August 2015 Managers Meeting

CE Managers Meeting

8-28-15

Compiled by Yolanda Anguiano

CE Update: (Michele Gorman) Cylenthia Hoyrd is now the manager of Carnegie and Kelly Patton has been promoted to the assistant manager position there.  Alief has closed for minor renovations.  A portion of the staff remains weeding the collection.  All staff will be deployed when the rest of the closure duties have been completed.  The red outreach suitcases have been ordered but there is a slight delay in delivery.  We anticipate receiving them within the week, and then we will pack them with HPL collateral and the Outreach Tool Kit guidelines and send them out to you.  You should place the giveaway material that was distributed at today’s meeting inside to complete your outreach kit. 

We have exciting news regarding HPL and HISD that we will be announcing soon.

CMC: Candece Beverly from Alief is this year’s HPL CMC Coordinator.  She has gotten permission to have a Fall Festival on Central’s Plaza on Friday, October 30^th from 11AM-2PM.  Dr. Lawson has approved all libraries to open one hour later that day to allow staff to attend.  We will also be promoting the festival to the downtown community.  All libraries are encouraged to have a booth, so start thinking about what you want to sell. Selling food will be allowed.  Booth rentals will cost $5.

Youth Services: (Kallie Benes)  There will be a mandatory training on early literacy called the Very Ready Reading Program on Friday, October 9^th all day in Central’s Program Place.  The training will help establish a standard for storytime.  Managers can send names of staff that they would like to attend other than Youth representatives to Kallie.  This will include outcome based training.  Every location needs to have a representative attend.  This session is in addition to the regular Youth Services meeting scheduled for the following week.

Digital Strategies: (Rick Peralez and Jeff Robin)  Jeff works on many projects including RFID, Enterprise storage solution, and Cloud services for backing up data.  Digital Strategies is working on virtualization, using hardware more efficiently, including the data centers with HITS.  PCI compliance is another project.  They are trying to gain the ability to pay fines at express check or self-check machines.  Also, NoveList will be adding a new feature.  The team asks for feedback on what works.  The RFID project has funding for 5 more locations to get their collection tagged and new equipment purchased.  All locations will eventually have it. 

Rick and Jeff were open to a conversation about the challenges CE staff experience related to copying, faxing and printing services. Faxing services can only take a max of $3, and need to be offered at more libraries and include long-distance faxing.  Scanning services were also requested.  A public self-service scanning solution is on Rick’s list of improvements. Managers also asked for wireless printing.  Toners don’t last and the machines break down or they won’t accept the bills.  Large PDF documents jam the print queue and there is no color printing or photo printing.  Double sided copies would also be nice. There are too many steps to print out something simple. 

Managers asked if Coin Copiers could include the name of the customer who has been given a refund when sending it to the library location.  Currently, managers get the payment with little information for customer identification.  Jeff Robin will follow up on this issue.  Laurie will follow up with Dimitri in Financial Services on the suggestion Karen Luik made about paying for copies at the service desk using Smart Money’s MISC button.

Communications: (Marjorie Gonzalez & Blanca Quezada)  Marjorie Gonzalez is our new PR Manager.  You can reach her at x31381.  She comes to HPL with 14 years experience in marketing and public relations.

Blanca & Marjorie addressed the issue of what to do when media show up at your Library.  A handout was distributed with guidelines.  Blanca emphasized that Communications need to know what happens at your events, so they know what to discuss when media call to ask questions.  It’s important to call them when media arrive at your library, even if they claim that their presence has been cleared by Communications.  If anyone tries to photograph customers, especially children they need permission.  All our customers’ privacy needs to be protected.   Selfie pictures are allowed as well as photos of the outside of our buildings. 

If a professional photographer is taking pictures, there is a fee involved and the matter needs to be addressed with the Special Events or Communications department.  Laney is working on policy for professional photography at HMRC.  At Neighborhood Libraries, you should refer the matter to Communications.  Central and Special Collections have established policy. For more details on procedures, please see the handout that will be posted with the minutes.

While Greg Simpson’s position remains vacant, Marjorie and Blanca are the main contacts for Communications. 

