FY24 Merit Process Guide

Eligibility

For details on merit and unit adjustment eligibility, review the provost’s authorization letter and the list of Job Profiles Not Included in the Merit Process.

Timeline

The table below outlines major activities and deadlines associated with merit and unit adjustment preparation and submission. (OPB=Office of Planning & Budgeting; OAP=Office of Academic Personnel; HR Comp=UW Human Resources Compensation Office; ISC=Integrated Service Center)

Preparation & Data Clean-Up

Units must review data that will be used in the merit process and ensure it is correct. Workday restrictions associated with FT cutover will impact a unit’s ability to process data clean-up between June 26 – July 5. Units should plan accordingly for the following:

• If data correction is effective July 1 or earlier, corrective action must be completed by June 25
• If data correction is effective between July 2 – August 31, corrective action must be completed by July 31

Do not submit or save draft transactions with an effective date of September 1 or later; they will be rescinded

Completion means no approval steps remain on the Workday business process. Addressing data errors now helps ensure that accurate information is pulled into official, protected merit/unit adjustment spreadsheets (“official file”), which are created and distributed to units in early August by the Office of Planning and Budgeting (OPB).

Workday data pulled into the official file is based on a snapshot of what the individual’s record will look like on August 31. When verifying data, it is especially important to confirm pay and position details as of this date. NOTE: due to the sequenced nature of merit and faculty unit adjustment increases, the official file is not intended to be a planning worksheet for unit adjustment. Such planning will need to occur outside the official file. 

Clean-Up Procedure

1. Run the Merit Data Audit Report R0536 (“R0536”) available in Workday
2. Review and confirm the following data for each merit-eligible employee:
   • They show up on the report
   • Supervisory organization is correct
   • Full-time monthly base pay is accurate
   • Compensation is a non-zero number
   • Practice plan allowance (if one exists) has been updated commensurate with the FTE
   • If UW employment will continue, Compensation Actual End Date extends beyond August 31 and matches End Employment Date on the position
   • If UW employment will end prior to September 1, a termination has been processed and fully completed in Workday; employees terminated prior to September 1 are not eligible for merit
3. Initiate corrective action in Workday as soon as possible if you identify data errors during the above review; ensure all approvals associated with corrective action should be completed by:
   • June 25 for any Workday business process effective July 1 or earlier
   • July 31 for any Workday business processes effective July 2-August 31
4. Run R0536 again after errors have been addressed to verify data is correct. Errors will continue to show on the report until the corrective transaction completes through the associated approval chain. Re-run the report regularly to check for new errors.

Key Considerations during Merit Preparation

• Keep on top of your data clean-up deadlines. Remember, the deadline for data clean-up is June 25 for transactions effective July 1 or earlier, and July 31 for transactions effective between July 2-August 31. Failure to run R0536 and clean data accordingly could cause serious errors with the merit load into Workday and result in a delay of merit, over/underpayment, or significant time/effort/frustration for unit staff, campus partners, and merit recipients.
• Process new requests as soon as possible. Due to FT cut-over activities, units should aim to have lateral moves, transfers, position reviews, in-grade adjustments, or job profile changes with an effective date of July 1 or earlier submitted by May 1 in order to allow processing before FT restrictions are in place. Those with effective dates between July 2-August 31 should be processed after July 5, but no later than July 31.
• Discuss anticipated merit increases with all impacted units. Units that share funding for a position must discuss the anticipated increase with all impacted units. An employee’s approved merit increase will be distributed proportionally to the costing allocation.
• Know your merit populations. Unless otherwise indicated in Job Profiles Not Included in the Merit Process, salaried personnel in paid status, including faculty with courtesy or part-time appointments, are eligible for merit and will appear on the official file.
• Don’t zero out compensation. Employees with zero compensation will not be on the official file. Do not zero out compensation as a means of delaying the termination or reappointment process. Doing so is against university policy and will result in serious data errors.
• Avoid restricted transactions. As indicated in Restricted Entry Periods, select transactions are restricted during merit preparation. The Integrated Service Center (ISC) will cancel transactions that block the merit process. This includes, but is not limited to:
  • Approved transactions with an effective date of September 1 or later
  • Transactions that have been drafted or ‘saved’ for future processing

Once merit and unit adjustment increases are successfully loaded and restricted entry periods are lifted, units can enter new transactions freely and re-enter any transactions that might have been rescinded because they blocked the merit load.

