pep talk

I was in East Texas this past weekend and returned to find a few UTMB headlines. Sunday’s was about Children’s Hospital and it “staying put” to serve kids in our region. Friday there was an article about Dr. Stobo’s Thursday night address to the Galveston City Council. If you don’t get the local paper or otherwise missed these, take a minute to read what they say.

There have been many questions and rumors about RIF numbers, notifications and timing. As of today, about 100 notices are in the pipeline: 18 are “official” and the people affected have been notified. And about 20 “non-renewal letters” have been sent to some non-tenured faculty (faculty and A&P positions are appointed annually). The rest, from areas throughout the university, are in various stages of the consideration/approval/notification process. Most of these 100 who have not heard already will find out in the coming week or two.

Human Resources took the first hit, with 17 people affected (out of about 120 or 130 people in the department). Marty Schladen with the GCDN did a page one story on this today. Marty does a good and objective job covering UTMB and most of the time he hits things right on the head. There’s one thing in this article, though,  that might leave you with an incorrect assumption. While it’s true that the SEC (Strategic Executive Council, the ultimate decision makers and plan approvers) meets Fridays and reviews overall plans, that doesn’t mean people will necessarily get notices the following Monday. Assuming the plans are approved as submitted, people may get notified Mondays in some cases, but it could also come Tuesday or any other day of the work week.

Why? For a good reason, actually. I know we all want to know. For many, too many things are “on hold” pending hearing one way or the other. But the process in place for considering positions and the individuals in them is conservative and methodical. Many different issues are considered, issues that relate to both the position and an employee. It’s not wily-nily, throw the dart at the org chart and see where we go.

Once there’s an approved list of names, things speed up, but there’s still process and a compassionate-as-possible way to let people know. It’s not via flash fax or broadcast email, not through a surprise pink slip or voice mail. It’s supposed to happen one-on-one, in person. And that can take some time for a large area with more than a few affected people. Soon after the employees losing their jobs are advised, the remaining employees are supposed to be brought together and advised of who and what, the first step in regrouping.

Bottom line: Settle in. We’ll likely be hearing about RIFs (the majority of them) for the rest of this month and much of August.  

For those of you who don’t get the Galveston newspaper, there was a page 1 article by Marty Schladen today about a call by our local legislative delegation for a performance review of UTMB. From the article: “The review would assess whether the financial data used to justify layoffs and other cuts are real. And, if they are, the review would bolster the medical branch’s pleas for more money when the Legislature convenes in January…” If you read the article all the way through, you’ll see UTMB is onboard with the review. One of these done in the past served the instituition well, and while I personally don’t think there will be any drastically different findings (not if Navigant is as good/thorough as everyone says they are), it will arm our legislative leaders with the state-verified data they need to champion for us and the work we do. More to come on this, I’m sure.