Human Resources

March 2004

HR Advisory Group - Meeting Minutes

Attended: J. Ford; S. Thorp; B. Rusch; C. Green; J. Etz; J. Welsh;

Absent: E. Sandbrink; S. Simpson; C. Park

From: Jim Ables, Office of Human Resources

Date: March 16, 2004

Subj: HR Advisory Group Meeting Minutes - March Meeting

Cc: Seth Patton; Bill Acklin

Correction to February Minutes

Employment of Relatives - The representatives at the March meeting indicated that the February minutes on this topic were confusing. Therefore, this correction will hopefully clarify the February minutes. In those minutes, it was written that "...the final decision is to stay firm with the initial decision as described above." HRAG as a group held the opinion that the employment of relatives' policy was applied unfairly in the situation of an employee at Denison. The words "the final decision" was read by a number of staff that HRAG made a final decision with respect to this employee situation. This is not what was meant. The opinion of HRAG was shared with the administration, however, the decision by the administration was to stay firm with its original decision regarding how to handle this situation. Secondly, the words "...the person affected was not being treated fairly, mainly because there are other relations at the college that appear to be similar. However, there are currently no other similar situations at Denison..." that appeared in the February minutes are debatable. Let the record show that there may be similar situations at Denison. However, it is beyond the scope of this group to review specific personnel decisions. That being said, the group expressed its desire to review the employment of relatives policy, with the possibility of making a recommendation to the college of a modified policy. This will be on the agenda for the next meeting. The personnel committee will also be reviewing the policy.

New Items

1. Olin Parking Lot - Apparently the Olin lot is a faculty and staff parking lot. The question was whether or not this lot could be used for students now that the parking garage is available. This issue will be referred to Security and Safety and Auxiliary Services for their review (Garret Moore and Mike Frazier). Since this issue is outside the scope of this committee, anyone interested in sharing their opinions on this topic should do so directly with these departments.

2. Safety Concern - There was a concern shared about an employee that was coming to work late at night and was possibly being chased or followed by a few persons to the building s/he was working at. The staff member was concerned about the incident. We discussed that the person should have or should still discuss this with security. The concern will be passed on to Security so that they are aware of it (if they are not already) and can possibly follow up on it. The question of whether or not the safe walk program is available for staff and what the hours are. After the meeting, Jim shared this issue with Garret Moore, Chief of Security. They are aware of the situation and an incident report was completed. Additionally, safewalk is available from 8 pm to 2 am and staff can participate in the program. Also, security will provide an escort to staff after dark as well, providing there aren't other security concerns that have priority.

3. Health Insurance Dependent Definition - Question was whether or not a grandchild was a dependent for health care purposes if the staff member had legal custody of the grandchild. Legal custody does not meet the definition of dependent for health care through Cigna HealthCare.

4. Service Award Gifts - Question was asked if everyone received their service award gifts. We handed out service award gifts at the banquet in January. Staff receiving an award who did not make the program received the award at work. We try to work our way around to all the different departments to hand out the awards as soon as we can but sometimes other work slows us down. However, all gifts have been given to recipients.

5. HRAG Elections - The following representatives will be finishing their terms in May of 2004: Jennifer Etz (part-time staff); Steve Simpson (Physical Plant Office and Trades); and Connie Park (Admin. Support/URPA/Admissions/Fin. Aid/Health Center). A letter will be sent in March asking for nominations (can be self-nominations). If more than one staff member is interested for a position, an election will be held. Otherwise, if one person is interested that person will be declared elected.

6. Purpose of HRAG - We had a brief conversation of the purpose of HRAG. We did not have nearly enough time to discuss this topic but we will discuss it at the April meeting.

Updates

1. Rehiring Retired Employees - The Office of Human Resources researched this issue and there isn't any specific reason, legal or otherwise, that would prevent Denison from rehiring a former support staff retiree into a regular budgeted position. A retiree would be considered as an outside applicant and would be evaluated for the job as all other applicants are.

2. Bereavement Leave and Domestic Partners - The Office of Human Resources and Finance and Management reviewed the recommendation to modify this policy to, in some way, allow for a funeral day when a staff member's brother's or sister's domestic partner (same sex or opposite sex) passes away. The administration decided not to change this policy at this time.

3. Employment of Relatives - Please see Correction to February minutes above. While HRAG will not be reviewing the specific application of this policy to any staff member's situation, HRAG has expressed interest in reviewing the policy language to determine if there should be a change to the policy. If so, HRAG can make a recommendation of a change to the administration. Again, the Personnel Committee will be reviewing this policy as well.