Using Merit Data Audit Report R0536

The Merit Data Audit Report R0536 (“R0536”) is an important part of the merit preparation and data clean-up process. When using the report, keep the following in mind:

• By default, R0536 displays position and compensation information projected for August 31. For merit preparation purposes, units should not change the report date.
• Data is extracted based on supervisory organization.
• R0536 looks only at merit-eligible job profiles. Review Job Profiles Not Included in the Merit Process and the provost’s authorization letter for details on merit eligibility.
• If a worker has positions (unique position numbers) in different supervisory organizations, R0536 only displays positions belonging to your supervisory organization. Units with faculty who hold joint appointments must work with the jointly-appointed unit to agree upon a single merit percentage (0% or 3%).
• ‘End Employment Date’ is displayed only if it exists in Workday
• Compensation information is displayed in full-time monthly rates
• ‘General Salary Plan Actual End Date’ and ‘Practice Plan Actual End Date’ are displayed only if they exist in Workday
• ‘Date of Last Base Pay Change’ is the date of the most recent transaction in Workday that may have changed UW base pay. NOTE: Compensation change actions in Workday may or may not result in a change in actual compensation (e.g., Extend Compensation End Date). Units should review the employee’s Workday record to understand whether an actual change in compensation occurred that could serve as a basis for precluding the individual from merit.

Restricted Entry Periods

To support an accurate merit load, select Workday transactions need to be restricted for merit-eligible academic personnel and professional staff job profiles. Other job profiles, including those listed in Job Profiles Not Included in the Merit Process, are not restricted.

There are two restricted entry periods: Now-July 31 and August 1-September 12. Review the tables below for details on which transactions are restricted during each period.

NOTE: Termination, Costing Allocation, One Time Payment, and Period Activity Pay transactions as well as transactions utilizing UW Hires are not restricted at any point during merit preparation. Terminations should be processed in Workday in a timely manner.

Restricted Entry Period 1: Now-July 31 (jump to Restricted Entry Period 2)

Restricted Entry Period 2: August 1 – September 12 (jump to Restricted Entry Period 1)

File Submission Process

The following parameters are updated annually and may change from year to year to align with specific criteria set forth in the provost’s authorization letter.

In early August, OPB sends out official files on which units enter merit and–where applicable–unit adjustment recommendations. Units will receive a separate file for each population authorized for merit in a given year. Do not add rows to the official file as that may compromise embedded formulas and data accuracy.

The official file is a spreadsheet. To complete it, the unit will complete the following steps:

STEP 1: Enter recommended merit percentage

• Faculty merit percentages must be either 0% or 3%; no other values are permitted
• Academic staff as defined in APS 40.1, who have been determined to be meritorious and are not otherwise precluded, may receive an increase between 0.5% and 10% provided the average across the unit’s academic staff population does not exceed 4%
• Professional staff who have been determined to be meritorious and are not otherwise precluded may receive an increase between 0.5% and 10% provided the average across the unit’s professional staff population does not exceed 4%
• Post-merit full-time rates will be rounded up to the nearest dollar
• For units who share a faculty member through a joint appointment, the primary appointing unit must have the concurrence of the secondary unit(s). Units should consider the following:
  • Where a joint appointment exists through one position, 100% of the merit increase will be applied to the primary appointing unit
  • In rare instances, where a joint appointment exists across two positions, the percent of merit increase must match (i.e., same percentage – 0% or 3% – to each position)

STEP 2: Enter a Merit Reason Code

• Choose the most applicable merit reason code from the drop-down menu in the merit reason code column
• Review Merit Reason Codes for definitions and guidance
• If requested, units must provide documentation to support their selection

