Guidance on completing leave statements:
Academic staff are required to complete online leave statements to reflect both the type and amount of leave used during a pay period.  In order to allow adequate processing time, academic staff are expected to submit absence requests within a week of taking leave. Where possible, please submit absence requests before taking vacation. Absence requests are submitted through an online self service system within the My UW Portal.  

Core working hours: Full-time academic staff are expected to work an average of 40 hours a week. Generally, the onsite offices are open from 8:15 am – 4:30 pm. Arrival and departure times can vary, and staff should communicate with their supervisor if they are seeking a work schedule that falls outside of these hours. 

Paid leave: Academic staff paid leave categories

Unpaid leave: These options are available for staff for unpaid leave.  

Dress code: The Office has a “Dress for the Day” dress code, meaning:

Casual dress (including jeans) is acceptable if not interacting with non-IRB staff.

Business casual (e.g., skirts, non-jean pants, collared shirts, dresses) should be worn if going to an IRB committee meeting, meeting with faculty or non-IRB staff, or presenting to non-IRB staff.

These platforms should be utilized for UW-Madison work purposes and use of these platforms for personal purposes should be kept to a minimum.  

Microsoft Teams: The IRB Office uses Microsoft Teams to facilitate communication. Staff should log in and monitor their Teams activity and chat daily. Teams chats should receive a response by the end of the day unless you receive a message near the end of the day and don't have a chance to reply before logging off. In that case, following up the next morning would be appropriate. General guidelines for posting to Team channels are listed in HRPP/General/Files/HRPP Teams Structure here. 

Zoom: The IRB Office uses the Zoom platform for large web-conferencing meetings, including convened IRB meetings and Staff meetings. IRB Staff should set up Zoom meetings using the UW-Madison’s instance of Zoom available here.   

Box: The IRB Office utilizes UW-Madison’s instance of Box for file storage and sharing available here. New IRB Staff will be given access to shared office Box folders when onboarding. Departing IRB Staff should ensure that any work-related Box folders have been transitioned prior to departure from UW-Madison. 

Staff meetings are held virtually on Fridays from 10 – 11:30 am. The IRB leadership team, in conjunction with the IRB Staff Training Workgroup plan the agendas, which typically include HRPP-related training and then IRB staff Q&A. The IRB leadership team facilitates the discussion and sends out meeting invites and agendas. The HRPP trainings are typically recorded for staff who are unable to attend to watch later. 

Staff are encouraged to take advantage of Professional Development and Professional Mentoring Opportunities.

Engagement tracking: The IRB Office maintains tracking information about IRB staff member’s professional development activities, along with the outreach and training activities conducted by the office annually.  This information is used in annual reports to the OVCRGE leadership, as well as in the annual QEE report.  IRB staff members should update their engagement tracking information periodically throughout the year using the tracking spreadsheet available here.  

Travel requests (including Webinars): Once approved by supervisor, IRB staff can contact Office Administrator to purchase conference or webinar.  The Blue sheet is to be used with P-Card expenses.  For on-campus events purchased with funding string a Purchase Request form needs to be completed.  

Turnaround times: A primary measure of the IRB Office’s efficiency is turnaround time metrics. Turnaround time metrics are compiled annually for the HRPP QEE report, but IRB Leadership also monitors turnaround times periodically throughout the year to ensure that the IRB Office is maintaining office-level and individual analyst-level turnaround times. General expectations are as follows:  

    Full board IRs and changes time from IRB submission to first pre-review comments sent: 10-14 days 

    Expedited and exempt initials and changes time from IRB submission to first pre-review comments sent: 5-7 days 

Prioritization tracking: IRB Office Team Managers are responsible for assisting IRB analysts in prioritizing their daily review workloads.  The Team Managers prepare a prioritization tracking report weekly for analysts to use in managing their workloads. Team Managers also reassign review items as needed based on workloads and analyst outages.  The prioritization report is run by the ARROW IT team weekly and provided to the IRB Office for updating and presentation to the analysts.  Further information about the prioritization tracking process is available here.   

Telephone numbers are for internal use ONLY: Staff WFH Schedule and Private Phone Numbers