Tuesday, January 6, 2015

Staff Alone in Buildings

Hello Team,

Some of you have asked me about staff being in building alone and I brought up the issue to fellow administration. I wanted you all to be on the same page for now since many locations have had different practices in place and I don’t want you being caught off guard.

We are still discussing this issue but as for right now, in most instances, staff should not be in the building alone including managers. We agree there may be unusual circumstances that may occur, and we can deal with those on a case by case basis.

Our understanding, and certainly as it has been applied to our interactions with the COH legal department, an employee is not allowed to be in the building by him/herself at any time – before we open, after we close, or anytime in between due to safety reasons. Right now we do know that a security officer can count as a second person.

Like I said, we are still discussing this to try to take as many factors as we can into account, such as:
·         Knowing if this applies to managers, or just non-managerial frontline staff, but we do know that it applies to non-managerial frontline staff.
·         A custodian counting as a second person.
·         Scheduling issues.

Once we get everyone in place we will be fully staffed with regards to managers and assistant managers, and that’s when we really need to begin what we call “working smarter”. We’ll start with scheduling, with an emphasis on getting staff to the locations where they are needed and this should be less of an issue.

Please let me know if you have any questions or concerns.

Pedro Fonseca, MLIS
Librarian IV – Senior Manager of Neighborhood Libraries
City Cell: 281-901-4439
Office: 832-393-1448
NL Administration: 832-393-2707

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