03/30/2014

Greetings,
At the last meeting of the IPS Employee Relations Committee new officers were elected. They are as follows:
Chair: Josh Jones, MTAS
Vice Chair: Misty Bean, LEIC
Secretary: Beth Paton, CIS

As the new Chair I am committed to honestly and thoroughly communicating your concerns to IPS leadership and, where possible, working for positive changes. The institute has publicly made a commitment to become an employer of choice and my efforts will be focused on making that commitment a reality. To that end, I encourage all of you to submit questions, concerns, and proposed solutions to your ERC agency representative or to me personally. When requested, I can keep our communications confidential. Every submission will receive adequate consideration. Following each quarterly meeting I will distribute an executive summary of items discussed and planned follow-up.

Our next meeting is April 7 at 11 a.m. CST in Cookeville. So, if you have items for inclusion on the agenda, please submit them promptly.

Finally, I want to announce the release of the IPS Telecommuting policy effective April 1, 2014. In no small part, this policy is the result of the efforts of the IPS Employee Relations Committee. The origins of the policy can be traced back to discussions in previous ERC meetings in an attempt to address concerns from IPS staff. Recommendations were sent to IPS leadership who, with input from other IPS committees, finalized and adopted the policy. Though the final version of the UT system telecommuting policy has yet to be released, the IPS policy was drafted to read in concert with the drafts available.

Essentially, the policy permits an IPS employee to work from home with approval from the employee’s supervisor and executive director. A telecommuting arrangement exceeding one day or that is regularly recurring must be communicated to the vice president and the IPS human resource officer. To take advantage of the telecommuting benefits an employee must demonstrate one of the three following conditions:

The supervisor determines that uninterrupted time is beneficial for creative, repetitive, or highly detailed work.

When it would be beneficial to both the institute and the employee to make productive use of the employee’s time while he or she is temporarily at a remote location, usually at home, for personal reasons.

The employee is taking time off in accordance with the Family Medical Leave Act.

Requests are considered on a case-by-case basis and are evaluated on additional criteria set forth in the policy. A copy of the policy can be found on the IPS intranet under
Policies and Procedures.

The letter of this policy creates an opportunity for greater flexibility, increased productivity, and, most importantly, better work-life balance for IPS employees. It is now the duty of all IPS employees, management and staff alike, to see that the application of the policy has the desired results.

Yours,
Josh Jones
ERC Chair