News for Employees
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Some Employees Must Use Specific Vacation Carryover Time by Oct. 9
Faculty, Academic Staff, and Limited Appointees with 12-month appointments have until Oct. 9, 2021, to use their carried-over vacation hours that were granted in fiscal year 2019 and 2020 (July 1, 2018 through June 30, 2020) . The extension from June 30, 2021, to Oct. 9, 2021, to use vacation carryover, which was first announced in March 2021, was implemented in response to concerns about the challenges presented by the June 30 deadline in light of the pandemic. (For fiscal year 2021, Faculty, Academic Staff, and Limited Appointees must use all carried-over vacation by June 30, 2022, as per the existing UW–Madison vacation policy). University Staff must use their vacation carryover and personal holiday hours by Dec. 31, 2021. Details about the use of carryover vacation hours can be found in the UW–Madison COVID-19 Pandemic Leave Policy. Leave balances can be found under “Time and Absence” in MyUW. Employees who wish to verify their leave balances and the corresponding deadlines should contact the human resources department in their school, college, or division.
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Employees Paid over Nine Months Will Transition to Biweekly Pay
All UW System employees — including UW–Madison employees — who are paid over nine months will be moved to a biweekly pay schedule. Employees who are paid over nine months and have contracts that started in August will receive a partial biweekly paycheck on September 9 for August 23–28, and will receive their first full biweekly paycheck on September 23 for August 29–September 11. Following that, biweekly paychecks will continue to be received every other Thursday. Most benefits will be split evenly over the first two paychecks each month. These employees are encouraged to review the resources available for employees paid over nine months, including a payroll timeline for employees paid over nine months, a checklist to help prepare for the transition, a paycheck estimator (Excel file download) and a pay date model (Excel file download) to view gross earnings by pay date. These resources and more can be found at hr.wisc.edu/single-payroll.
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Recording of August TTC Forum Available
A video of the Title and Total Compensation (TTC) Project August all-campus informational forum is available online. All employees are encouraged to watch the video, particularly those who were unable to attend a forum or would like another review of the material. To view the recording and for more information, visit go.wisc.edu/ttcproject.
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Free Courses Enhance Personal Leadership Skills
Fully Prepared to Lead is a series of courses offered at no cost to all UW–Madison employees who wish to grow their personal leadership skills and positively influence their work environment. This competency-based professional development program offers courses in topics such as communication and presentation skills, giving and receiving feedback, interpersonal style, conflict management, influencing teams from within, and much more. Participants can pick and choose the courses of greatest interest to them or complete the Certificate of Leadership Compentency offered by Learning and Talent Development.
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Beware of Phishing Attempts that Offer COVID-19 Benefits
The UW–Madison Office of Cybersecurity is aware of active phishing campaigns on campus in which the attacker impersonates a UW–Madison employee support unit. The campaign’s email messages ask recipients to click a link and visit a fake COVID-19 benefits site in order to receive financial assistance. Such attacks can occur at any time. Please be on the lookout for email scams, and learn how you can recognize them.
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Find Information about Campus Health Protocols Online
UW–Madison is continuing to modify campus health protocols as needed to respond to the increase in COVID cases locally. Effective August 30, employees and students who are not vaccinated will be required to test weekly. Vaccination is safe, effective, and available for free on campus and in the community. The state of Wisconsin has announced a $100 vaccine reward for people who get their first vaccine dose between August 20 and September 6. To keep up with the latest information about UW–Madison’s response to COVID-19, visit covidresponse.wisc.edu. This website includes an extensive collection of commonly asked questions that is searchable and can be filtered by topic.
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Residence Hall Move-In will Affect Traffic on Campus
Some campus area streets will be closed to accommodate the more than 8,400 UW–Madison students who will be moving into the University Residence Halls. Major move-in days are Sunday, Aug. 29–Thursday, Sept. 2 from 7 a.m. to 7 p.m. Traffic around all residence halls will be extremely busy on these days, and lots near residence halls will be used for temporary unloading during move-in. Motorists should expect some changes to traffic flow and possible delays in some areas of campus.
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Nominations Open for 2021 Outstanding Women of Color
The UW–Madison Outstanding Women of Color Awards honor faculty, staff, students, and members of the community for contributions in social justice, activism on behalf of marginalized populations, scholarly work on race, ethnicity and indigeneity, and community building. Nomination packets may be submitted at go.wisc.edu/owoc2021 by the deadline of Monday, Sept 13. The Outstanding Women of Color honorees for 2021 will be announced at the annual Diversity Forum on Tuesday, Nov. 2.
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Free Online Teaching Courses and Conference
The Division of Continuing Studies is offering five free courses to UW–Madison faculty and staff interested in boosting their online teaching skills and knowledge. The following courses start in September, October and November: Professional Certificate in Online Education, Fundamentals of Online Teaching, Designing Digital Teaching & Learning (Bonus Content in Learning Analytics), Preparing to Teach Online, and Online Education Administration. Faculty and staff can also access the Distance Teaching & Learning Conference sessions for free at any time. Send an email to dtl@dcs.wisc.edu or call 608-265-2679 for more information and to register.
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UW seeks employees to serve as COVID testers
To prepare for the possibility of needing to increase our COVID-19 testing capacity, UW-Madison is looking for current employees willing to take temporary work assignments as Health Technician-COVID Testers from Aug. 30 to Oct. 1, with possible extensions. The temporary work assignment as a tester would be in lieu of an employee’s current position. A supervisor’s approval is needed. Testers receive their same salary plus a bonus.