistance team is to provide a mechanism to direct faculty and staff to the campus resource that will provide them with specific, neutral and confidential information.
This information will allow members of the campus community to investigate policy and monitor procedures that will aid them in resolving their complaints. The mechanism we propose is a combination of website and brochure (Download) that informs individuals of their rights and responsibilities and answer a series of “What do I do if--?” questions ()
Objectives
- Text for website and brochure by May 17
- Depending on whether the BP2W website is operational, we will have the text on line by July 15
- We will design a bookmark to be given to all faculty and staff that will have information on how to access the brochure and website. The design of the bookmark will be completed by August 1
- Bookmark mailed out to the campus community by August 20
- Tallies will be reviewed for website and complaint enquiries by September 2012
- Team
- Francene Botts-Butler
- Shannon Bradbury
- Brenda Cullin
- Trudy Turner
Conflict Resolution: Campus Resources and Procedures
Given changing conditions UWM employees have experienced in the last year (e.g., removal of collective bargaining, increased health insurance and pension contributions, continued stagnant wage/salary rates, planning a new University Personnel System), it is no secret that employees are stressed, scared, and feel uncertain in their employment environment.
It is likely that these stresses have and will contribute to increased conflict in the work place.
We seek to obtain resources to prevent escalation of and manage workplace conflict, including a campus conflict resolution officer and centralizing all related resources in a “1-stop shop” within the Human Resources website.
Objectives
- Examine and clarify current conflict resolution efforts and procedures on complaints/conflict resolution. Create website for "one-stop" Human Resources source
- Explore possibility of establishing a conflict resolution office, whose mission is to prevent escalation of conflict and resolve conflict.
- Increase available training on recruitment and supervision as well as conflict resolution. Consider whether, and if so, for whom certain training shall be made mandatory. This involves studying the role of Human Resources in training and appropriate staff
- Team
- Vince Adesso
- Francene Botts-Butler
- Helaine Hickson
- Sue Weslow
- Stan Yasaitis
Design for UWM Code of Conduct
Create a campus wide Code of Conduct, develop and implement plans for communicating and sharing the Code, and then foster requirements for its use and accountability for adhering to it, working with appropriate governance and administration.
A campus-wide Code of Conduct is a common reference point for upholding a universal framework of respect, collegiality, and civility. It sends the message that UWM will not tolerate disrespect or inappropriate behavior in our campus community.
Objectives
- Become aware of the latest developments in the law, policies and procedures around behavior codes and staff at other universities. (100%)
- Develop a communications plan related to roll-out and implementation of code to all employee stakeholders. (50%)
- Plan for on-going communication regarding the Codes existence. How will new employees know we have a Code? Incorporate Code into new employee training and orientation and leadership development sessions. (20%)
- Develop plans for multiple levels or entry points of accountability. What actions will be taken when the Code is violated? (80%)
- Plan for regular review and editing of the Code. (20%)
- Team
- Diane Amour
- Shannon Bradbury
- Nadya Fouad
- Jim Hill
- Michael Hostad
- Scott Peak
- Patricia Torres-Najera
- Dao Vang
Employee Friendly Workplace: Compensation and Benefits
Increases in employee contributions to benefits when salaries have remained unchanged have resulted in a significant decrease in monthly earnings for employees and difficulty for some to meet their current, basic needs
This reality, along with well-supported national data consistently ranking compensation and benefits as a top contributor to job satisfaction, the uncertainty of additional future change, and the public nature of UWM’s employees compensation and benefits made this universal issue a priority to address in our BPW initiative.
Our purpose is to empower employees by providing tools and resources to help them better understand and manage their compensation and benefits by creating more awareness of opportunities and enhancing communication.
Objectives
- Review benefits feedback from campus Chronicle of Higher Education survey, previous UWM employee surveys, and national surveys. (50%)
- Comprehensive review of Employee Assistance Program (EAP) and promotion of services to employees and development of practical, comparison summaries of benefit options starting with health insurance. (70%)
- Evaluation of new employee orientation utilizing comparison summaries and focus on benefits with alternative start dates and limited enrollment periods. (80%)
- Share progress related to University Personnel Systems compensation and benefits workgroups with employees and promote well supported overlapping opportunities such as increase in paid time off benefit which capitalizes on cyclic operational demands of Un (50%)
- Review existing interactive tools related to earnings statements and explore the development of an interactive tool on the portal with forecasting capabilities. (10%)
- Team
- Autumn Anfang
- Julie Bonner
- Deidre Merritt
- Michael Maass
Employee Friendly Workplace: Flexible Schedule / Family Medical Leave Act (FMLA)
UWM employees’ work schedules vary in order for the university to function well, while many UWM employees want greater flexibility in their work schedules to accommodate personal needs and to create a more satisfactory work-life balance.
FMLA policies and practices, flexible work arrangements, and other employee-friendly policies and practices were identified as critical areas for BP2W review and action.
Most of the subgroup's recommendations can be implemented quickly and without much expense, particularly if there is a shared sense of urgency and the desire for substantive change on all sides.
Objectives
- Accountability and Transparency (50%)
- Promote Campus Awareness (100%)
- Improve Physical Environment
- Resource Sharing: Education, Training and Professional Development (25%)
- Research and Policy Development
There are 26 total sub-items within the five listed objectives. 7 have been completed or started; for more details please see the complete action plan.
- Team
- Geoff Hurtado
- Gwynne Kennedy
- Jason Kuiper
- Jennifer Murray
- Amber Tucker
- Sue Weslow
Employee Friendly Workplace: Improving Stress Levels and Wellbeing
We spend at minimum one third of our days at UWM where pressures naturally from day to day work build up affecting both work outcomes as well as personal well-being. Here we propose measures that improve work life balance as well as work productivity. By adopting these measures employees and staff will be more satisfied, connected and valued for their work.
Objectives
- Promote existing UWM activities by creating a structure that allows more employees to participate. (i.e. Planetarium, work life balance events, First Fridays)
- Establish Intramural Leagues for Staff and Faculty (i.e. racquetball, basketball, running, chess, bowling )
- Create walk groups staggered around morning, lunch, and after work hours to promote health, build community and relieve stress.
- Build community and school pride by displaying school colors on campus and by wearing the colors once per month (i.e. Organized UWM Spirit Day).
- Provide free or at low cost weekly health and wellness activities for staff and faculty. Proposed classes include Tai Chi, Yoga, Zumba, Pilates and others.
- Team
- Alberto Maldonado
- Mark Mielenz
- Jennifer Murray
- Tracy Oles-Fairchild
- Aamir Siddiqi
Rewards Initiative
The Rewards Initiative will focus on the recognition of workplace and community engagement of our faculty, academic staff, classified staff and student employees. Through this initiative, we hope to advance a permanent and structured method for highlighting and recognizing our campus family for their internal and external accomplishments.
We also hope to utilize the work of this team to advance a culture of respect and honor for those that are seldom recognized for their endeavors, yet day-to-day continue to make our university and our community a better place to live, work, and learn.
Objectives
- February-June, 2012: Review: Begin the process of an internal and external (System and regional) scan of opportunities for recognition {TBJ40/40; System D/I awards}
- September-October, 2012: Work with Governance and HR to formally discuss opportunities
- June-August, 2012: Construct a Call to Recognition process and schedule with a self-report form
- October 2012-January, 2013: Build campus marketing plan
- Spring 2013: Implementation
- Team
- Carmen Aguilar
- Cheryl Ajirotutu
- Joan Prince
- Laurie Thibault
Have questions, comments or concerns? Contact the Best Place to Work team