Minutes for October 2007

Thursday, October 18, 2007, 2 p.m.
Avaya Auditorium - ACES building

Members Present

Denise Berry, Benjamin Bond, Steven Brahm, Linda Breining, Layne Brewster-Smith, Greg Browning, Drew Carls, Johnnie Conley, Tommy Downey, Lara Eakins, Nelson Fahlund, Danielle Fournier, John Goutier, Martha Harrison, Janice Hejl, Bob Hemby, Sarah Hickey, Dreya Johannsen, Troy Johnson, Emil Kresl, Vicki Kullberg, Richard Lee, Gary Martt, Cindy May, Michael McFarlin, Domingo Morales, Rita Moreno, Joyce Moyer, Linda Overton, Martha Ramey, Janet Reed, Ben Rodriguez, Christopher Scherer, Mark Smyth, Allison Supancic, Barbara Thompson, Mindy Thompson, Robert Walker, Erin Waneck, Leigh Ashley Williams, Blake Willms, Brittany Wilson, Helen Wormington, Denise Zuniga.

Members Absent With Notification

Joe Barroso, Sharon Bernard, Craig Blaha, Gus Castellanos, Vickie Drake, Lisa Gentry, Bretna Hackert, Debra Madden, Jennifer McClain, Pamela Owen, Eric Patkowski, Monica Pena-Mercado, Meredith Taylor, Henna Tayyeb, Dixie Terry

Members Absent

Timothy Barber, Emily Barrett, Chrissi Guerrero, Phillip Guerrero, Sara Jackson Watson, Rebecca Ledbetter, Shelton Lewis, Elaine Rafferty, Felix Sanchez Jr., Evan Turner, Vicki Nguyen-Student Rep

Meeting commenced at 2 p.m. with quorum present.

Chair:

Announcement: Next meeting is Thursday, November 15, 2007 from noon to 3 p.m., Gregory Gym Game Room for Thanksgiving pot luck luncheon and meeting. There is an oven and a fridge that we can use. Notice this is our normal meeting time and lunch combined.

Introduces Connie Deutsch

• Connie is from the Employee Assistance Program (Work Life Services) and is presenting the new division called Work Life Balance.
• They restructured and expanded the EAP to be called Work Life Services. Companies and employers have realized that if the employee feels balanced between their work and their home they are more productive, efficient and happy.
• EAP has joined with University of Texas at Austin Child Development Centers for an additional Brown Bagging each month called Lunch Box Series and these deal with child/parenting issues.
• Work Life Balance has taken over the issue of lactation looms for working moms, which UTSC introduced. These are now considered “Comfort” or “Quiet Rooms.” They are working with Pat Clubb to get such rooms as part of the construction of new buildings and hope to locate areas that can be designated within exiting buildings, one building at a time. These are lockable rooms and will be available for people who are recovering from cancer, and other illnesses, too.
• In late December or January, EAP and HRS will join in talking to managers and supervisors across campus about why Work Life is important to them. Some such topics will be flex time, telecommuting, and more of these types of things within the office. They consider SEB (Staff Education Benefit) to fall into Work Life because it is a way to promote an individual’s growth and is already in place.
• EAP is working closely with the office of the Dean of Students and Student Council about campus safety to educate how to deal with agitated and disturbed individuals. We have a no tolerance policy on violence at the university.

Q&A

Danielle Fournier: Do you get a lot of calls for fitness for duty and have people take advantage of it.

Yes, we do. fitness for duty is when someone seems to be impaired and does not appear to be themselves. They may not be able to focus, dizzy and it is interfering with their job that could be a safety hazard. So, instead of giving them a disiplanary action we can intervene and give them feed back and assess the situation which allows time for them to see a doctor before coming back to work. This can be emotional or physical.

E Mark Smyth: How do you get a "Quiet Room" in a building, and who do you contact?

We will meet with them to act as a consultant to give guidance, but can not force the issue; we just meet and evaluate the situation. The tenants have to come to the agreement. I can act as the contact. Part of our job is educating the managers.

Erin Waneck: How do you get the word out about the location of these rooms?

We are in the process of designing a Work Life Resources web page. As soon as we have some of these rooms open we hope to get a map of all the approved areas. Currently we have to find out who is in charge of the buildings and get the word out through them.

CHAIR:

• Thanks Connie Deutsch for coming
• Update on the Employee Advisory Council.

• We share many of the same issues.
• Career ladder, leadership training, laid off employee processes.
• Committee suggested a survey of job satisfaction to be considered.
• Recruitment and retention for confident and qualified staff within the hospitals.
• The university health science discussed the need for cost of living raise.
• Wellness is a great and hot topic but many are unsure on how to implement it. The state gives 40 minutes a week and some are willing to wait to see how they implement it.
• Diversity, make it more then just a word in hiring and training.
• Performance evaluations, making them more meaningful and carry more weight and help the employee.
• Review the suspension procedure for any area that may need to improve.
• Continuity and retention planning. Sixty-five percent of health services staff is eligible to retire within the next few years.

