Performance cycles to shift for most CU staff

The University of Colorado’s performance review and merit cycles will move into closer alignment for most university staff and all classified staff over the next two years.

CU staff members participate in an annual performance review process to gauge their success within their roles, identify areas for improvement and set goals for professional growth. Performance review results are a factor considered during the subsequent merit process.

In May, the university announced a shift in the merit raise cycle to align with the calendar year (January-December) instead of the fiscal year (July-June). This change aligned base-building salary increase decisions with each fall’s semester enrollment, a key component of CU’s annual budget.

However, this merit date change resulted in an 11-month gap between performance reviews and potential pay increases. To address this, staff performance cycles will shift to align performance reviews more closely with merit reviews and shorten the gap between performance reviews and merit increases to within six months.

University Staff

The current performance cycle for University Staff, which began early 2021, will be extended to conclude on June 30, 2022.

After that, the new performance cycle will match the fiscal year and run from July 1-June 30 of the following year.

These changes will apply to all CU campuses, except CU Anschutz.

Classified Staff

The state of Colorado determines the merit and performance cycles for Classified Staff. This group also will see an extended cycle that will start in 2022.

The current performance cycle began April 1 and will end March 31. Beginning April 1, 2022, Classified Staff will have an extended performance cycle until July 2023, which is designed to shift them to the new performance schedule.

Future performance cycles will run Aug. 1-July 31. 

Faculty

Decisions on faculty performance cycles are made on a campus-by-campus basis.

At this time, only UCCS and CU Boulder have set their faculty cycles, while CU Anschutz will not modify faculty performance cycles.

At UCCS, 12-month faculty members, including research faculty, will be moving to the same performance cycle as University Staff, July 1-June 30. For nine-month faculty members, the performance cycle is under review by academic leadership.

At CU Boulder, teaching and research faculty will see no change to their performance cycle. Research faculty already are on a cycle that runs July 1-June 30, and Teaching Faculty will remain on their calendar year cycle of Jan. 1-Dec. 31. These policies apply to faculty on nine-month and 12-month contracts.