University of Washington Human Resources

FY26 Merit Process Guide

Last updated: July 14, 2025

Each year, the University of Washington engages in a consultative process with faculty councils and the Board of Deans and Chancellors to help shape the budget proposal presented to the Board of Regents. Once approved, the provost authorizes merit-based salary increases for eligible employees, effective September 1.

Merit increases are grounded in a transparent and equitable process, informed by annual performance evaluations and a commitment to recognizing ongoing contributions across the university.

For FY26,

• Merit increases: Authorized June 11, 2025
• Centrally funded unit adjustments for faculty: Not approved
• Locally funded unit adjustments for faculty: Not approved

Staff responsible for preparing and submitting salary increase recommendations should review all sections of the FY26 Process Guide in advance of merit preparation activities and throughout the submission process.

FY26 Process Guide

This process guide is intended to assist units in preparing and submitting merit recommendations for non-represented faculty, librarians, academic staff, and professional staff. Unless otherwise noted, the following information does not apply to employees represented by collective bargaining agreements; such populations will receive salary adjustments as outlined in their respective labor contracts, which can be found on the Labor Relations website.

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Eligibility

All merit-eligible populations employed by the University on September 1, 2025 must receive a merit increase unless they are determined not to be meritorious or have had an event that precludes them from receiving merit as outlined in the FY26 Process Guide. This includes employees scheduled to terminate employment on or after September 1, 2025.

Professional Staff Merit

Eligible meritorious professional staff, who have not had an event that precludes them from receiving merit, may receive an increase of between 0.5% and 10%, provided the average across the unit’s professional staff population does not exceed 2%. Recommendations for professional staff merit increases should consider factors of performance, market competitiveness, retention, and internal equity.

Professional staff who were hired, promoted, or received an “in-grade” adjustment after March 31, 2025, are precluded from receiving a merit increase, unless it was specifically indicated in other documentation that they would be eligible for a merit adjustment.

The Professional Staff Program requires that merit recommendations be supported by a current performance evaluation completed within the previous twelve months. Performance reviews for professional staff should be conducted no later than August 31, 2025. Documentation supporting salary adjustments should be retained at the unit level and must include sufficient detail to confirm that a performance evaluation has occurred in the previous 12 months.

For units where central funding will be provided for merit increases, these will only cover the actual cost of implementing merit and incremental benefits. As such, funds will not be made available to “fund/top-up” positions that are underfunded, due to recent in-grade adjustments, promotions, or new hires, or on vacant lines.

A list of professional staff titles not included in the merit process is included in the FY26 Process Guide.

Faculty Merit

Faculty Code Section 24-55 provides that faculty shall be reviewed by their colleagues to evaluate their merit and to arrive at a recommendation for an appropriate merit salary increase. Such reviews cannot be delegated to the chair or dean. Evaluation should consider the faculty member’s cumulative record, including contributions to research/scholarship, teaching, and service, as well as their impact on the department, school/college, University, and appropriate regional, national, and international communities.

All full- and part-time faculty as outlined in the Faculty Code Section 21-31 must be evaluated for merit, if they are expected to return at any point during the 2025-26 academic year. This includes paid clinical, affiliate, and visiting faculty.

All faculty members determined to be meritorious, who are not otherwise precluded from a merit adjustment, must receive a 2% merit salary increase. The approved merit increase will be calculated on the faculty member’s base salary as of August 31, 2025.

Faculty members not determined to be meritorious must be identified as such and will not receive an increase. Funds available from vacant faculty positions, precluded positions, or positions of those not determined to be meritorious shall not be redistributed.

A list of academic personnel titles not included in the merit process is included in the FY26 Process Guide.

Librarians (non-represented)

Librarians, not represented through a collective bargaining agreement, who have been determined to be meritorious and are not otherwise precluded, may receive a merit salary increase between 0.5% and 10% provided the average across the unit’s eligible population does not exceed 2%.

Academic Staff Merit

Academic staff as defined in APS 40.1, who have been determined to be meritorious and are not otherwise precluded, may receive a merit salary increase between 0.5% and 10% provided the average across the unit’s academic staff population does not exceed 2%.

