Building services employees to see schedule changes

Citing the state’s dire economic straits, the University’s facilities services department decided to remove a compressed schedule option that allowed 70 building services employees the opportunity to squeeze a 40-hour work week into four days.

To make the minimum expected cut of 5 percent for the 2011-12 fiscal year, the department plans to eliminate 10 vacant positions and return building services employees to the standardized five-day work week of three years ago.

Brandon Thomas, communications director for facilities services, said the schedule change will ensure the most efficient services to campus from all shops within building services.

“It just provides better coverage for the University,” he said. “If someone is on four (10-hour shifts), it means that person won’t be there on a Monday or Friday, typically.”

He said having the workers present for eight-hour shifts five days a week ensures that all special skills are available when needed.

Van Dobson, executive director for facilities services and chief facilities officer, said the change is intended to cut the 10 positions without sacrificing performance.

“It’s for efficiency’s sake, to eliminate positions and bring more force back to a standard work schedule,” Dobson said.

Today, Dobson said supervisors will meet with employees to discuss the upcoming change. Neither of the two employees contacted were willing to comment on the record.

Dobson, who said he has already held several meetings for employees, added that the plan will remain intact unless he learns something at the meeting he didn’t already know.

“The further you go, the deeper you cut, the harder it is to find things that don’t affect the customer or the employee,” he said.

Thomas said employees have already offered feedback.

“I think they’re going to do what they have to do and be professional about it and get the job done,” he said.

Workers responded to the initial memorandum with a notice of their own that argued service levels are satisfactory with the four-day work schedule.

Their memorandum raises concerns that employees on compressed schedules might suffer the impact of paying for a fifth day of child care or losing an extra day at a second job when the change is implemented.

“We believe that moving to eight-hour days entirely is unnecessary, unproductive, inefficient and unduly punitive to us from a financial standpoint,” the memorandum read, arguing that the compressed schedule boosts morale and retention — and reduces commuting time and absenteeism.

Edd Lovette, director of building services, drafted a letter in response, assuring employees that the change was his only remaining option.

“I have exhausted other practical methods of maintaining our service levels while continuing to retain our existing staff,” he said.

Thomas said the compressed schedule option was a product of better economic times.

“It was offered a few years ago when budget cut times weren’t so tight,” he said.

But state budget cuts have affected facilities services since the compressed schedules were implemented.

Dobson said facilities services took a 13 percent reduction to its appropriated budget from the state in 2009, resulting in a loss of about 80 positions and $4 million. Last year, the department was told to prepare for a 15 percent cut but only had to cut 5 percent.

“Facilities services is very supportive of flexible schedules,” Thomas said.

“This is one step in a lot of budgetary considerations.”

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