People Strategy in Action: Progress Update

A message from leadership

The initiatives and progress outlined in this report demonstrate our ongoing commitment to fostering an environment where every individual at the University of Alberta can thrive. The People Strategy is a long-term journey, with goals and actions designed to embed positive changes into the university's culture over multiple years. While some actions are designed for short-term achievement, others lay crucial foundations for our future.

Our continued success hinges on prioritizing these actions and ensuring that all members of our community can contribute to realizing the vision of an inspiring, high-performing workplace where people are valued, connected, empowered, and supported to innovate and grow. We remain dedicated to cultivating a vibrant and inclusive community, attracting and retaining top talent, and continuously improving the employee experience, ensuring the University of Alberta remains an employer of choice for years to come.

Verna Yiu, Provost and Vice-President (Academic)
Todd Gilchrist, Vice-President, University Services, Operations + Finance

Introduction

The People Strategy in Action: Progress Update report provides an overview of the progress and initiatives undertaken within the initial phase of implementing the People Strategy. It highlights our efforts across the four key themes:

Prioritizing Health and Well-Being
Enabling and Empowering Our People
Outstanding Leadership in an Environment of Shared Responsibility
Creating Connection.

This reporting framework aims to transparently track our advancements, identify areas for continued focus, and ensure we are building an environment where our people feel empowered, energized and supported to cultivate long and rewarding careers at the University of Alberta.

Key terms

"People" (everyone who works at the university)
"We" (the whole interconnected community), and
"Leader" (including formal and informal leadership at all levels)

Theme 1: Prioritizing health and well-being

We must prioritize our people's health and well-being, including supporting people by providing sustainable workloads, resources to mitigate work-related stress, and broad-based support for people experiencing difficulties inside and outside work.

Actions and highlights of the work undertaken to meet the goals of Theme 1: Prioritizing health and well-being.
Goal	Actions	Highlights/Spotlight
Create healthy and sustainable workloads through organizational- and system-level solutions	Tie healthy practices into performance reviews, linking recognition, performance and well-being as core leadership responsibilities.	Completed foundational work to create a more consistent job description template that will better enable performance reviews.
	Prioritize process and system improvements with greatest impact on employee workloads, including through the Continuous Administrative Service Improvement Program (CASIP).	Appointment of a Chief Transformation Officer (CTO) in June 2026, intended to drive the institution’s transformation to address our current challenges and continue to achieve excellence in teaching, research and community engagement.
Empower individuals to access resources to mitigate stress and burnout	Continue to develop and deliver professional development on well-being for supervisors and teams.	Continued to offer Health + Wellbeing courses aligned with the Culture of Care and Workplace Mental Health and Well-being Action Plans, including 16 full-day workshops to support personal well-being and strengthen resilience. Promoted the WeCare Toolkit at various university events. Piloted 7 SparkX micro-learning sessions—engaging, hour-long webinars offering practical strategies for navigating sleep, stress, time management, and social media habits.
Establish clear priorities to empower teams and individuals to manage their work in alignment with the university’s vision	Renew college, faculty and unit plans to align with Shape and set clear priorities, then ensuring that team- and individual-level work plans align with these priorities.	Incorporated Shape implementation priorities into college and faculty mandate letters; cyclical renewal of faculty strategic plans underway.

Health + Wellbeing courses

The university offers a suite of health and well-being courses and added a new course in 2025 – Burnout to Boundaries. Throughout the year, 621 faculty and staff attended health and well-being sessions and 91% of participants reported that they would recommend the programs to others.

View the Health + Wellbeing curriculum and course offerings »

“
I am so very grateful to you and your team for the knowledge, content and support shared through courses offered by Organizational Development. I have taken several courses, including Mental Health First Aid, Recognize, Rest, Reset, Starting the Conversation, and Burnout to Boundaries. They have helped me understand how much my physical and mental health were impacted by the combination of my daughter’s cancer journey, beginning in 2019, and all of the changes that have taken place at the University over the past few years. At work I have felt more energetic, focused and engaged with a better ability to effectively communicate. This has fostered a more open and collaborative relationship with my colleagues. The courses have given me the tools to help others and also recognize the importance of self care, setting boundaries, work life balance and so much more. I am feeling like me again and it is wonderful!“

Myja Trinh, Safety Advisor

Human Resources, Health, Safety and Environment

Theme 2: Enabling and empowering our people

For our people to thrive, they need to be — and feel — empowered and enabled. This means having the support to perform, the tools to succeed, and the safety and autonomy to creatively solve problems.