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Funding

The FY26 2% merit pool is authorized and partially funded by the state of Washington operating budget, as signed by Governor Jay Inslee. An employee’s funding source shall not determine their eligibility. However, approved increases and associated benefits costs should come from sources funding the appointment.

Consistent with past practice, UW Seattle Academic units, UW Bothell and UW Tacoma will be responsible for self-funding the incremental impact of merit, negotiated union agreements and benefit load rate increases. UW Seattle Administrative units will receive central support for the incremental impact of merit, negotiated union agreements and benefit load rate increases based on FY26 budgeted values within core operating resources.

FY26 benefit load rates have been revised from preliminary FY26 rates to incorporate the effect of the 2% merit pool, the anticipated impacts of ratified classified employee agreements and the effect of legislative decisions to dramatically increase healthcare costs borne by state agencies, including UW, in FY26. Updated benefit load rates and the 2% merit assumption have been loaded into Adaptive Planning.

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Timeline

The table below outlines major activities and deadlines associated with preparation and submission.

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Preparation and data clean-up

Units must review and ensure data used in the merit is correct. If errors are identified, units must complete corrective action by July 31. Completion means no approval steps remain on the Workday business process. Addressing data errors helps ensure that accurate information is pulled into official merit spreadsheet files.

The official merit files–created and distributed by UWHR in early August–contain Workday data that projects what each merit-eligible employee’s record will look like on August 31. This date is important since salary increases will be calculated on the projected August 31 full-time monthly base salary. When verifying and cleaning up data, it is especially important to confirm pay and position details as of this date.

Note: During the clean-up process, do not submit or save draft transactions with an effective date of September 1 or later; they will be rescinded.

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Clean-up procedure

1. Run the Merit Data Audit Report R0536 (“R0536”) available in Workday
2. Review and confirm the following data:
   • All merit-eligible employees show up on the report
   • Supervisory organization is correct
   • Full-time monthly base pay is accurate
   • Compensation is a non-zero number
   • Practice plan allowance (if one exists) has been updated commensurate with the FTE
   • If UW employment will continue, Compensation Actual End Date extends beyond August 31 and matches End Employment Date on the position
   • If UW employment will end prior to September 1, a termination has been processed and fully completed in Workday; employees terminated prior to September 1 are not eligible for merit
3. Initiate corrective action in Workday if you identify data errors during the above review; ensure all approvals associated with corrective transactions are completed by July 31.
4. Run R0536 again after errors have been addressed to verify data is correct. Errors will continue to show on the report until the corrective transaction completes through the associated approval chain. Re-run the report regularly to check for new errors.

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Key considerations during merit preparation

Keep on top of your data clean-up deadlines. Remember, the deadline for data clean-up is July 31. Failure to run R0536 and clean data accordingly could cause serious errors with the data load into Workday and result in a delay of salary increase, over/underpayment, or significant time/effort/frustration for unit staff, campus partners, and merit recipients.

Discuss anticipated increases with all impacted units. Units that share funding for a position must discuss the anticipated increase with all impacted units. An employee’s approved increase will be distributed proportionally to the existing costing allocation.

Know your eligible populations. Unless otherwise indicated in the “Job Profiles Not Included in the Merit Process” section below or the “Positions Precluded from Merit Due to the PERC Petition” section below, salaried personnel in paid status, including faculty with courtesy or part-time appointments, are eligible and will appear on the official file.

Don’t zero out compensation. Employees with zero compensation will not be on the official file. Do not zero out compensation as a means of delaying the termination or reappointment process. Doing so is against university policy and will result in serious data errors.

Avoid restricted transactions. As indicated in the “Restricted Entry Period” section below, select transactions are restricted beginning in August. Once approved salary increases are successfully loaded, the restricted entry period will end and units will be able to enter new transactions freely. Transactions that block the merit process will be cancelled, including transactions that have been drafted or ‘saved’ for future processing.