STEP 3 (Faculty Only): Enter recommended unit adjustment information

1. Confirm faculty member meets unit adjustment eligibility criteria
   • Determined to be meritorious in the 2022-23 academic year; and
   • Has not had a retention adjustment between September 1, 2022, and August 31, 2023
2. Enter proposed unit adjustment percentage
   • Individual adjustments must be between 0.5% – 10%
   • For this cycle, units are permitted to apply an equal ‘across-the-board’ increase provided the average unit adjustment percentage for the school/college/campus does not exceed 1%
   • Increase is applied to the post-merit full-time base salary rate–regardless of actual FTE and fund source–and rounded up to the nearest dollar
   • For units who share a faculty member through a joint appointment, the primary appointing unit must have the concurrence of the secondary unit(s). Units should consider the following:
     • Where a joint appointment exists through one position, 100% of the unit adjustment increase will be applied to the primary appointing unit
     • In rare instances, where a joint appointment exists across two positions, the percent of unit adjustment increase must match (i.e., same percentage to each position)
3. Check “Pivot Table” tab on official file to ensure average unit adjustment across all eligible faculty does not exceed 1%. To ensure you are viewing the most current calculations, be sure to refresh the pivot table each time you open the tab. For instructions on how to refresh pivot table data, refer to the ‘Key Information’ tab.
4. Complete ‘Methodology & Consultation’ tab on official file to document the distribution methodology and confirm required consultation (See APPENDIX for details)

STEP 4: As applicable, add detail to the Additional Information column

• Provide additional context that may help OAP or UWHR better understand the merit recommendation of ‘preclude’ or ‘ineligible’
• If an employee has a retirement , resignation, or termination date effective prior to September 1, but the Workday process was not completed by July 31, note the retirement/resignation/termination effective date in the ‘Additional Information’ column on spreadsheet and confirm the transaction has been processed in Workday. Employees that are not terminated in Workday before September 1 are eligible for merit.
• NOTE: Information in this column is not loaded into Workday

STEP 5: Submit completed spreadsheets by August 18

• Faculty and academic staff spreadsheets go to Margaret (Peg) Stuart at mjstuart@uw.edu
• Professional staff spreadsheets go to Randy West at rfwest@uw.edu

Merit Reason Codes

Academic Personnel Merit Reason Codes & Definitions (jump to Professional Staff)

Professional Staff Merit Reason Codes & Definitions (jump to Academic Personnel)

Load & Validation of Data

Beginning September 11-14, units must confirm that approved merit and unit adjustment increases have loaded as intended into Workday. To facilitate this confirmation, units should run the Merit Adjustment Validation R0537 report in Workday and check it against the approved official file(s). Note, this is not the same report (R0536) that was used for data clean-up. If the unit identifies any errors, they should follow the steps outlined in the Corrections & Changes section.

Merit Considerations for Annual or Shorter-Term Faculty

It is the responsibility of individual units to award meritorious faculty a merit increase in compliance with the Faculty Salary Policy. Meritorious faculty who received compensation at any point during 2022-23 academic year, but have not been reappointed, rehired, or are not in active pay status on September 1, 2023 are due the equivalent of a merit increase should they be reappointed, rehired, or returned to paid status at any point during the 2023-24 academic year. A salary increase equivalent to the percent authorized for faculty merit must be factored into the new base salary upon rehire and the appointment letter should note the salary as inclusive of a merit increase.

This applies to all faculty as identified in the Faculty Code Section 21-31, including but not limited to those with part-time or full-time appointments in clinical, acting, affiliate, or visiting faculty ranks/titles, teaching associates, lecturers, and artists in residence.

Annual or shorter-term faculty who have been processed for Fall 2023 reappointment should appear on the final merit spreadsheet, provided they are active or on summer hiatus. If a unit is unsure of their 2023-24 workforce/instructional needs and has not reappointed an existing annual or shorter-term faculty member, the unit should terminate the employee and rehire when they are ready to make an employment commitment. As noted above, units should factor the equivalent of a merit increase into the individual’s salary upon rehire. Units should not zero out compensation as a means of circumventing the termination process as that is against university policy and will result in serious data errors.

Corrections & Changes

A correction is in order when a recommendation was entered on the official file and approved by OAP or HR Comp, but did not load into Workday correctly. If a unit identifies such an error when validating increases loaded into Workday, they must submit a correction request as soon as possible and no later than September 14 to ensure the error is corrected in time for the September 26 pay date.

