System Office Staff Council August Meeting Highlights

The System Office Staff Council held a regular business meeting on Thursday, August 11, 2022. Below are highlights from the meeting:

  • Monique updated the SOSC on the System Office Mission Statement status and development. There was a line removed during the revision process that holds a very important key to our mission, “... the System Office works with the Universities…” that the committee would like re-included in the draft. There will be additional review by Governance before  it goes to the Board of Regents.
  • There was wonderful discussion about the importance of having clear and simple communication methods between the employees of the university and Human Resources. The HR Customer Service Experience committee discussed the addition of more straightforward categories for communication being added to the Human Resources websites to increase the ease of communication which will, hopefully, increase the quality of support employees receive from HR.
  • The SOSC Events Committee gave an update on their first meeting. In addition to the usual events, they are considering some fun social events, a blood drive, and a city cleanup volunteer event in the spring. If you have ideas or suggestions for events, please let us know! Email us or use the staff comment form.
  • Glenn Gambrell, Director of Talent Acquisition, joined the SOSC to speak about compensation, initial salary placement, and other process improvement endeavors within Talent Acquisition. This conversation was prompted by a Talent Acquisition Update within the UA News Center. 
  • There was further discussion around the Draft FY24 Staff Alliance Compensation Recommendations which will be part of the budget discussion by the Board of Regents in the September Board meeting. Some of the recommendations include a 4% salary increase across the board, increased healthcare costs covered by UA, increasing the flexibility of performance bonuses, streamlining the hiring of new staff, and providing an increase to employees to account for recent inflation. This last point is extremely important as UA Staff have received very, very little in the way of COLA adjustments within the past 8 years.
  • Staff Alliance updates:
    • The Staff Healthcare committee is not currently meeting, as the Joint Healthcare Committee does not meet in the summer.
    • Compensation Committee to kick off sometime this fall.

SOSC will meet next 10:00 a.m.-12:00p.m. on Thursday, September 15.. All staff are encouraged and welcome to attend. 

Reach out to SOSC representatives to share your ideas and/or concerns, or submit a comment via our staff comment form. Additional information about SOSC and the Zoom link for regular meetings is available on its website.