I&S Employee Newsletter - August 2023

Evaluating our good work

Dear Infrastructure and Sustainability team,

It was great to see so many of you at our summer appreciation picnic last week! We had a total of 322 individuals, with representation from each of our units, come out to celebrate with food, fellowship and a fabulous raffle. Thank you all for participating. I’d also like to send a special thank you to those who helped organize the event, those who helped setup and those who helped teardown. I appreciate all the teamwork.

I am excited to share the promotion of two of our interim leadership positions this past month. As of July 12, Jodie Ferrera is the director of business services and as of August 1, Stacy Lindholm is my senior executive advisor. Congratulations, Jodie and Stacy!

I must also commend our staff who participated in the inaugural CU Softball Tournament on July 12-13. The combined team of Environmental Health and Safety (EH&S) and Finance and Business Strategy (FBS) cruised to victory, besting the Strategic Resources and Support (SRS)/Provost’s Office team in the championship game at Stazio Ballfields. Both teams played incredibly well in the final, and despite a late comeback from SRS/Provost, it wasn’t enough to pass the EH&S/FBS team who clinched victory. Thank you to all who participated, and stay tuned for information about future tournaments.

Performance evaluations for both university staff and classified staff are coming up and since our evaluation scores will not be tied to merit this year, this is a great opportunity for more constructive and meaningful conversations around what is working well and where we can improve. Historically, supervisors often felt pressure to give high scores because these were directly linked to merit increases for their staff. For this year I ask that you and your supervisor apply the ratings as written in our PMP’s. For example, a score of 3 identifies someone who would “consistently fulfill performance expectations and periodically may exceed them. Work is of high quality in all significant areas of responsibility,” while a score of 5 identifies someone who “far exceeds performance expectations on a consistent and uniform basis. Work is of exceptional quality in all essential areas of responsibility. In addition, makes an exceptional or unique contribution in achievement of unit, department, and University objectives.” Most of us, myself included, have areas we can improve in, and I ask that you use this opportunity to have positive and constructive conversations around how we improve for the future. As part of this, all performance evaluations receiving a score of 5 will be reviewed with the I&S Leadership Team as a way to ensure consistency across our units.

Finally, our annual opportunity to volunteer across campus is coming up soon. Our I&S and ISC volunteer day of service is scheduled for August 16 and I encourage you to sign up. I look forward to seeing everyone come out for a fun day working with colleagues to beautify our campus.

With gratitude,
Chris Ewing, vice chancellor for infrastructure and sustainability