Cherry Blossoms

Competitive and pre-emptive offers

Dean's Office contact: Divisional Dean

Faculty at the University of Washington are among the very best in their fields. As a result, they may receive opportunities for employment at peer institutions at one or more moments in their academic career. The UW engages in retention conversations as a necessary means to preserve our excellence in teaching, research, and service. We do so under the presumption that faculty are genuine in their commitments to the University of Washington and in a spirit of good faith among the parties involved. 

The purpose of a retention is to remove from consideration the possibility of a departure from the University. When a faculty member receives a formal competitive offer from a peer university, , or when a pre-emptive offer is being considered, the relevant department chair must notify the Divisional Dean to discuss an appropriate response. If a response is approved by the dean’s office, the chair may negotiate directly with the faculty member. Experience shows that retention success is closely tied to the chair's timely efforts.

The University Policy Directory states that the faculty of each academic unit shall document biennially the level of consultation, if any, they deem necessary before competitive salary offers may be made.

A “competitive offer” may be made if an individual has been offered a position (with documented evidence) at a comparable institution following the guidelines below. 

A “preemptive retention offer” is made following the guidelines below if an individual has been invited (with documented evidence) for an on-campus interview. 

Please note that retention-related salary adjustments are not guaranteed, and all such adjustments require approval by the provost. Please also note that funds utilized for retention salary adjustments almost always derive from the same pool as those used for all other salary adjustments and all hiring in the College of Arts & Sciences (e.g. there is no separate funding pool in the college to support retention-based salary adjustments). 

Retention guidelines. 

The College has established the following standards for making retention offers:

  1. The faculty member must show a concrete statement of the possibility of a job offer and provide documented evidence of the probable or already-tendered offer.
  2. The faculty member must have demonstrated both an outstanding academic record and a major impact on University programs consistent with rank and experience.
  3. The faculty member needs to have been deemed meritorious in the past three years.
  4. The competitive offer must come from a comparable institution or department. Retention responses will be unlikely  in cases where  offers are from institutions of significantly lesser reputation, even if the offered salary is higher. The College will not respond to offers from industry or other non-academic employers.
  5. The College will not respond to offers that are not competitive (e.g., a salary offer below the faculty member's current UW salary), or to offers for positions that are primarily administrative.
  6. Consideration is given to the length of time since a previous retention offer was made and how many, if any, previous retentions the faculty member had. University policy requires a minimum of three years between retention offers.
  7. Following the individual department guidelines, the department must approve the making of a retention offer before the case is presented in the College.
  8. Retentions will only be considered for faculty after two calendar years from their start date and after at least three quarters in residence.
  9. Individuals will typically have no more than two weeks to consider a retention offer from the time the offer is made.

Exceptions to these standards may only be considered under rare and extenuating circumstances.

Components of retention offers

  1. While salary adjustments for retentions are usually funded by the College, available resources are limited and requests for salary increases must receive provost approval. . Departments should be thoughtful in their consideration about  when to pursue retentions.  
  2. Requests for resources involving one-time funding will be provided through a combination of departmental, College, and University resources.

 

Making a retention offer

  1. The department will follow its adopted procedures to approve the request for a retention offer. Once approved by  the department, the following materials must be  sent to the Divisional Dean for review:
    • A copy of the competitive offer letter or documentation of interest sufficient to justify a preemptive offer;
    • The chair/director’s memo in favor of retention, giving the department’s response and addressing the retention guidelines listed above;
    • The faculty member's current curriculum vitae and copies of student and peer teaching evaluations for the past three years.
  2. The Dean and Divisional Dean, together with members of the CAS Executive Staff review the materials, and render a decision concerning the retention offer. At this point the Divisional Dean, Chair, and candidate engage in dialogue about the terms of the retention. 
  3. Once a viable and agreed upon offer has been reached, the Dean’s Office sends all required documents to the Provost for approval. 
  4. If the Provost  approves the request, the form will be forwarded to the chair and department administrator.  The dean’s office uploads the final form to DocFinity for the personnel file.
  5. A draft of the offer letter to the faculty member must be reviewed in advance by the Divisional Dean and the Associate Director of Personnel, Ivy Mason-Sharrah (see Competitive offer response sample).
  6. Once the offer has been accepted by the faculty member, the unit must request a compensation change (if relevant) in Workday.  In addition to the request, the approved retention form(s) must be uploaded to Maintain Worker Documents in Workday.
  7. Salary counteroffers will not take effect until the faculty member submits a document withdrawing from the external recruitment to their Chair and Divisional Dean. The salary counteroffer should be made effective at the beginning of the month and normally within 60 days of the Provost Office approval.
  8. When the negotiations are completed and the faculty member has submitted their decision in writing, including a signature, the department must complete the Report of competitive offer form and submit it, with attachments, to the Associate Director of Personnel, Ivy Mason-Sharrah. Please submit the form and supporting documents as a single PDF. If not sent at the time the offer is accepted, the form must be received by the effective date of the retention.
UPDATE (11/16/2023): Until further notice, there is a moratorium on new A/B salary requests.
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A/B salary requests

The fundamental purpose of the A/B Salary Policy for Faculty Retention is to insure that sufficient mechanisms exist to support the retention of University of Washington tenured and tenure-track faculty consistent with the University of Washington Faculty Salary Policy. This policy is also founded upon the principle that individual salary decisions must be based on merit assessed by a performance review conducted by faculty and administrative colleagues pursuant to the Faculty Code.  Such a policy insures that the University of Washington is able to retain the best faculty.

Although an A/B salary agreement affects the proportion of a faculty member’s salary that is supported by state-committed funding, it does not affect a faculty member’s permanent, indefinite appointment with the University.

Generally, an individual may not receive a retention salary adjustment (of any kind) for a period of three years from the effective date of the most recent retention adjustment.

For more information, see the AHR website on retention salary adjustments.