New employees

Welcome to our campus and our community! We hope the information in this section will help familiarize you to our extraordinary organization and all that it has to offer. We look forward to getting to know you.

New employee guides

Download UVic's Employee Handbook and Indigenous Employee Guide. These documents will provide you with information and answers to questions you may have while you navigate your first few weeks.

Have questions about your benefit coverage or enrolment? Email us at benefits@uvic.ca. Join the Benefits Office Mailing List to keep updated on benefits information and resources!

Below you will find information on:

new employee welcome events
new Indigenous staff welcome and honouring ceremony
new employee campus tour
quick links for new employees

New employee welcome events

New employee welcome events are annual events that take place online and in person.

Audience: These events are open to any regular-continuing, extended-term, or sessional employees who have begun work within the past year or who have never attended a new employee welcome before. Invitations with registration details are circulated to new employees and their supervisors via email. Supervisors are strongly encouraged to support shift coverage so that all new employees receive the benefit of this engagement opportunity.

Contact: For questions about these events, please email odls1@uvic.ca

New Indigenous staff welcome and honouring ceremony

New Indigenous employees will be blanketed in ceremony and formally request permission to live and work on these lands, and a local Elder will then welcome them to these lands. Indigenous employees from this territory may not be requesting permission to work on these lands but may still wish to be honoured and protected in their new role by being blanketed. Non-Indigenous attendees will also have the opportunity to collectively request permission to work on these lands in accordance with traditional Coast Salish protocols.

If you yourself are Indigenous and a new employee and would like to request permission to live and work on these lands by taking part in the blanketing ceremony, or you are from these territories and would like to be blanketed, please connect with Lalita Kines or Margaret Charlie who will share more detailed information about the ceremony and next steps.

Please visit the event page for more information.

All staff are invited to witness the ceremony by attending in person or watching online.

New employee welcome (online)

An informative session where you will be given opportunities to participate in conversations designed to highlight our university culture, values and community, while meeting other new people from various spaces on campus.

This online event is typically followed by a new employee lunch. Further details below and on the events page. Please register for both sessions.

New employee lunch

This is a casual lunch event. Come and get to know your colleagues! For more information please visit the new employee events page.

New employee tour

The UVic Welcome Centre, in partnership with Human Resources, offers a monthly, 90 minute, campus tour via golf cart for new employees or employees who have yet to have experienced a tour. Registration is on a first-come-first serve basis. Tours will comply with current campus health and masking guidelines.

Take a Virtual Tour of Campus