Week 21: Countway Phase 2 Planning (Letter to Staff)

Elaine Martin Director’s Corner

Next week the Countway Administrative Team (CAT) will meet to discuss work policies, procedures, and practices to move towards an increased onsite work schedule as we enter Phase 2 of library operations. The goal for this phase is to achieve 48 onsite work hours per a 140-work hour month per employee from September through December. The rationale for increasing onsite work is based on several business needs.

First, we have identified more onsite work requiring in-person attention. This includes new services (such as grab and go and scan and deliver), which require access to our physical collections to support research and the online curriculums. Second, we have identified additional materials for the BML inventory project. In addition to materials in CHOM and the serials and monographs on L1 and L2, there are books in the conference rooms on the fifth floor and additional books in other areas of the library that need to be included in the inventory project. Third, we have staff who need to get into their offices to organize their workspaces as a result of the kitchen flood and/or renovation. Finally, we need to prepare the physical library for re-opening in January to HUID holders only (i.e. outfitting the Russell Reading Room, putting up exhibits in a new exhibit case, creating maps, etc.).

In Phase 1, we put staff safety as a priority, and we will continue to do so in Phase 2. We designed a work schedule that was fixed and based on 4 teams. We focused on minimizing the noise and overlap from construction and created a rigid schedule to ensure security, health and safety protocols are followed. We have learned a lot from this phase and will build upon these lessons learned coupled with the feedback received from the staff working on site as we prepare for Phase 2.

As we move towards planning for Phase 2, CAT is working towards offering employees more flexible work scheduling options based on what we learned and heard from Phase 1. As we plan for these more flexible possibilities, we are keeping the following principles in mind:

  • We understand the importance of all health and safety protocols and the need to continue to follow them
  • We understand we need to report violations to captains who will act on them immediately
  • We want more flexibility in the work schedule, this may include an extended day; additional workdays/Friday; however, would prefer not including weekends due to lack of security. Security is currently in the building from 6:30 a.m. – 4:30 p.m. each day and if we go beyond these hours, we will want to make sure there are at least two people on-site at the same time
  • We will continue to find ways to separate staff and construction workers with the understanding that there will be some overlap in these two shifts in order to achieve flexibility in our schedule
  • We will identify a work schedule that balances office work (meetings, daily work etc.) and inventory work
  • The 2nd-floor kitchen area is scheduled to be completed in September, so noise should not be much of an issue if an extended day is explored
  • There will be a continued need for separate teams/pods for scheduling and contact control and we can identify them based on departmental needs (CHOM could be one team and have several pods within it)
  • We will continue to rely on captains to handle a number of responsibilities and there will be more captains if we increase the number of teams
  • Whatever schedule is set in September, teams will commit to it through the end of December, unless we find it is unsafe to do so or staff is not following the protocols. Then, we will revert back to a more rigid schedule

Following the CAT meeting scheduled on August 12th, your manager will meet with you regarding work schedule options for the upcoming months. In the meantime, I encourage you to consult Human Resources for backup care options and other resources available to you as support during this time.

I want to thank you for all the work both remote and onsite you have accomplished during this time. Countway staff has continued to serve the information needs of our community.

Elaine