5.5. ERMUSR 11-13-2008 - Laserfiche WebLink

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Elk River Municipal U~~tes 13069 Urono Parkway P.O. Box 430 Elk River; MN 55330-0430 phone: 763,441.2020 fax: 763.441.8099 October 15, 2008 2:OOpm at ERMU Conference Room Written Account of Event -Meeting to Revisit Staff Restructuring Those in Attendance: Troy Adams, Engineering Manager; Mark Fuchs, Line Superintendant; Theresa Slominski, Financial Director; and Mike Thiry, Lead Lineman. At the September Utilities Commission meeting during the Staff Updates, Glenn Sundeen prior to retiring as Line Superintendent, proposed some staff restructuring to the commission. The proposed restructuring involved moving Mike Thiry from his position back to the being a Lead Linemen filling the vacancy left by Mark Fuchs promotion to Line Superintendant. The job duties that were currently performed by Mike Thiry were then to be reallocated to other departments. The Utility Commission directed Glenn Sundeen and General Manager Bryan Adams to bring Mike Thiry to the next commission meeting prior to acting on the restructuring. The staff restructuring occurred in mid September. At the October Utilities Commission meeting, the Commission directed staff to revisit the staff restructuring. On this date and time, a closed door meeting was held to revisit recent staff restructuring and workload reallocation. Two items to be address in this meeting are realities of reallocating job duties and identify deadlines for current projects. The goal of the meeting was to establish a plan to implement the re-restructuring of workload and job duties. Also, the plan needed to provide the employees and the company with the greatest chance to succeed while respecting the rights of those involved. One issue addressed was current workload. There are a number of projects with deadlines approaching. Also, the available line crew to work these projects is temporarily reduced. Mike Thiry may very well be needed to help with the line crew to finish these projects. Mike Thiry understood this but asked the management staff to be honest with him. The proposed solution was to reallocate to Mike all (or most of) the duties that he was previously responsible for. Mike would then be utilized as. the floater in a more scheduled basis to assist with the line workload. Through the staff restructuring a number of procedural shortcomings were identified. First, Mike Thiry had no backup assigned for many of his duties. Second, Mike often performed tasks alone when a second employee should be present. These two issues could be solved by cross training the meter shop to assist and backup some of the duties, in particular the PCB duties. The possibility of assisting with the inventory system was also discussed. The meeting concluded at 3:30. Management committed to work out a more detailed plan and timeline in agreement with what had been discuss. Then in the near future, all parties affected by the work reallocation would meet to review the plan prior to management implementation. Troy Adams Engineering Manager ~7 - ~ ~ ~~~.~~