Cash Handling and Change: (Group Discussion)  Staff discussed the difficulty with handling cash and change in library transactions, when most people don’t carry it anymore.  Managers pointed out that it’s a matter of good customer service.  Making change throughout the day becomes very cumbersome.  Managers want the ability to use credit/debit cards to pay for their fines, copies, etc.  Children can’t come up with the full dollar for the copy cards to make a fifteen cent copy.  Managers at passport locations asked if they could have a separate till drawer.  CE Admin asked for volunteers to work on solutions to these problems.  Email Michele with your volunteers’ names. 

HEAR Goals: (Liz Sargent)  Smart goals for managers for the review period of August 1, 2015-July 31, 2016 were distributed.  Goals for assistant managers are not the same.  Please work with your Senior Managers on creating the plan for them and other supervisorial staff.  Central and Special Collections managers should contact Liz to discuss their plans for assistant managers and supervisors.

The goals state specifically that supervisors are responsible for their unit’s participation in outreaches during this period to create a baseline for future work.  The notes and key points of the CE Managers meetings should also be shared with your staff.  The numbers for the section on managing innovation and improvement have increased.  The skills test and professional development items have remained the same.  Notice the behavioral factors and supervisory factors have three out of the four factors pre-determined.

The attendance and punctuality metrics have been revised, so staff isn’t penalized for absence due to illness.  This was done with feedback from Senior Managers and other staff.  A handout detailing the metric will be posted with the notes and on the blog.  Sick time usage up to 64 hours will not reflect on this metric.  If the staff member exceeds 64 hours, he/she will need to provide a doctor’s note.  If managers don’t receive 24 hours notice for the work absence, it will become unscheduled vacation and managers should manually key that code in Kronos.  If staff members submit the request in Kronos themselves, supervisors should change the code to VACU.  That number along with the AWOL hours is what you will count for the attendance metric, as well as if the 64 sick hours rule was exceeded.   The chart detailing the range of hours attributed to each rating are detailed in the handout and will be on the CE blog. 

The Punctuality policy states that tardiness will be defined by the Kronos rule of 7.  If you have to manually mark an exception for the staff member’s late arrival, it is considered a tardy.  Managers need to adjust every staff member’s schedule every pay period if it deviates from their pattern in Kronos.  If staff forget to clock in or out, it will be considered a tardy, unless there is an outage.  Managers asked if staff would be allowed to make up time.  Liz said only four hours are allowed, but she will follow up on the matter.  Severe weather events causing lateness will be excused.  These are instances when Mr. Weeks or Mr. Middleton sent out Weather alerts.  The chart detailing the range of hours attributed to each score are on the handout.

Both attendance and punctuality are weighed equally.  The way to attribute the score for staffs’ combined metric is detailed on the handout.  Please discuss this new policy with all your staff.  Look to the CE blog for follow up.

Civic Engagement: (Larry Payne)  The final Civic Engagement event is on September 22^nd in JIB Auditorium.  The Center for Houston’s Future will present the results of their civic vitality study at our event.  Four main areas will be covered: civic/political participation, strong communities, social inclusion, philanthropy & volunteerism.  Larry wants volunteers to present their civic engagement project results.  Please contact Laurie if you wish to do so. 

Another event from the Institute for Sustainable Peace will provide training for facilitators in September.  It will provide instruction on how to handle the sensitive community discussion that will occur at our event.  The Houston Chronicle will be partnering on this and will be publishing articles following up to our main event.  Larry passed out flyers for the main event and training, please share the information with your staff and customers.

Meeting Room Policy: (Laurie Covington)  We have new meeting room policies.  They cover three different groups of libraries: Central, Neighborhood Libraries, and Special Collections (Clayton & Gregory School).  There are separate forms to be filled out for Central and NL/Special Collections.  The big events that are held at JIB, Central, Clayton or Gregory need to go through Special Events at x31646 or hpl.specialevents@houstontx.gov. 

Central charges $25/hour for non-profits to use the meeting rooms, and the for-profit entities get charged $75/hour.  They also have set up, food and equipment charges.  For booking rooms at Clayton, customers need to call or visit.  Food is only allowed in the Carriage House.  At Gregory School, customers need to email them at hpl.gregoryschool@houstontx.gov. No food is allowed there. 