Actions and highlights of the work undertaken to meet the goals of Theme 2: Enabling and empowering our people.
Goal	Actions	Highlights
Enable diverse and flourishing career paths at the university through increased access to and support for professional development	Develop guidelines to support enhanced succession planning to support long-term career development.	A succession planning framework has been developed, and customized supports are available upon request. HRHSE provided advisory support for succession planning in various areas, including the Registrar’s Office, School of Public Health and Internal Audit and Enterprise Risk Management teams.
	Develop and launch a formal mentorship program.	Completed a six-month pilot of the mentorship program in HRHSE followed by the launch of the program. The Mentorship Program is available to faculties and departments upon request.

Mentorship program

Navigating a vibrant, sprawling community like the University of Alberta can be a significant challenge for new and long-time employees alike. For individuals like Richelle McLean, Senior Consultant, Talent Management, the university’s mentorship program transformed a challenge into a powerful opportunity for growth, thanks to the guidance of experienced leaders like Tony Chand, Director (Total Rewards).

When she joined the program, Richelle was “hoping to find a new resource to help guide me through my career steps, and help with advice and support.” A key piece of advice stuck with her: “Not to limit myself or my experiences based on what I think I know,” she recalls.“Be curious about the university to allow myself to learn more, and see where my career can go.” This guidance provided a powerful shift in perspective. “Knowing that I have someone in my corner who is not my own manager/supervisor has really helped increase my confidence,” shares Richelle. “This experience has given me the tools I needed to look at my career through fresh eyes, and understand how I can chart my own path.” For Tony, the experience was about providing that crucial support and seeing his mentee flourish.“I found being able to share my knowledge and see someone learn and see the 'light bulbs lighting up in their mind' was very rewarding,” he says. He emphasizes that mentorship is often about presence:“Sometimes that person just needs someone in their corner,” he shares,“and being that person is both rewarding for the mentor but very impactful for that particular mentee.”

Learn more about the mentorship program »

Theme 3: Outstanding leadership in an environment of shared responsibility

Leadership at the University of Alberta is both formal and informal. It includes the positional responsibilities of formal leaders, as well as the competencies and behaviours that can be exhibited at all levels of the organization.

Actions and highlights of the work undertaken to meet the goals of Theme 3: Outstanding leadership in an environment of shared responsibility.
Goal	Actions	Highlights
Rebuild trust in senior leadership	Emphasize the visibility, transparency and availability of senior leaders (deans, vice-provosts, vice-presidents and the president).	Leadership Transparency Leaders use a variety of approaches to ensure transparency through frequent scheduled communications, to share strategy, progress and performance across the organization. Scheduled regular communications include portfolio all staff meetings to provide broad institutional and portfolio updates, often including live Q&A sessions to address staff questions directly. Written and digital communications include monthly and quarterly newsletters, regular contributions to the QUAD, and specialized vlogs to deliver key information, share leadership perspectives, and highlight achievements from official annual reports. Leaders hold dedicated retreats and forums specifically to engage senior and mid-level leaders in strategic roadmap planning and to facilitate shared learning among portfolio units, ensuring the strategic direction is understood and cascaded. Leadership Visibility Leaders actively demonstrate their commitment to core institutional values, operations, and community members by consistently being present and championing major initiatives. Participation in planned safety inspections (HSE) and the Culture of Care Safety Summits to demonstrate visible, active commitment to institutional health and safety standards. Leaders regularly serve on the platform party for Convocation and speak at internal and external events, including those for faculty, staff, student recognition, and donor appreciation, reinforcing the university's mission. Leaders attend and engage in a wide variety of student-led activities (e.g., Welcome Week, galas, performances) and actively participate in enterprise activities, demonstrating visible support for the entire university community and its external stakeholders. Leaders engage professors, researchers and students while visiting lab spaces, sports events and at various all-staff meetings across portfolios with a commitment to understanding the breadth of work being done throughout the university. Leadership Availability Leaders engage in structured and informal opportunities to foster a relationship-rich and collaborative environment. Regular meetings with Senior Leadership Teams (SLT) and quarterly leadership retreats, ensuring consistent lines of communication and opportunity for agenda items to be driven by portfolio teams. Frequent annual and quarterly social gatherings are hosted for the full portfolio or senior leaders. These events are specifically designed to forge contacts, acknowledge work, and provide informal face-to-face time with top leadership. Dedicated sessions, such as lunch & learns and mentoring sessions with new and up-and-coming academic leaders, to establish leaders as accessible resources for professional growth. Initiatives like a "Chief of Staff Roadshow" or ad-hoc "touchpoints" are used to proactively connect leadership with frontline teams, opening clear, two-way channels for concerns and support.
	Establish a clear accountability framework for Shape implementation, with cascading accountabilities at the college/faculty/unit levels.	Published the Shape three-year implementation plan, including an annual reporting framework; incorporated priorities into college/faculty mandate letters and portfolio functional plans, including performance expectations.
	Support formal leaders to clearly articulate priorities for their responsible areas, aligned with the university’s broader strategic direction.	Incorporated priorities into mandate letters for deans, expectations for academic leaders and portfolio functional plans. Continued to make enhancements to onboarding for academic leaders (dean's/chair's school).
Create an outstanding shared leadership culture by developing leadership competencies at all levels of the organization	Continue investment in leadership development, including academic leadership, with emphasis on developing skills and competencies in mentorship and coaching.	Continued to offer and expand offerings of leadership training, including Leading Others (52 participants last year), Management Intensive (83 participants) and UAcademy (22 participants).

