October 5th, 2009 Janet Salmons
Furloughs: Your experiences and observations?
After reading the feature stores: "Furloughs: Hard Choices in Tight Times," what are your thoughts? Please use the comment area to share observations, experiences and recommendations for managers and human resources professionals tasked with implementing furloughs.
This entry was posted on Monday, October 5th, 2009 at 9:09 am and is filed under Current Topics, Issue Discussion. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
October 5th, 2009 at 2:47 pm
Great idea, attempting to join psychology, education and business?
On the personal level, the “furlough” is something colleagues and I experience about once per month at a hospital. Staffing is based upon patient census. Numbers drop and there’s a 5am call that you’re “called off.” It can be an enjoyable treat, sort of like a snow day, *if* you’ve planned appropriately.
That planning involves mentally allocating sufficient earned vacation days or buying an extra week. This works for me in these very short term furloughs.
At the organizational level, the necessity for furloughs often appears to me to suggest (a) lack of planning by middle and upper management, and (b) failure to utilize resources at their disposal (had they done (a) previously mentioned). Granted, current economic trends were in large part unanticipated, yet I’ve experience this lack of foresight in better times.
In 2004, I worked for a community mental health agency which knew in 2003 that it’s projected income would drop 20 percent due to changes in Medicaid. Rather than planning how to compensate for this loss by applying to more insurance panels, writing grant proposals and utilizing their highly educated staff for ideas, the year was effectively wasted figuring out the fairest way of reducing staff.
Thus, my suggestion is for transparency, honesty, and use of staff to generate solutions which may, or may not, include furloughs, and in the worst case terminations.
October 6th, 2009 at 6:53 am
Thank you, John, for an excellent comment. You’ve made a great case for the value of planning and foresight, as well as creativity!
October 6th, 2009 at 4:24 pm
Thank you, Janet, V2L looks especially interesting! You may be aware of organizational consultant, Peter Block. I have the good fortune of being in the same city and seeing Peter from time to time. Through him I got to meet John McKnight from Northwestern and others working to building community.
Thanks for the blog!
October 7th, 2009 at 9:43 am
Oh yes, The Empowered Manager is an all-time favorite of mine and I appreciate Peter Block’s insight on people and organizations.
Readers who are interested can learn more at http://www.peterblock.com/.
October 10th, 2009 at 4:53 pm
Hello All,
Just wanted to join in the discussion about furloughs. I work for a government agency and this discussion went around a few times. Federally mandated programs have an issue with continuity of providing services with balancing furloughs. In social work, staff have individual caseloads – so there is the potential for more client issues to escalate and be passed onto supervisory levels.
Secondly, staff that feel they are in control of the situation tend to deal with it better. Many colleagues discussed working 32 hour work weeks instead of 40 on a regular basis instead of furloughs. Some people even asked to split a 40 hour work week shift with another person, thus reducing paying benefits when under a certain amount of hours.
Third, it is my belief that leaders need to model the way when implementing budget cuts, lack of raises, or furloughs. This means that if staff are asked to work non-paid, management should be doing something similar. If wages are frozen, it should be across the board, management included. Otherwise subordinates will not respect leadership and feel taken advantage of.
October 12th, 2009 at 7:32 am
Three excellent points! Thanks, Tricia!