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Using merit data audit report R0536

The Merit Data Audit Report R0536 (“R0536”) is an important part of the clean-up process. When using the report, keep the following in mind:

• By default, R0536 displays information projected for August 31. For merit preparation purposes, units should not change the report date.
• Data is extracted based on supervisory organization.
• R0536 looks only at merit-eligible job profiles.
• If a single worker has unique position numbers in different supervisory organizations, R0536 only displays positions belonging to your supervisory organization. Units with faculty who hold joint appointments must work with the joint unit to agree upon and match recommended percent increases.
• Compensation information is displayed in full-time monthly rates
• ‘End Employment Date’ ,‘General Salary Plan Actual End Date’ and ‘Practice Plan Actual End Date’ are displayed only if they exist in Workday
• ‘Date of Last Base Pay Change’ is the date of the most recent transaction in Workday that may have changed UW base pay. Note: Some compensation change actions in Workday don’t result in a change in actual compensation (e.g., Extend Compensation End Date). Units should review the employee’s Workday record to understand whether a change in compensation actually occurred that could serve as a basis for precluding the individual from a salary increase.

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Restricted entry period

To support an accurate data load, select Workday transactions are restricted for merit-eligible populations leading up to merit implementation. Other job profiles, including those listed in the “Job Profiles Not Included in the Merit Process” section below, are not subject to the restricted entry period.

The restricted entry period is August 1 – September 11. Review the table below for details on specific restrictions.

NOTE: Termination, Costing Allocation, One Time Payment, and Period Activity Pay transactions as well as transactions utilizing UWHIRES are not restricted at any point during merit preparation. Terminations should be processed in Workday in a timely manner.

Restricted Entry Period: August 1 – September 11

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File submission process

In early August, UWHR will distribute official files to units for each population authorized for salary increases. Do not add rows to the official file as that may compromise embedded formulas and data accuracy.

The official file is a locked Excel spreadsheet. To complete it, the unit will complete the following steps for each employee included on the file:

Step 1: Enter a Merit Reason Code

• Choose the most applicable merit reason code from the drop-down menu in the merit reason code column
• Review the “Merit Reason Codes” section below for definitions and guidance
• If requested, units must provide documentation to support their selection

Step 2: Enter recommended merit percentage

• Faculty merit percentages must be either 0% or 2%; no other values are permitted
• Librarians who are meritorious and not otherwise precluded may receive an increase between 0.5% – 10% provided the average across the unit’s academic staff population does not exceed 2%; if individual will not receive a merit increase, enter “0%”
• Academic staff as defined in APS 40.1 who meritorious and not otherwise precluded may receive an increase between 0.5% – 10% provided the average across the unit’s academic staff population does not exceed 2%; if individual will not receive a merit increase, enter “0%”
• Professional staff who are meritorious and not otherwise precluded may receive an increase between 0.5% – 10% provided the average across the unit’s professional staff population does not exceed 2%; if individual will not receive a merit increase, enter “0%”.
• For jointly appointed faculty, the primary appointing unit must have the concurrence of the secondary unit(s). The increase will be applied to the primary appointing unit, unless the joint appointment exists across two positions in which case each position will receive the same percentage increase.
• For non-faculty files, a cell at the top of the file will track the unit’s merit percent average. This is a rolling average and will only be accurate once you enter recommended increases (including 0%) for every employee on the file.

Step 3: As applicable, add detail to the Additional Information column

• Provide additional context that may help UWHR better understand merit recommendations of ‘preclude’ or ‘ineligible’ such as ‘received ingrade salary increase after 4/1/25 cutoff’ or ‘ineligible due to unsatisfactory performance evaluation’
• If an employee has a retirement, resignation, or termination date effective prior to September 1, but the Workday process was not completed by July 31, note the retirement/resignation/termination effective date and confirm the transaction has been processed in Workday. An employee whose separation is effective after September 1 is eligible for merit.
• If the proposed increase is held in abeyance due to an active inquiry, indicate “Hold in abeyance” with details as appropriate.
• NOTE: Information in this column is not loaded into Workday

Step 4: Submit completed spreadsheets by August 15

• All completed spreadsheets should be sent to meritprocess@uw.edu with the standard subject line of <staff/faculty/librarian/academic staff> merit file submission. For example: SOM staff merit file submission or COE faculty merit file submission.

