DATE: August 18, 2006
TO: Deans, Department Heads and Other Administrative Officers
FROM: Alan S. Cohn
Director, Faculty and Staff Employee Relations
SUBJECT: Changes to the 2006 Employee Work Profile (EWP)

Next week, University Human Resources (UHR) will be sending you detailed information about the 2005-2006 performance evaluation process. There has been an additional section incorporated into the Employee Work Profile (EWP) that you must complete this year as a result of Executive Order #94 (05) issued by former-Governor, Mark Warner. Executive Order #94 (05) deals with workplace safety and employee health and is intended to reduce the incidence of work-related accidents and illnesses occurring in state agencies and to assist employees in returning to work from both work-related on non-work related illnesses and injuries.

All managers and supervisors have an important role to play in achieving these goals and must work in partnership with their employees. Two specific changes to the EWP were mandated by Executive Order #94 (05): (1) the physical requirements of each job must be clearly defined in the EWP and (2) goals to encourage a safer work environment and reduce “work-related employee time lost” must be included in managers’ performance expectations.

To that end, UHR has developed and incorporated into the EWP a “physical demands checklist” that must be completed this year at the time of the annual evaluation and returned to UHR as part of the completed annual evaluation. Also, you will notice that UHR has added a performance measure for all supervisors in Part II, 7, A. that reads: “Consistently strives to insure a safe work environment through education, assessment and the demonstrated observance of sound safety practices and further demonstrates commitment to reducing lost time by supporting the safe resumption of work by employees with work-related or non-work related illnesses or injuries.”

We are informing you of these changes now so that you can begin to consider ways to make your workplaces safer and can consider the methods and means of returning employees to productive work after illness or injury. Also, since there is a requirement to complete this new section of the EWP by the end of the annual evaluation process, you may decide how best to accomplish this task. For those of you who have few employees, there should be little inconvenience; however, for departments who have large numbers of employees with many physical demands in their jobs, this may be more difficult. The revised EWP is now available on the UHR website under “Forms.” http://www.hrs.virginia.edu/forms/ewp.doc

The other significant change to the EWP is that the use of social security numbers has been eliminated. To better protect our employees’ personal information, UHR is pleased to announce that the EWP has been revised to provide spaces to record the Integrated System employee ID numbers instead of social security numbers. In addition, it is no longer necessary to record the social security numbers of supervisors or reviewers. This change is part of our continuing efforts to limit the use of employees’ social security numbers and other personal information where possible.

Faculty and Staff Employee Relations in UHR is responsible for the administration of the University’s performance management process and will be available to answer questions and assist you in this undertaking. We are available by phone or we will assist you at your worksite, at your request.

For those departments with UHR liaisons, the liaisons will be available to work with managers and supervisors and will conduct any necessary training in their respective areas.

Please let us know how we may help.

Contact information in UHR Faculty and Staff Employee Relations:

Joni Louque, Faculty and Staff Employee Relations Counselor
243-2205

Jackie Cooke, Sr. Faculty and Staff Employee Relations Counselor
924-4430

Debbie Gausvik, Assistant Director
924-6263

Alan Cohn, Director
924-4381