UAcademy

UAcademy is an internal leadership training program for University of Alberta senior leaders, designed to foster collaboration across the university and to transform the university’s challenges into strategic opportunities.

Learn more about UAcademy »

“My experience in UAcademy introduced me to a diverse group of leaders in both academic and non-academic roles within the University of Alberta. This included senior leaders such as deans of faculties and associate vice presidents in charge of different operational aspects. During our group project, we had a chance to interview senior leaders (who were not enrolled in UAcademy) to seek their input on key university-wide issues. Their willingness to participate and their openness to answering sensitive questions showed their commitment to improving the U of A. Overall, my team and I were pleasantly surprised by the level of involvement of both our project sponsors and senior leaders across the campus."

Henry An, Professor and Chair

Department of Resource Economics & Environmental Sociology

Theme 4: Creating connection

People want to feel connected to one another, to the university and its mission, to our students and the external community.

Actions and highlights of the work undertaken to meet the goals of Theme 4: Creating connection.
Goal	Actions	Highlights
Articulate clear values for the University of Alberta	Develop and disseminate a clear set of values for the U of A that support people in making a personal connection to the university, and to establish a common basis for all work and decisions across the university.	Undertook a process to develop the institution’s shared values from January to September 2025; the draft values will go through a final validation process before they are formally brought forward for GFC and Board approval.
Create a sense of belonging and appreciation through enhanced recognition	Establish a program for innovative and informal recognition of staff and colleagues, and tools to support supervisors in making recognition a regular practice within teams.	An informal recognition program is in development, with a targeted launch timeline of March 2026. Existing informal recognition programs continued. For example, in 2024-25, 1,435 Kudos were sent via e-cards to faculty and staff for individual recognition. The top three category usages (in order) were: “Winter Holiday”, “Thank You” and “Good Job.”
Create community connectedness at the individual, team and university-wide level	Review administrative service processes to identify opportunities to create more points of contact and personal connection along our end-to-end integrated support service delivery.	Collaboration Committee established, bringing together Human Resources, Health, Safety and Environment (HRHSE) and Shared Services to address human resources process pain points identified by university employees and leaders to improve the overall employee experience.
	Create opportunities for connection both within individual teams and to the broader U of A community.	Community of Learning established to provide ongoing support for employees and to facilitate the translation of learning into the workplace. HRHSE organized 16 events that involved alumni of university learning and development programs, as well as professional development and campus partners. In total, 440 people attended. Campus and Community Recreation organized the October 2025 Turkey Trot Fun Run in support of the Campus Food Bank. 380 participants raised $5,000.
Establish a culture of inclusion and respect	Ensure the implementation of the EDI (now ACB) Action Plan at all levels of the university.	Launched Changing the Story, the Access, Community and Belonging Action Plan. The first progress report is under development.
Establish a culture of inclusion and respect	Expand awareness of resources for disclosing and resolving workplace concerns.	Updated the Discrimination and Harassment Policy and Procedures. Implemented the workplace response coordinator function within HRHSE.

Collaboration Committee

The Collaboration Committee includes directors from HRHSE and Shared Services, as well as a subcommittee of employees who want to participate in the projects. “As a subcommittee, we meet to establish how we want to tackle each project. Topics generate different levels of interest, with those participating stepping up as project leads or reviewers based on their areas of expertise,” says Maureen Daly, senior officer in Employee and Labour Relations.

The efforts of the collaboration committee have laid the foundation for a shared commitment to clarity, consistency and operational efficiency. Changes include streamlining post-retirement procedures for MAPS employees and standardizing vacation entitlements for staff moving between NASA and other staff groups or funding sources. Additional work has been done to advance the automation of probation and performance reviews for NASA staff.

Looking ahead

The implementation of the People Strategy is an ongoing, long-term journey and the initiatives outlined in this report represent our continued commitment to fostering a thriving environment at the University of Alberta. While foundational work has been completed, several key initiatives are moving into their next phases.