October minutes
Staff Advisory Council Meeting Location: Human Resources onference Room
Thursday, October 09, 2014 Time: 11:00 – 12:00 p.m.
In Attendance: Martha Tetrault, ex officio, Kevin Thomas, ex officio, Colleen Bethoney, ex officio, Tom Aliberti, Kim Altiere, Bonnie Bresett, Miguel Gutierrez, Rachel Louis, Jessie Nairn, Doug Rydell, Donna Richardson, Helena Warburg
Absent: Tony Sinico
Minutes
1. Introductions and Welcome
Martha welcomed everyone to the first meeting of the new year. She gave an overview of the purpose of staff advisory council and how it differs in purpose from Williams Staff Committee. She also described some of the prior work done by the council and referred them to the website to review past minutes
2. Summer work in HR:
a) Performance development – Martha and Kevin updated the group on the status of the new Performance Development process which has been streamlined and made simpler. HR is just getting the first round (departments choosing the fiscal year) of forms back from a few departments. (http://hr.williams.edu/staff-development/perf-dev/
b) Sexual misconduct policy development – New federal laws regarding sexual violence and sexual misconduct on college campuses necessitated Williams to review its current sexual harassment policies and develop new policies and procedures for addressing incidents of sexual violence and misconduct. This summer a taskforce of faculty and staff was formed to review current policies and practices, and to adopt appropriate new measures that comply with the new laws and meet the college’s needs and culture.
At the same time Campus Safety and Security was involved in an extensive review of its Clery Report. With the help of an external consultant CSS has published the 2014-2015 Annual Security and Fire Safety Report http://security.williams.edu/reporting/
c) Benefits –
1) Negotiations on our health plan are underway– to be discussed at the November meeting.
2) Feel Good, Do Good: Williams Community Health and Wellness Fair will be held on October 23, 2014. This year this is collaboration with students and Paula Consolini, Director of the Center for Learning in Action.
3) Kris is working with Blue Cross Blue Shield to develop the 2015 Wellness program.
d) Staff development programming – Kevin shared information on his summer Manager’s Series and upcoming fall programs. In his program evaluation he has added a section for future training requests. Programs are announced on Daily Messages, our Staff Development Web page http://hr.williams.edu/staff-development/ , and the HR Calendar. It was suggested many would find it helpful to have a Google calendar vs the present Word Press version.
3. Items for 2014-15 for staff council
a) Udder News newsfeed—are employees reading it and finding the information more timely in its new format? to be discussed at the November meeting
b) Columbus Day — Kevin spoke briefly about his thoughts around this holiday, the fact that it honors a person in history who is attributed with the slaughter of whole cultures and peoples. How should Williams think about this day off and are there more meaningful days to engage the camps in a dialogue about the day and the person?
c) Sick leave bank – Last year’s Staff Advisory Committee supported the adoption of a staff leave bank. This year’s council will pick it up, review it again and make recommendations on design, implementation and administration if they support it as well.
d) Administrative sick leave and absence tracking for admin staff – HR is presently working on reviewing leave policies, then will work on the process for recording and tracking vacation and perhaps sick leave.
e) Suggested other items from group:
f) Mountain Day – timing of communication around this day
g) Claiming Williams
h) Departmental operations on January 2, 2015
Next scheduled meeting: Wednesday, November 12, 2014, Human Resource Conference Room, 11:00 a.m.
Please submit any agenda items to Martha prior to the next scheduled meeting
Reported by C. Bethoney
