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Wage & Benefit Committee Meeting – Staff Conversations – August 2022 <br />1. Wage Adjustment – We are asking for the consideration of a 5% increase in wage. The current labor market is <br />booming and highly competitive. Our higher ask is based primarily on retention efforts and for the <br />unprecedented times with which we are under. Our skilled, smaller work group feels the loss of one employee <br />for many months to years depending on the leaving employee’s institutional knowledge and skill level. We all <br />pick up the slack and it adds to the responsibility for too many to make up for it, especially as we run bare bones <br />style compared to others in the industry. If we can help to retain these great employees through this labor <br />market, we will hopefully stay ahead of a negative curve, as 3% in the metro is based off several organizations <br />with long-standing active contracts. We would not only like to retain, but also attract potential hires. Other <br />organizations have hiring bonuses, but we rather work on retention, as that has the highest value to the <br />organization. A 3% increase seems to be a standard annual mark, yet this year is not in that realm for all work <br />groups and people in general. Everyone knows the dollar value of retention issues for the hiring process, <br />training costs and the timeline to get them to the ERMU standard, along with the many impacts each day on <br />tasks and workplace morale. This approach would hopefully curb those concerns. <br />2. Sick Time Payout – Currently 50% payout into the Health Care Savings Plan (HCSP) at the time of departure & <br />retirement. We were able to ask several organizations what they do for payout, and it is variety across the <br />board. Some, like Shakopee pay up to 100% into the HCSP based on years employed with longevity in mind, and <br />some others require the employee to use it instead of a pay out, where they are gone for weeks or months at <br />the end of employment, and the others have a bit of everything. We would appreciate consideration of 100% <br />payout upon retirement, to support longevity efforts. (Handbook: Page 48, Item 45 – 3) <br />3. PTO Adjustment for Non-Remote Workers – There is a noted lack of flexibility for those not able to work <br />remotely and with an adjustment for the individuals that are not able to work from home, we would hope for <br />the amendment of allowing three additional PTO days. Those that are considered sick or contagious can often <br />work from home, and often do choose to work when they are made to stay home for proper contagion protocol. <br />The non-remote workers or those that opt out of remote work, with the same circumstances affronting them <br />must use their sick time because their job does not have the option to be done at home. That can eat into a lot <br />of leave time, especially if the family is dealing with the chain reaction of quarantine, which is quite typical these <br />days. That leads to more time that one set of workers uses up their leave time and the others can often <br />effectively work from home while saving leave time with flexibility. The alterations of PTO time for non-remote <br />workers would greatly help to allow a good faith effort of pliability, which is extremely helpful for our families <br />and further our competitive stance for future new hires in this progressive market. <br />4. UPMIC – Increase bonus metrics by 2%, up to 4% - With the market and economy changes, 4% for a bonus will <br />be a bit more balanced in incentivized reward. In the last several years of the UPMIC program, we had obtained <br />100% of the 2% possible, only the initial year and have not made 100% since. From inception, most items that <br />have ever fallen short are not dependent on the employee’s actual work production or work ethic, it’s been the <br />opposite if you consider the items that did not meet metric standards. The bonus metric points were negatively <br />impacted by employees leaving, which tends to compound the negative of losing a person as we feel the loss <br />financially while also trying to help sustain tasks in their absence. Which then only creates another path to <br />negative morale. Safety comes first and foremost with our fieldwork, and we cannot comprise that in the name <br />of a bonus for CAIDI/SAIDI parameters (outage times), in which we have seen the areas dip from time to time, as <br />they are not on a lack of effort or systematic concern or procedure. This is a helpful incentive, and it is metrics <br />based, so the employees must continue their positive efforts to meet criteria appropriately. When we here at <br />ERMU see the majority leave because of money, this is a great way to have standards and reward for quality. <br />We again would find this item favorable for company retention to increase to 4% for the UPMIC bonus, to push <br />through the economic changes and encourage the workplace to continually work hard and be safe. <br />85 <br /> <br />