A change is when a unit would like to revise the percentage or merit reason code after it has already been approved by OAP of HR Comp. Please be aware that there is no guarantee that review, approval, and loading of changes will be completed in time to appear on September 26 pay slips. As such, it is critical that units carefully consider recommendations they enter onto the official file before submitting them for institutional review. It is the provost’s expectation that there will be an extremely limited need for changes.

‘Corrections’ are prioritized ahead of ‘Changes’.

Keep in mind that some job profiles are not included in the merit process and that unpaid or terminated/non-renewed academic personnel are not eligible for merit until they move into paid status or are rehired. For more detail, please see Job Profiles Not Included in the Merit Process and Merit Considerations for Annual or Shorter-Term Faculty.

If an individual was omitted from the official file when they shouldn’t have been, it is often a result of a data error with their Workday record or the timing of their hire relative to the merit review. In such cases, the unit should contact OAP (for academic personnel) or HR Comp (for professional staff) to confirm merit eligibility and get information on next steps.

Submitting Corrections or Changes

Before submitting a correction or change, verify with your dean/chancellor/VP office unit administrator that the employee was listed on the official file and that the increase was approved by OAP or HR Comp.

To submit a correction or change, create a UW Connect ticket by emailing your request to the Integrated Service Center (ISC) at ischelp@uw.edu. The subject line must indicate whether it is a correction or a change and the employment category (e.g., “MERIT CORRECTION – Academic”, “MERIT CHANGE – Staff”).

UW Connect ticket must include the following information as applicable:

• Employee Name
• EID
• Position Number
• Full-time Monthly Salary Rate in effect as of August 31, 2023
• Full-time Monthly Salary Rate to be effective September 1, 2023
• Proposed merit or unit adjustment percentage
• Proposed merit reason code
• A change in an OAP-approved or HR Comp-approved percentage or reason code must include a description of and rationale for the requested change, and an attestation that the dean/chancellor has approved the revision. Supporting documentation of dean/chancellor approval should be maintained in the department. If approved, OAP or HR Comp will work with the ISC to process the change.

Contacts

For additional questions not addressed in this process guide, please contact the appropriate resource identified below and include “Merit Process Question” as the subject line of your email.

• For general merit and faculty unit adjustment questions, your first point of contact should be your dean’s/VP office unit administrator.
• For questions on how to cancel or rescind actions in Workday, email the Integrated Service Center at ischelp@uw.edu or call 206-543-8000 between 8 am and 5 pm, Monday through Friday.

If you have questions that cannot be resolved by your dean’s/VP office, the dean’s/VP office unit administrator should reach out to the contacts below, as appropriate:

• Academic personnel merit and faculty unit adjustment processes
  Email Margaret (Peg) Stuart at mjstuart@uw.edu
• Professional staff in-grade and review processes
  Email your Assigned Compensation Consultant or uwhrcomp@uw.edu (for campus) or medcomp@uw.edu (for medical centers)
• Professional staff merit process
  Email uwhrcomp@uw.edu (for campus) or medcomp@uw.edu (for medical centers)
• Merit policy as established by President Cauce and Provost Richards
  Email Judy Gustafson Golisch at judygus@uw.edu.

Job Profiles Not Included in the Merit Process

Academic Personnel Job Profiles Not Included in the Merit Process (jump to Professional Staff job profiles)

Professional Staff Job Profiles Not Included in the Merit Process (jump to Academic Personnel job profiles)

APPENDIX: Methodology & Consultation Planning

Units will be prompted to enter information onto their official merit/unit adjustment file that describes the methodology they used in arriving at unit adjustment recommendations, and to describe and confirm how they engaged with faculty councils in the process. The following prompts can guide units in their preparation.

• Please provide a brief description of the distribution methodology used in planning for the September 1, 2023 faculty unit adjustment (e.g., equal vs. differential distribution).
• If recommending a differential distribution, what specific challenges did the unit seek to address?
• Please provide a brief description of how the department chair/campus dean consulted with department faculty—in accord with Faculty Code 24-71 Section B.2—when developing a unit adjustment distribution plan.
• Please provide a brief description of how the dean/chancellor consulted with their elected school/college/campus-level faculty council—in accord with Faculty Code 24-71 Section C— when developing a unit adjustment distribution plan.