Staff Advisory Council
Meeting Agenda
April 26, 2016
9:00 a.m. – 10:00 a.m.
HR Conference Room
Present: Jessica Nairn, Veronica Bosley, Bonnie Bresett, Kim Altiere, Tamra Hjermstad, Brian Teal, Rachel Louis, Susan Gaskell, Helena Warburg, Joey McClain, Martha Tetrualt, Kevin Thomas, ex officio, ex officio, Vishakha Sheoran, ex officio
Absent: Miguel Gutierrez
Next Meeting: May 24, 2016, 9:00 a.m. – 10:00 a.m. in HR Conference Room
Approval of March minutes
The members reviewed and approved meeting minutes with a few amendments.
Review of Grievance Policy Benchmarking Research
The group was asked to do benchmarking of Grievance policies across our peer institutions at the last meeting. Each member was assigned an institution and asked to review their respective Grievance policies and to add findings on Google spreadsheet. There was also discussion about how the Grievance Policy is different from the college’s Non-Discrimination and Harassment Policies. Those are being revised this year too. One of the topic identified by the group was regarding the content and process of current Williams Grievance policy and focus only on work-place related grievances.
Another major concern discussed was whether an employee could grieve their own termination. The group discussed pros and cons of this subject and majority of members agreed that an employee should not be allowed to grieve their termination since there is cause for the termination. Also, as terminated employees they no longer have access to college policies. The group decided to research this as part of the peer policy review and discuss it further in the next month’s meeting.
Items for Staff Forums
Martha asked the group to recommend potential topics for Adam and Fred to include in their remarks at the upcoming Staff Forums. Some of the topics suggested by the members included construction, WCMA plans, update on campaign, upcoming wave of retirements, a report on the demographics of staff, etc.
Appreciation Day
Vishakha requested volunteers from the group to help greet guests and assist with distributing gifts and certificates on the day of the event.
The group also discussed potential changes to the current events of Appreciation Day. The members suggested a separate event for Retirees from other milestone honorees. Some of the members suggested to move dinner to Mt. Hope sometime between commencement and reunion weekend and make it exclusively for Retirees. It was also recommended that all other honorees should be invited to luncheon on campus. A variety of options were discussed as to where on campus to have the event and who would cater it. People shared comments about whether combining all years of milestones would be a good idea. It was recommended that more time needs to be dedicated to review current gifts and add more variety to appreciation gifts. It is important for gifts to be liked and have usefulness too.
Next Meeting Topics
Review of Proposed Bereavement Policy
Please submit any agenda items to Kevin prior to the next scheduled meeting.