RECORDING SECRETARY

Approval of September minutes (Quorum Present)

• Moved to pass
• 2nd the motion
• Minutes approved

CHAIR

Asks if anyone can donate a turkey for our November meeting, or knows of someone/place who may do so.

CHAIR

Employee Discount Program

Three years after Debra Madden submitted this proposal, HRS and TRECS have created the Web site and procedure for vendors to sign up. Now we just need vendors. HRS gave us a few postcards that you can give to your favorite vendors and the instructions are on the back. It is a very easy process:

1. You offer a discount. We put it on our Web site. University employees see it!
2. Go to the EDP Web site.
3. Click on "New Vendor".
4. Read and agree to the participation guidelines.
5. Complete online application.
6. We’ll contact you with confirmation

Co CHAIR: Report on the Employee Advisory Committee (UTEAC)

• While many of our goals seem to be in line with each other, the process to get there isn’t always the same. Some Schools do not use Define, some do not have payroll online and others still do everything on paper.
• The Health Services seem to use surveys a lot more than other schools. They survey their employees continually to see how they are.
• Communication access needs to be broader. It was suggested that during new staff orientation everyone be given their email address at that time. This is important because so much is communicated this way, and everyone needs access to this media.
• University of Texas - PAN AM took this initiative and they put a computer in public areas across campus so everyone can have access.
• Proposal 08-02 and 08-04: asks for an EAC newsletter and for a webmaster respectfully. The recommendation was to have the Web site properly maintained, updated and user friendly. If this does not fix these issues then they will be revisited.
• Proposal 08-??(Proposed from floor by Erin Waneck): Surveys to The University of Texas System Staff to ascertain employee satisfaction. This will be discussed with Dan Stewart. A poll should be taken at the committee report session, to determine the desire of the Council, as a whole, to administer such a "survey". It is recommended that the questions be very straight forward with the ability to answer in short responses.
• Proposal 08-??(Proposed from floor by Danielle Fournier): Expresses the importance of communications resources for all University of Texas Systems Employees. Component institutions to be responsible for communications basic training, i.e. accessing email accounts for each employee, accessing University of Texas Systems Web site, accessing University of Texas Component and HRS site, familiarity with updating online personnel profile and choosing/updating employee benefits.
• Safety Communications issues, would the Council be interested in having Risk Management come to speak in the spring. University of Texas Pan Am had all their communications go down and there needs to be systems in place for just such an emergency.
• Proposal 08-??(Proposed from floor by Danielle Fournier): iTunes U, would University of Texas Systems be interesting in taking the lead to put a site for the University of Texas at Austin on iTunes. The aspects of doing this will be looked into and information will be gathered to report in Spring 08. If A&M can do it why can’t the university.
  • Barbara Thompson 212: This has stopped dead and Juan Garcia has addressed the President’s office concerning this matter The President has gave him some names but not much more has been done.
  • Danielle: I’m surprised that this hasn’t happened sooner since we strive to be a benchmark institution.
• Q: Joyce Moyer 462: Are the surveys hired out or in house?
  -Yes, they are hired out; they were done mainly by the Health services
  -Erin, they seem to be hired out because they are such small schools they don’t have the staff, and they don’t think they should survey themselves.
  -Joyce, that helps me in my reasoning to have an outside survey done on raises, who’s getting them and who’s not. This is a outstanding issues that is quite large and this could help in this challenge.

CHAIR

• Please remember that at the November meeting all committees will be giving updates on their issues. If you haven’t met you’ll need to do so and if you worked on the Facilities Committee before and have any information you can pass on please contact Tom Downey.
• Update: We had thought that Facility’s need for computer access had been addressed, when in fact it is still an issue and we need to stay on top of this. Julien Carter has said Public Affairs formed a committee to study communications in a more global way to see who all is affected and what ways can this be addressed. So, if anyone would like to take charge of this, please talk to Rhonda Weldon from the Vice President of Employee and Campus Services's office to become a member of her committee concerning this topic.

CHAIR introduces Janice Hejl 681, Chair of the Grievance Committee

• Erin: Who received the DRO (Dispute Resolution Officer) survey from HRS that are on UTSC (3 people present had), and it went out to 3,000 random staff.
• Janice: We are attempting to close out the DRO survey issue. The launch of this survey from HRS brings it to a head. We got the first draft of this survey in August and got to give some feed back on this at that time. Sam Cruz is the man for HRS collecting the data and will send weekly reports to the Grievance Committee on this matter. November 5th is the last day to fill out the survey.
• We asked why they sent out this survey to random staff as opposed to the entire staff population. The response to why the survey was sent out anonymously and to just a select few was because this makes it impossible to figure out whoever doesn’t fill out the survey, and sampling will help reduce statistical bias. So, the use of sampling captures a representative data of the staff population on campus. Lastly, HRS talked to the office of Survey Research and they assisted HRS with the creation of the sampling methodology.
• One of the reasons for this survey was to heighten the awareness of the staff with DRO and what they do.
• However, this survey does not in fact do this. So, we are still looking into matters pertaining to this and we will look into how many DRO issues have in fact gone to the VP office, resolved and unresolved. After talking with Sam, if it is ok and does not compromise the survey, I will get copies of the survey out to anyone who would like to see it.

