Staff abuse report released
Committee makes recommendations to better workplaces
By Maria Romas
Staff writer
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After six months of investigations, a committee published its findings of alleged widespread workplace abuse across the campus and submitted several recommendations to university officials to better the situations.
The report, emailed to members of the university community on Wednesday from university Provost Ann Wylie, is a 62-page call to action describing the findings of the Human Resources Working Group, which was tasked in April with investigating claims made last semester about workers allegedly being abused, assaulted and harassed in several university departments. Wylie could not be reached for comment yesterday.
Despite such claims made over the last several months in numerous public forums hosted by the Black Faculty and Staff Association, committee members concluded no evidence has been found of widespread toxic workplaces — although they did point to two systematic concerns they said clearly contribute to workers’ dissatisfaction.
In Facilities Management, officials noted the department’s existing Fair Treatment Guidelines — used to discipline employees — are “unnecessary and dysfunctional.” Additionally, the committee noted the training of supervisors and managers is inconsistent and needs more structure.
Members of the BFSA, however, said the report is too narrow and does not adequately address the problems dozens of university staff members have voiced.
The report was drafted by University Human Resources Director Dale Anderson, University System of Maryland Assistant Vice Chancellor for Administration and Finance JoAnn Goedert and Phillip Ross, an associate vice president at Towson University. While compiling their findings, Anderson reportedly investigated the claims that workers feared retribution for complaining about supervisors’ abuse. According to the report, he did not find any facts supporting these claims but did acknowledge the perception of retribution is alive and well in many departments.
“One of the things that seemed to be happening was when employees would express concern about a particular situation or supervisor, there would be an inquiry made, sometimes actions taken by the institution, but nothing was ever communicated back to employees,” Goedert said. “The supervisors can’t go back and say what happened because of personal confidentiality. They need better communication that will say that the matter was looked into and resolved, which will be very much part of supervisor training.”
The report outlined nine different steps the administration should take to improve the working environments in Facilities Management and Residential Facilities.
To better train management officials in respecting employees and ensuring a healthy workplace, the report recommended mandating “Pillars (Building Great Supervisors)” training for all upper-level employees. It also recommended providing more English as a Second Language courses for employees, hiring a facilitator for non-English speaking workers and offering training courses in computer skills for all employees.
The report suggested creating a better grievance-reporting system for employees, forcing officials to have greater accountability for those issues and emphasizing new position openings to all possible applicants in the departments. Additionally, it recommended modifying or eliminating the existing Facilities Management Treatment Guidelines — which committee members said are too inflexible — and implementing a new Labor-Management Problem Solving Committee to more effectively solve wide-scale problems.
Robert Specter, vice president of administrative affairs, has been tasked with implementing these suggestions now that the administration has formally accepted them. Human Resources and Facilities Management will work through the recommendations and develop an implementation plan and timetable, according to university spokesman Millree Williams.
“Many of the issues that have been raised … were being addressed long before the allegations were made public,” Williams wrote in an email. “In the short term, the HR Working Group has identified a path to help us address the immediate staff concerns. In the long run, however, this process has also given us the opportunity to address the issues raised by a few and proactively map out a strategy that will ultimately benefit us all.”
University officials said the administration will internally fund the steps to ensure they’re successful. To fund the management training program, ESOL classes and computer training, the report calls for permanent funding from Specter. Additionally, it designates one-time funding from the campus Finance Committee over the next two years to support the training. It does not include how much these will cost. Each department participating in the training must pay $100 for every participant.
Williams wrote that implementation of the recommendations has already begun, noting that Human Resources has started working on the computer skills program. In addition, the fall sessions of ESOL will launch next week and last until Dec. 22. The rest of the recommendations will require more time and preparation, he said.
“We listened and for the most part heard unanimous feedback as to what significant issues were,” he wrote. “We reviewed and responded on the basis of the issues that were raised by staff within those organizations, as well as some of the forums by BFSA.”
Although some of its recommendations are already being put into place, some BFSA members said it is not specific enough to help individual staff members.
“It’s irrelevant whether [the abuse is] widespread or not,” said BFSA Vice President Brandon Dula. “If you have one employee coming forward with one issue and they have been afraid to come forward, you know it’s an issue.”
Others said the report will do little to yield long-lasting results on the campus.
“I have no confidence that the administration is going to follow through with what they say,” said Mike Fekula, former program management specialist in the languages, literatures and cultures school. “Wylie does a good job describing the problem and not so good of a job describing the solution.”
romas at umdbk dot com
