WORKING TOGETHER MEETING Wednesday February 26, 2014 2:00pm-4:00pm Minutes Chair: Helen Huang Attendance:
John Allan Vesna Bajic Joanne Bedasie Kurt Binnie Elizabeth Broccoli Lara Cartmale Jun Cheng Gina Dangoy Christine Davidson Penny Deligiannis Blanche Douglas Diane Giang Dominic Goveas Joanne Lawson Pierre Lee Nelly Leizerovich Stephanie Michelle Debbie Mparoutoglou Wing Ng Madelaine Panoulias Cheryl Rhind Morgan Selvanathan Ann Trakosas Maggie Xu
Note taker: Elaine Taguchi 1) CAO Updates – Helen Huang Today is “Wear Pink Day” in solidarity against the practice of bullying.
Helen thanked everyone for complying with the deadline for forecasting. The timeliness of your submissions helped OISE meet the University’s budget process requirements.
In reviewing the training needs from the June 2013 meeting, the WT group expressed interests for more training for the FY 13/14 Therefore, WT needs to identify what kind of training are needed (i.e cross skills, soft skills, hard skills).
Suggestions from the group: soft skills: bullying and civility in the workplace – how to recognize incidents and best practices hard skills: intermediate excel – pivot tables, formulae, using data to produce charts word: mail/merge email: sorting into folders, archiving, attachments telecommunications: skype, video conferencing sharing best practices: how do we do certain processes and can we share this with the group? Are there better ways of doing things and to bring it to the group.
Statutory holiday pay for casual employees: hours in time management ensure an automatic payment but additional payments require a manual calculation. HRIS is streamlining its process and hopes to have a new procedure available at the end of the summer. HR has recognized this as a problem and wants to capture data and information for USW casual bargaining. Madelaine will follow up with HRIS and see if OISE can have some input in this process.
The next training session will be on tele-ecommunications from Kurt and Education Commons for our March meeting.
Madelaine and Pierre will work on a small session on bullying and civility with specific examples and how to react to different situations for the May meeting.
February 26, 2014 Page 1
2) OISE Operation Update – Elizabeth Broccoli
Building Temperature: No new issues have been reported but any problems/concerns should be reported to Elizabeth.
Security: There have been some incidents of strangers accessing areas on the 9th floor and the Dean’s Office. Any unwelcome stranger or an unusual person should be reported immediately to Security at 978-3636. Do not wait as the person could be gone by the time they are reported 5 to 10 minutes later.
Security is an across Campus issue. Any issues should be reported to Elizabeth so that we can review our Security measures to see if changes are required.
3) Information Technology Update – Kurt Binnie
System Upgrades: The Network core upgrades have been completed. Now the about 30 IT closet switches need replacing. This work should be done in the early morning hours and may require small outages. Notices will be sent to the community by email announcements.
The wireless redesign will start on March 4th and will double the capacity in the building.
Changes to EC Tech Lounge: The EC Tech Lounge will be renamed to the Ruth Dworkin Tech Lounge in recognition of a perpetual gift of approximately $50,000/year received by OISE.
4) HR Update – Madelaine Panoulias
Vacation Tracking: Madelaine reported on updates on the website on the Leave Management System – absence/vacation tracking. A new system will be implemented where an individual will log on to make a request, the manager approves the request and the request is input into the calendar. A report is generated at the end of the month and uploaded in HRIS. Dominic and HR have been working on the system which will be forthcoming in the next few months. In the interim we are processing requests on the paper-based system with approvals in writing.
Flexible working arrangement hours are recorded with a written agreement vetted through HR to ensure consistency and compliance. Clear information is kept to record any accommodations.
Lieu time tracking will also be addressed by the new system.
5) Social Committee Update – Pierre Lee
The Olympic viewing session was well attended and the ballot contest was won by Heidi Chung who won the pair of gloves for correctly guessing 25 medals won. Helen thanked everyone for their help: EC for the TV, Stephanie for picking the refreshments and the Committee for making the event a success.
The Committee is gauging responses to ideas for a photography group and is open for any suggestions.
6) Wellness Committee Update – Pierre Lee
The Committee is gauging interest on 3 ideas. Any suggestions are welcome.
John, Madelaine and Pierre will explore having a scaled down Wellness Day.
February 26, 2014 Page 2 7) Finance Update – Wing Ng
Research Funds Year-End: Wing reminded everyone of the March 31st deadline and that any money should be spent. Business officers can run a new report developed by research services 2 years ago for this purposes (aka “uglies” and “pretties” report).
Back to Basics: Topics to follow up with Suzanne Macintyre: purchase orders, manual reserves, budget transfers, supplements and returns.
Follow up with procurement for a full RFP process over $100,000.
Mileage calculations and requirements: how to standardize calculations. Pierre will follow up with Wing to develop a standard policy for OISE.
February 26, 2014 Page 3