Hiring Professional Staff

A Professional Staff member is an employee who provides leadership, management, and/or program direction in collaboration with executive administration, faculty, and classified staff in the following areas:  professional instruction; research; university infrastructure; and the student learning experience. 

Permanent

A permanent professional staff employee is an employee whose term of appointment is greater than 6 months or more than 50% full-time equivalent.

A Professional Staff – Permanent position will require a recruitment, or Opportunity Appointment through the Office of Civil Rights and Title IX Compliance.

Temporary

A temporary professional staff employee is an employee whose term of appointment is less than 6 months or less than 50% full-time equivalent.

For Help

For help with any of these steps, please reach out to Stephanie Norsby

Step 1: Planning your hire

Temporary Hires

To hire for a temporary position, please submit a position description through PageUp. Once your position description is reviewed, you will work with HR for the hiring process.

Please see below under "Step 2: The Hiring Process" for additional Temporary Hire information.

Step 2: The hiring process

Submit a Personnel Action Form

After selecting a candidate, submit a Personnel Action Form and attach the signed offer letter.  If you need help completing this form, please contact Human Resources’ HRIS Unit (HRIS@wwu.edu).

Note about Temporary Hires:

If you are utilizing PageUp for your temporary hire, please reach out to your HR Consultant as the process may be different.

  1. Prior to extending an offer a Sexual Misconduct Check must be completed.  Please reach out to Charlotte Casson to start the process.
  2. Temporary employees will need to apply into an open temporary pool to be considered.  If there is not a current temporary pool available that matches the duties/responsibilities needed for your position, we can post a temporary opening for you on our online application site (PageUp) for a minimum of 3 days. Please contact Stephanie.Norsby@wwu.edu for access to the current temporary pools or if you have any questions about the temporary hiring process.
  3. Provide the candidate with the temporary professional staff offer letter. Please note, if any of the information changes in the future, a new letter will need to be provided to the temporary employee. Temporary Professional Staff Offer Letter Template

Hiring Temporary Professional Staff FAQ

You only need to submit a position description if the duties have changed.

Yes. A new Professional Staff offer letter will need to be signed and submitted to HR. This can be done by attaching it to the PA or if you have already submitted the PA, please send through Campus Mail (MS 9054). The form must reflect information according to the Personnel Action form.

A temporary professional staff employee is an employee whose term of appointment is less than 6 months or less than 50% full-time equivalent.

A temporary professional staff employee is an employee whose term of appointment is less than 6 months or less than 50% full-time equivalent. If you are extending a position, the position as a whole must still meet this definition. If you have questions about extending a temporary position, please contact HR

Temporary staff are eligible for employer-paid Public Employees Benefits Board (PEBB) insurances if they work an average of half time or more (480 hours: 80 hours x 6 months) in a consecutive six-month period, with at least eight hours or more in each of the six months. 

After hiring

New Hire Paperwork

Note: New hires need to complete new hire paperwork prior to starting their position and cannot begin work until their Form I-9 is completed. They can stop by Human Resources (Humanities Bldg., Room 203) anytime during our office hours: M-F, 8-5 (closed major holidays).  Please contact contact Human Resources with any questions.