Long Service Awards Matter

By Debra Jacklin, Manager, Talent Acquisition, Development and Retention Strategies

VIU’s Long Service Award program recognizes that an employees’ investment of their professional time is an honour for VIU, and to have employees who wish to invest 10 years or more of their professional lives here is a gift worth celebrating.

Long Service Awards are handed out annually to employees who achieved milestone employment dates in the previous year. *  These awards celebrate the work anniversaries of those who have dedicated a significant portion of their professional career to their work at VIU. Starting with the acknowledgment of ten-year anniversaries, the VIU Long Service Award program celebrates employment milestones in five-year increments all the way up to the 45-year mark. If anyone ever reaches 50 years, they will be honoured at that milestone.

Congratulations to Jane Cole for being our first recipient of the 45-year award, received in 2020!

The Long Service Awards honour our colleagues for their dedication to VIU and our students, as well as for the skill and wisdom they bring to the VIU community.

“For a post-secondary institution to thrive, we need a rich mixture of insights, education, backgrounds and experiences. Your knowledge is tremendously important in ensuring we stay on course.”

-Dr. Deborah Saucier, President and Vice-Chancellor on Long Service.

Recognizing anniversaries is important -- they allow us to celebrate our commitment and dedication to a chosen path. It’s also an opportunity for VIU to acknowledge that the work employees do matters, and the commitment has made a difference. Traditionally, we celebrate in person and plan to continue doing so as the pandemic allows.

An average of 118 employees receive long service awards each year.

This year, we look forward to distributing the long service certificates to recipients on April 26 and 27 via a booth outside of the Campus Store. For those who are long service dignitaries and have given VIU 25 years of service or more, awarded in both 2020 and in 2021, an exclusive event will be held for them on May 10. Details on both these events will be emailed to award recipients.

We asked long serving employees from each milestone group, When think back on your career at VU, what are you most proud of and why? And here is what we learned:

*How to calculate your long service award date:

Calculating your long service or employment milestone date will include your regular, temporary and term work. Guidelines for this date are as follows:

• All regular employees will receive a Long Service Award date that will include temporary/term work. 
• The Long Service Award date will be the first temporary/term start date in any jurisdiction held by the employee, unless there has been a break of 24 months or greater between temporary/term/ appointments with no earnings of any type. Then the LSA date will be the start date of the first of the temporary/term appointment held after such a break. 
• An employee who retires and returns as a regular employee will maintain their original LSA date as long as there has not been a break of 24 months since retirement.

Congratulations to all the Long Service Award winners for 2021!