Date:	February 27, 2013
To:	Professional & Managerial Staff; Confidential Staff
From:	Angela Hildyard, Vice-President, Human Resources & Equity
Re:	Changes to the PM Staff Advisory Committees; Introduction of an Advisory Committee for Confidential Staff; Call for Volunteers

I am writing to advise you about some changes to the structure and terms of the Advisory Committees, and to encourage you to volunteer to serve as a committee member.

Why are we making changes?

The Professional & Managerial 1-5 and 6-9 Advisory Committees were established in 2006. Although the Committees have been a valuable forum for providing advice to me on a range of topics impacting the Professional & Managerial (PM) group, at the end of last year I consulted with a small group of PM Advisory Committee members and senior HR staff to determine if the current Advisory Committee structure was functioning optimally from the members’ perspective.

In December 2012 I then met with the current members of the PM 1-5 and 6-9 Advisory Committees as well as several members of the Confidential staff group to seek their input on a number of changes to strengthen the role of the committees. Based on this consultation and taking all the excellent feedback into account, we have made changes to the Terms of Reference, as follows:

What changes are being made?

The revised terms of reference for the Confidential and Professional & Managerial Advisory Committees have now been posted here. The key changes have been highlighted in yellow so that you can easily see what’s new. These changes include:

• In order to build upon existing communities of interest, there will now be 3 Advisory Committees – one for Confidential Staff and PM- 1 to 2; one for PM 3 to 5; and one for PM 6 to 9;
• The role of Advisory Committee members to consult with and serve as a contact for their colleagues and to bring forward the views and interests of their colleagues has been more clearly expressed;
• A joint Agenda Planning Group will be established to ensure agenda items reflect the interests of the Confidential and Professional & Managerial staff groups; and,
• Summary notes of the meetings will be posted on the HR & Equity website following each Advisory Committee meeting.

We are looking for new Advisory Committee members.

Advisory Committee members serve for 3 year terms, with the terms ending on June 30. This year we delayed the call for volunteers and nominations, and those members whose terms were to expire on June 30, 2012 agreed to stay on until the committee review process had been completed. With the changes to the committee structure now in place we have quite a large number of vacancies to fill. So this is your chance to get involved!

The following vacancies are available:

Confidential Staff and PM 1-2: 11 vacancies

PM 3-5: 15 vacancies

PM 6-9: No vacancies at this time

I encourage you to review the new Advisory Committee terms of Reference and to speak with colleagues who have served on one of the committees to hear about their experience as a committee member. Member lists of the current Advisory Committees are available here.

If you are interested in volunteering to be a member of one of the 3 Advisory Committees or if you wish to nominate a colleague, please complete and submit the volunteer / nomination form to Meredith Sandles, Secretariat to the Confidential and Professional & Managerial Advisory Committees by email at m.sandles@utoronto.ca no later than March 11, 2013. The volunteer / nomination form is available here.

Membership will be selected by my office from among the Confidential and Professional & Managerial Staff who either volunteer or are nominated by a colleague based on the criteria which are set out in the Terms of Reference.