Q&A

Erin Waneck: did they think about using this as an exit survey to get feed back from those who gone through the DRO?

That has not come up in my discussions with Sam and I will bring it up.

Barbara Thompson: I’ve thought about polling my constituencies to see how many got the survey, and I would like to have everyone else do this.

Danielle Fournier: You can’t go back to the survey once you filled it out.

Erin: How anonymous is the survey, not just the answers but the people, too?

Every paper copy I received there is no place for your name, but you can leave anything blank you want.

Denise Zuniga 660: How many people may have deleted it? Can they ask to have it resent?

Everything I got did not have a name on it and I had thought that when it was sent out it would. I’ll fine out and let you know.

Layne Smith 451: I’ll forward you a copy of it the Chair.

Erin: The faculty did a survey that was not limited to a random sampling and I don’t know why they were allowed. If the Staff Council did a survey in the future I think maybe we can do it in a different way.

CHAIR asks if there is a Faculty Council and General Faculty Meeting Report

Mike McFarlin 242 reports

• Endowment funds that are unused get reinvested. Each department tries to spend all the money to fulfill the endowment, but they may stash some money, they don’t want to spend it just to spend. UtempCo reinvest the unspent money. The interest gained is used centrally for the University.
• Stanley Rue, the Faculty Ombudsperson is concerned that there may be a need for an assistant. He would also like to see that the new chairs go through some type of training to prevent certain issues being brought up every time a new chair is put in place.
• Unidentified speaker stated that there is a workshop and Stanley has spoken at it.
• Erin points out how this is an issue with the Council and we need a workshop for our own chairs because that is where the work gets done. One other thing we are doing to help smooth this transition is by imaging our archives for the new chair to review.

Chair announces there are no issues to approve this month. There is a problem with the online form that is holding many issues up.

Open for new business

• Eric Patkowski is currently working on new wording for the Historian/Archivist under the Secretary position.
• Chris Shear 511: we are trying to make this position an assistant to the Recording Secretary. The questions we have are, will this person be part of the Executive Committee, or does this person only go to the Executive Committee when the Recording Secretary cannot make it. We will bring these questions to the Council for discussion.
• Chris Shear 511 will be giving the tour of the power plant after the meeting today. This time there will be handouts to reference during the tour.
• During the last meeting it was brought up to limit the speakers. We will in the future stop those who are going over their allotted time and we do vote on who we want to come speak at the Executive Committee. We are currently thinking about Jeff Greaves coming to discuss the dos and don’ts of campaigning and lobbying on campus, plus what you can and can’t do in your office during election time. If you have any ideas about someone you would like to come speak please bring it to the Executive Committee’s attention.
• Britney Wilson is a new member from district 701-Rec Sports.
• Robert Walker 660: would like to see more transparency about who are in each district and what each district represents.
  We have asked HRS to do this on the web so that it is easier to figure out who and where someone is from with hot links from our names.
• Barbra Thomson: I have discussed this with April in TRECS and she is working on this.
• Executive Committee will be having their retreat and would like any ideas sent to them so we can get focus for the next year.
• Danielle Fournier: Summitted a paper issues to the Issues Committee from the floor
• Our Campus is looking for articles about staff and staff related issues so please contact them if you have anything you would like to have published. Contact: Richard A. Finnell, editor (512)232-2214
• Denise Zuniga 660: We have a lot of people concerned with the BrakTrac and what is going to happen with the grad students that live there. This is a community that depends on each other.
  Erin Waneck: This is something that we may bring up with Student Council. (Student Rep. not present)
  Mark McFarlin 242: This was brought up at the Faculty Council meeting and President Powers did not seem to be too concerned.
  Denise: We need to let him know there is more at stake here than the money issue.
  Joyce Moyer 462: I believe I read that the lease for the golf course won’t expire until 2019, so I don’t know if these are separate and if not then we do have some time until this happens. I was also wondering if we are to be the ones updating our UTSC handbook binders.
  Gary Martt: We get that info from HRS and we prepare it once a year for orientation. But it is a good idea to treat our handbooks as reference material where every meeting we passed out updates, then we could stay on top of it. This of course is dependent on HRS to provide us with the info, so it may be a good idea to once a month check the Web site and update anything you deem pertinent for yourself.
• Robert Walker: The Brackenridge Apartments are the prime realty and the Colorado Apartments are less. What I heard was the Colorado Apts. will be enlarged to accommodate those displaced. But don’t quote me.
• Erin: Are there any desires to have more active things outside of this meeting to interact with each other, like bowling, happy hour, etc.
• DeeDee Berry: I was just informed that we are going paperless on hiring International Students (Glacier), is this something happening system wide?
  Erin: Each department makes that type of decision on their own. There is no set rule governing that currently.

Meeting adjourned at 3:16 p.m.

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