Comments on: Furloughs: Your experiences and observations?

By: Janet Salmons

Janet Salmons — Mon, 12 Oct 2009 14:32:02 +0000

Three excellent points! Thanks, Tricia!

By: Tricia Lehti

Tricia Lehti — Sat, 10 Oct 2009 23:53:49 +0000

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.

By: Janet Salmons

Janet Salmons — Wed, 07 Oct 2009 16:43:21 +0000

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/.

By: John Burik

John Burik — Tue, 06 Oct 2009 23:24:56 +0000

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!

By: Janet Salmons

Janet Salmons — Tue, 06 Oct 2009 13:53:16 +0000

Thank you, John, for an excellent comment. You’ve made a great case for the value of planning and foresight, as well as creativity!

By: John Burik

John Burik — Mon, 05 Oct 2009 21:47:15 +0000

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.