Summer 2013: Wellness vendor, other issues discussed at UA Staff Alliance Retreat Aug. 7-8

UA Staff Alliance exists to represent the interests and concerns of University of Alaska staff employees across the system.

This governance group includes two members from UAA, two from UAF, two from UAS and two from SAA (statewide). UAA was represented by Kathleen McCoy from Classified Council and Christine Lidren from APT (by teleconference) at the Aug. 7-8 retreat.

One bookmark you may want to save on your browser toolbar is the link to the UA Staff Alliance blog, called Ally, where issues of importance to staff across the system are covered on a routine basis.

Two recent blog posts on Ally will bring you up to speed:

• Possible New Vendor  for our Wellness program
• Staff Alliance discusses major issues during annual two-day retreat

The wellness post updates readers on the Sept. 30, 2013 end date for our current wellness provider, WIN for Alaska.  As part of the procurement process, UA received multiple bids. After research and bid comparisons by a committee, HealthyRoads was selected. Another bidder submitted a formal protest, now under review. A final decision will be made after Aug. 16, 2013.

The blog post summarizing the retreat discussions is l-o-n-g, we admit, but the retreat lasted two days and many important topics were broached. For readers' benefit, links at the top of the post mention all the retreat topics covered. You can select to read just those that interest you, but this link list let's you skim headlines for all the topics covered. And of course, you can read every word!

Among the significant topics included were:

• Progress of the performance evaluation under development
• FY15 budget compensation discussions
• Status of new statewide HR officer
• Status of smoke-free campus initiative
• Status of education program related to bullying, identified as a concern from the recent employee workplace satisfaction survey

Thank you for reading.  Feel free to post your comments to these blog posts on Ally. The performance evaluation is scheduled for statewide staff only at this time, but feedback is encouraged across the UA system. Please identify your campus when you post, so that we understand which locations are responding.

August Archive