12 March 2014
Staff Advisory Council
Meeting Minutes - March 12, 2014
Jacqui West began the meeting at 10:35AM
Attendees: Zenobia Hargust, Dorothy Kunzig, Vincent Vagnozzi, Pattie Kim, George Darbes, Susan Smythe, Linda Hunt, Ben Wilson, Mary Carr, Delroy Griffiths , Jacqui West, and Michael Kappeler.
Human Resources
Diversity Photographer
HR received a Community Development Grant to work on a project in collaboration with Adam Mastoon, Photographer. The project will engage all members of our campus community in all aspects of planning and implementation, and will serve to foster meaningful dialogues which will educate and cultivate a dynamic inclusive learning environment. This project will also highlight a variety of perspectives which include: identities and experiences, inclusive of ethnicity and race, socioeconomic background, religion, disability, gender, and sexual orientation. It will enable an opportunity for cross-community collaboration and it will enable greater awareness of those we live and work with. This is scheduled for kick-off in the fall.
Planning committee being formed from staff, faculty, & students. SAC members may offer this opportunity to members of our circles (1 seat available).
SAC & Work Life Initiatives
A new committee for work life initiatives will be announced in the spring garnet connection. The Work Life Initiatives Committee (WLI) is interested in attending SAC meetings to foster partnership and coordination between these 2 committees.
Moving forward, SAC will share meeting agendas with WLI Chair, Terri Maguire. A representative of the WLI committee is welcomed to attend SAC meetings, as appropriate. SAC will include Terry on agenda emails.
Circle member asked about the performance evaluation system. There was some surprise among circle members according to a SAC rep.
Q: Can we have an internal staff “facebook”?
Who would maintain and build this?
The current departmental websites have this functionality and the new CMS will have the ability to update this profile information.
Staff Development Week was changed based on attendee feedback. Not enough time to plan their schedules.
Q: Can we have more advanced notice regarding Staff Development Week?
Unfortunately the committee was only able to meet once regarding the workshop series. The committee discussed whether the event should be postponed due to all of the snow days forcing cancelled planning meetings.
Timing: Fall break and Spring break yield much higher attendance
Performance Management workshops/roundtables will have multiple dates beyond Staff Development Week.
HR: this initiative [Performance Management] was launched last year. the new performance review system simplifies the previous system with changes made based on many focus groups across campus. For example, the new system tracks 4 competencies instead of 10, removes any numeric scores for employees.
Q: What are the college standards for performance?
HR: Some departments have clear standards others do not.
Q: Where do we stand with electronic time keeping?
A: The training is still moving along.
Some feedback has been submitted that the software is hard to use and supervisors are having some trouble managing employees’ time.
Question/statement: “Please bring up that we need better (more complete) snow and ice removal from handicapped parking spots.”
This winter has been unusually bad, snow melt material was in short supply. If you see an issue, Weekdays during business hours: contact workbox x8280 Weeknights and Weekends: call public safety x8333
Q: Any news on Summer hiring policies?
The policy is not final and is temporarily on hold. It will not happen as proposed for this summer.
Q: Is there a way to disseminate all staff information in a newsletter like the Gathering. Would a for staff by staff newsletter be possible? Is there interest? Why did it (the Gathering) change? Garnet Connection seems to be in service of HR and updates, not employee stories. How do people know when to look for updates?
A: Historically, The Gathering has been challenging to manage, to gather stories from the community, etc. While HR/Communications does not have the man-power to monitor and approve postings to a live employee blog, the group did agree that some space (1 full page) could be dedicated to employee articles, milestones, announcements, etc.
Is SAC interested in requesting stories from employee circles? Would SAC be able to review submitted stories, and recommend stories to be highlighted in the next Garnet Connection?
Perhaps this would require more discussion at the next SAC meeting...thoughts?
SAC should begin notifying staff of upcoming SAC openings.
Respectfully submitted,
SAC
