Dear Colleagues,

UT provides a special setting for our work and our careers. Our efforts to educate others and produce knowledge, scholarship and creative works are noble ones that literally change lives. To do this, it is all about our people – our faculty and staff who, on a daily basis, serve our students and discover new things about our world. To maximize our impact, however, we cannot get by on a noble mission alone. We must work hard to attract, motivate and retain exceptionally talented people, even in an environment where doing so feels increasingly challenging.

Today, I wanted to update you on how university leadership is working to acknowledge and reward our talented people who enable our university’s success, as well as the university’s work on the broader faculty and staff talent management aspects of our strategic plan. These efforts are part of a historically large investment in our people that we will make during the coming fiscal year and beyond.

Merit and Structural Salary Adjustments

For those units that rely on core funding, we will have a centrally funded merit pool for FY 22-23. We will also provide resources to help address some of our most acute challenges through structural adjustments for some of our faculty and staff, to help us both retain the incredible people we have across the university, as well as attract new talent. For units that generate their own funds, we will ask them to invest similarly in their people.

The pandemic, coupled with the changing landscape of Austin and surrounding areas, has increased financial pressures on our employees, and as a university, we want to respond with innovative and meaningful measures. To that end, this coming year’s effort is notable for at least three reasons.

First, this year’s merit pool for staff, when combined with structural salary increases targeted for areas where we face the most labor pressure, will be the largest centrally funded pool in recent history. Second, we will deploy resources beyond the merit pool to allow our leaders and managers to better address those parts of our operations where we face the most severe challenges in attracting or retaining talent – both faculty and staff. And, third, like last year when we raised the minimum starting salary for classified staff, we will be raising the minimum salary for professional-track faculty and providing merit funds for teaching assistants and assistant instructors.

While we knew we needed to make significant investments as part of next year’s merit policy, we also knew we needed to be agile and act quickly to address an increase in market and labor pressure for some of our critical positions at the university. Earlier this spring, university leadership worked with colleges, schools and units to provide additional funds as a bridge to the annual merit and structural salary adjustment cycle for positions making less than $100,000 a year that also faced the most market pressure.

These combined programs represent an annual recurring investment in our people of approximately $50 million. To help put this number in perspective, this is significantly larger than any of our recent increases in tuition revenue or state appropriations – but we know it is needed. VPs, deans and supervisors will communicate details about the implementation of this investment in our employees over the coming months, including leaders of auxiliary units, who are working hard to rise to the challenge as well.

Strategic Direction for Talent Management

While compensation is one priority in our efforts to attract and retain top talent, we know that there are other critical elements to consider. Learning and growth opportunities, professional development, career pathways, our workplace environment and culture, and our commitment to diversity, equity and inclusion are also critical to the employee experience. Through our work, we want to see that we are making a difference and are part of an environment characterized by a sense of belonging, which produces inspiration and brings out the best in our students and colleagues.

Since last summer, the university has conducted hundreds of conversations and listening sessions with more than 1,000 members of the campus community from across ranks and roles. Through these discussions, you’ve expressed your passion for change and innovation, and your voices have been heard. Ideas from around our community, including those that will help catalyze and broaden the careers of our faculty and staff at all levels, have been incorporated into our strategic plan initiatives, and I am excited to see these take shape in the months and years to come.

Beyond compensation and talent management initiatives, we know that housing costs continue to create significant financial pressure for our employees. Many of you completed the housing survey we conducted this past fall, and those inputs have helped inform our plans as we look for new and innovative solutions to help address this challenge.

I look forward to sharing more of our findings and our collective vision for our future when we launch the university strategic plan in a few weeks. I hope you will share my excitement for what we can accomplish together during the next 10 years on our way to becoming world’s highest-impact public research university.

Thank you for all you do to support our mission and community, giving generously of your time and resources to further our efforts. Our people are what make our campus truly special, and I am proud to have you as colleagues on this journey.

Hook ’em,

Jay Hartzell
President