A reminder that all increases are calculated on the projected August 31 full-time monthly base rate, regardless of actual FTE or funding source. New September 1 full-time monthly base rates are rounded up to the nearest dollar.

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Merit reason codes

Academic personnel merit reason codes and definitions

Professional staff merit reason codes and definitions

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Load and validation of data

Between September 8-11, units must confirm that approved increases have loaded as intended into Workday, by running the R0537 report in Workday and checking the output against the approved official file(s). NOTE: R0537 is not the same report that was used for data clean-up. If the unit identifies errors, they should follow steps outlined in the “Corrections and Changes” section below.

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Merit considerations for annual or shorter-term faculty

It is the responsibility of individual units to award meritorious faculty a merit increase in compliance with the Faculty Salary Policy. Meritorious faculty who received compensation at any point during 2024-25 academic year, but have not been reappointed, rehired, or are not in active pay status on September 1, 2025 are due the equivalent of a merit increase should they be reappointed, rehired, or returned to paid status at any point during the 2025-26 academic year. A salary increase equivalent to the percent authorized for faculty merit must be factored into the new base salary upon rehire and the appointment letter should note the salary as inclusive of a merit increase.

This applies to all faculty as identified in the Faculty Code Section 21-31, including those with part-time or full-time appointments in clinical, acting, affiliate, or visiting faculty ranks/titles, teaching associates, lecturers, and artists in residence.

Annual or shorter-term faculty who have been processed for Fall 2025 reappointment should appear on the official file, provided they are active or on summer hiatus. If a unit is unsure of their 2025-26 workforce needs and has not reappointed an existing annual or shorter-term faculty member, the unit should terminate the employee and rehire when they are ready to make an employment commitment. As noted above, units should factor the equivalent of a merit increase into the individual’s salary upon rehire. Units should not zero out compensation as a means of circumventing the termination process as that is against university policy and will result in serious data errors.

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Corrections and changes

A correction is in order when a recommendation was entered on the official file and approved by UWHR, but did not load into Workday correctly. If a unit identifies such an error when validating increases loaded into Workday, they must submit a correction request as soon as possible and no later than September 15 to ensure the error is corrected in time for the September 25 pay date.

A change is when a unit would like to revise the percentage or merit reason code after it has already been approved by UWHR. Please be aware that there is no guarantee that review, approval, and loading of changes will be completed in time to appear on September 25 pay slips. As such, it is critical that units carefully consider recommendations they enter onto the official file before submitting them for institutional review. It is the provost’s expectation that there will be an extremely limited need for changes.

‘Corrections’ are prioritized ahead of ‘changes’.

If an individual was omitted from the official file when they shouldn’t have been, it is often a result of a data error with their Workday record or the timing of their hire relative to the merit review. In such cases, the unit should contact UWHR at meritprocess@uw.edu to confirm merit eligibility and get information on next steps.

Submitting Corrections or Changes

Before submitting a correction or change, verify with your dean/chancellor/VP office unit administrator that the employee was listed on the official file and that the increase was approved by UWHR.

To submit a correction or change, create a UW Connect ticket by emailing your request to meritprocess@uw.edu.

The subject line must indicate your unit, whether it is a correction or a change, and the employment category (e.g., “SOM MERIT CORRECTION – Academic”, “SPH MERIT CHANGE – Staff”).

UW Connect ticket must include the following information as applicable:

• Employee Name
• EID
• Position Number
• Full-time Monthly Salary Rate in effect as of August 31, 2025
• Full-time Monthly Salary Rate to be effective September 1, 2025
• Proposed merit percentage
• Proposed merit reason code
• A change in an UWHR-approved percentage or reason code must include a description of and rationale for the requested change, and an attestation that the dean/chancellor/unit head has approved the revision. Supporting documentation of dean/chancellor/unit head approval should be maintained in the department. Upon UWHR approval, the change will be processed centrally.

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Contacts

For additional questions not addressed in this process guide, please contact the appropriate resource identified below and include “Merit Process Question” as the subject line of your email.

