Employees
Want to know what the UM of the future could be like for you as an employee? Read on!
As a UM employee, you play a critical role and are part of a diverse team delivering a wide spectrum of programs and services, whether delivering critical student services and experiences, supporting our faculty, engaging with the wider community or running essential campus operations and services.
For UM to achieve its vision it is essential that we empower and support all employees in their work, unlocking their ability to ensure UM delivers outstanding student experiences and world-class research and creative scholarship that positively impact our community and the world. Below we have outlined some initiatives and aspects of the UM of the future and highlighted where and how your role will be supported as well as how you might engage with or experience that future.
We also encourage you to read the other sections of this website that will help you understand how the UM of the future will look for students, faculty and the community and hence how your role can contribute to realizing that future.
Not all of these may be relevant or appropriate for you in your role. Nevertheless, we believe that the UM of the future that has a diverse workforce including classified staff, contract professionals and letters of appointment engaged in these kinds of opportunities heralds the potential for growing enrollment, enhanced student learning outcomes, increased collaboration and greater impact on the community and world.
Designing the Future for Employees
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UM embodies the principle of “Mission First, People Always.” We prioritize initiatives that promote employees’ professional and personal development. Professional curiosity is valued and supported at all levels of the institution and for all employees. We encourage employees’ awareness of campus and external resources and promote manager-to-employee and peer-to-peer recommendations for training and development.
We understand that the purpose of professional feedback extends beyond the need to address employee and departmental gaps, concerns and issues. UM acknowledges that regular, effective feedback from supervisors and managers in the form of annual evaluations serves as a mechanism for career growth and promotion. We commit to offering effective training for supervisors and managers and ensuring evaluations occur annually for all employees. The future of UM envisions employees serving in roles for which they are highly qualified and with which they are highly satisfied. We acknowledge that systemic change in our talent management must be prioritized both within the institution and in our external recruitment of employees.
Read UM’s Draft Design Principles: Innovation & Impact
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UM invites all employees to participate fully in the life of the institution and realize their capabilities now and potential for meaningful contribution in the future as institutional citizens. In UM’s future, all employees are supported and expected to thrive both professionally and personally, contributing not only to their individual success, but to the success of the institution as a whole. UM employees are professionally responsible and engaged. They are active collaborators and share a vested interest in our institutional commitment to frequent, transparent communication, clarity of responsibilities and goals and trust. We believe that bottom-up, top-down, inter- and intradepartmental trust is essential to your work. UM commits to building this culture of trust. Institutional citizens are empowered to say yes – to nimbly question, investigate, explore, collaborate, innovate and improve. Professional expertise and institutional knowledge are valued and employees are deployed as change agents. If barriers prevent or limit your ability to work in a way that is consistent with UM’s Design Principles, you are empowered to seek a resolution.
Read UM’s Draft Design Principles: Innovation & Impact
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You are encouraged and will have channels for proposing innovations that can improve and enhance our delivery of UM programs and operations. Innovations could range from moving or changing policies, developing new systems and procedures, changing organizational structures or establishing new programs or initiatives.
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UM welcomes you as an employee regardless of gender orientation, ethnicity, disability or age.
We seek to ensure that systemic racism and gender discrimination are eliminated from our campus and University community. We identify and strive to remove other factors that can make can make your work experience discriminatory or challenging. Empowering employees to innovate and engage in practices that promote diversity, inclusivity and accessibility in their roles is a critical component of the future of UM.
Read UM’s Draft Design Principle: Inclusion