• For general merit questions, your first point of contact should be your dean’s/VP office unit administrator.
• For questions on how to cancel or rescind actions in Workday, email HRhelp@uw.edu.

If you have questions that cannot be resolved by your dean’s/VP office, the dean’s/VP office unit administrator should reach out to the contacts below, as appropriate:

• Merit processes
  Email UWHR at meritprocess@uw.edu.
• Faculty merit policies
  Email acadpers@uw.edu.
• Professional staff in-grade and review processes
  Email your Assigned Compensation Consultant or uwhrcomp@uw.edu (for campus) or medcomp@uw.edu (for medical centers).

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Job profiles not included in the merit process

Academic personnel job profiles not included in the merit process

Academic personnel represented by the following union contracts are not included in the merit process:

• RFPU – Northwest
• AFT
• UAW – Postdoctoral Employees (Postdocs)
• SEIU 925 – Libraries

Professional staff job profiles not included in the merit process

ICA Contract Staff Program and Print Plant employees are not professional staff and are not eligible for professional staff merit.

Former Professional Staff, now known as Represented Civil Service Exempt Staff, who are represented by the following union contracts are not eligible for professional staff merit:

• SAG-AFTRA KUOW
• SEIU 925 – Libraries
• SEIU 925 – IHME
• UAW 4121 – Research Scientist/Engineer Assistant, 1, 2, 3 and 4

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Positions precluded from merit due to PERC petitions

The following groups of employees are in status quo due to open petitions for representation or interim certification with PERC (Public Employment Relations Commission) and are not eligible for professional staff merit:

• Professional staff employees who advise students or prospective students on financial aid funding for education, enrollment and admissions, academics and courses, career paths, and professional development (filed by SEIU 925 on 6/28/24)
• Professional staff in Continuum College (filed by SEIU 925 on 6/28/24, interim certification issued on 9/19/24)
• Employees in the following Job Classifications: Research Coordinator; Research Consultant (filed by UAW on 9/10/24, interim certification issued on 3/27/25)

During the time between the filing of the petitions and the resolution of the question of union representation, Washington collective bargaining law requires UW to maintain a state of “dynamic status quo.” While UW may implement final decisions already made, UW must not make any decisions to change wages (i.e., retention adjustments, in-grade compensation changes, merit), hours (i.e., FTE changes) and working conditions (i.e., a schedule change, work location, or a material change in workload) for employees included the representation petitions until the question of union representation for those employees has been decided.

If the unit is certified at the end of the representation process, the “status quo” must remain in place until a collective bargaining agreement is ratified and signed. During this time when a first contract is being negotiated, it is important to be mindful that the employer may not deal directly with any employees concerning their working conditions and terms of employment and must work with the union on such issues instead.

To comply with the dynamic status quo rule, employees included in the three groups below will not be merit eligible, unless advised by Labor Relations:

1. Professional staff employees who advise students or prospective students on financial aid funding for education, enrollment and admissions, academics and courses, career paths, and professional development
   • The University has employees performing student advising work in a wide variety of titles. Departments must use the “Precluded – Position in Collective Bargaining” reason code for all employees performing student advising work, unless advised by Labor Relations. Awarding merit to an employee in status quo is a violation of status quo and may result in an overpayment.
2. Professional staff in Continuum College
   • Continuum College must use the “Precluded – Position in Collective Bargaining” reason code for all pro staff employees, unless advised by UW Labor Relations. Awarding merit to an employee in status quo is a violation of status quo and may result in an overpayment.
3. Employees in the following Job Classifications: Research Coordinator; Research Consultant
   • Departments must use the “Precluded – Position in Collective Bargaining” reason code for all Research Coordinator and Research Consultant employees, unless advised by UW Labor Relations. Awarding merit to an employee in status quo is a violation of status quo and may result in an overpayment.

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Glossary

Below are select terms and policies associated with merit and faculty unit adjustments. The descriptions are intended to provide broad context. Where appropriate, links to more detailed or authoritative definitions are provided in the Reference column. [EO = Executive Order; FC = Faculty Code]

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Policies

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