For Neighborhood Libraries, the policy describes who is eligible to reserve a room.  The event has to be free and open to the public.  Customers can request the room up to 90 days in advance, no more than six times within 90 days.  The sale of goods or services, including tutoring isn’t allowed.  Photo shoots or media announcements need to be pre-approved by Communications. Equipment use is restricted to only that which is built into the room.  There is no staff support for AV.  The customer needs to provide accommodations for special needs attendees.  Fire regulations are also included: maximum capacity attendance and the mention of no open flames or candles.  Study rooms can’t be booked in advance and can only be used for two hours.  Time can be extended if there is no wait for use. Author programs using your meeting room need to go through Programming. 

Customers may provide light refreshments and drinks in covered containers at no cost, but if the group wishes to have catered, covered dishes or carry out food there is a charge of $25 per meeting.  No food preparation in the room is allowed.  All fees for room bookings, except food charges should be paid at the time of the reservation.  Food fees were thought best to be paid at the time of the event.  We will check with Financial Services to see if this could be added to Smart Money.  Customers will be responsible for clean up.  If school groups visit and have lunch at the location, a food fee will not be charged because it is considered library sponsored.  Customers can reserve a meeting room in person or on-line.  They need to include set up and take down time.  The Meeting Reservation Form doesn’t list the different fees but does include some of the basic rules.  Staff should advise customers on the different costs.

The policy will be in effect when placed on our website and sent to all locations.

Training:  (Liz Sargent) Tech Training has become very popular, but class size is limited to 15.  Recently, several staff registered for those classes has failed to attend.  Training asks that staff give Training 48 hours notice, if they can’t come. So, other staff on the wait list can be offered their spot.  We will be getting the names of those that don’t show up and following up as to the reason why.  Remember that all staff need to complete the Lean Six Sigma training by noon, December 1^st.  You can find it on TMS.  There is a video on the training portal to guide you on offering customers who sign up for library cards an opportunity to register to vote.  We will also mail the form once it’s completed if the customer requests it.  The video is under New Learning Resources.  http://training.houstonlibrary.org/voter-application.  This is mandated by Texas law.  Mr. Weeks sent out an email regarding this.  Please cover this with your staff at your next meeting. 

There are two forms associated with training.  The Training request form is used when there is a fee involved with taking the class.  The class is supposed to apply to your job directly and be approved by your supervisor first before sending it to Training.  Remember that travel request forms are required by Financial Services for any fee based training, even webinars.  Those must be routed to the usual chain of command and then sent to HPL Training. 

The Course Approved Form is for getting library CE credit for a course not offered by HPL or pre-approved organizations.  You can find the list of approved vendors on the portal at http://training.houstonlibrary.org/online-training.  Submitting the form for approval should be done before you actually take the training.  Don’t forget to submit your certificate of completion to Leilany; include staff name, ID number and date of course.  You can scan and email her the information, too.

International Services: (Shammi Gill)  Those locations looking for collateral in Spanish: Resources For New Americans, it is now available. Please submit your request to the Print Shop.  Shammi has also created a flyer listing all locations offering language learning classes and that can be requested from the Print Shop as well.  Shammi has placed ESL volunteers at Vinson, Walter, Park Place and Robinson Westchase NL. Andrea Lawrence is working on recruiting additional bilingual volunteers to teach ESL and Citizenship classes in NL.  Please let her know if you need an ESL or a Citizenship Class teacher/volunteer. September 17^th is National Citizenship Day, please create a display to promote it and email Shammi pictures of the display.

Youth Services Meetings will now begin at 8:30AM, beginning with the September 11^th one. 

In attendance: Brandon Pope, Melissa Hayes, Djuina Hammett, Melissa Gwinn, Tony Goodwyn, LeRoy Robinson, Angela Barratt, Kallie Benes, Shirley Singletary, Janna Hoglund, Tula Gorden, Christy Chang, Donnie Byrd, Tim Siegel, Sandy Farmer, Richard Hurst, Sara Pope, Kathrine Myers, Nhu Le, Michelle King, Fred Schumacher, Karen Luik, Mercedes Mayne, Felicia Brisco, Virginia Williams, Derrick Spearman, Erika Cardoso, John Merullo, Maggie Sepulveda, Patricia Ogea, Edgar Fuentes, Leonore Hu, Tara Hornbeak, Jayla Parks, Jose Santoyo, Sue Kaufman, Christopher Patrick, Diane Doyen, Gary Lackey, Jennifer Sessa, Michelle Perry, Eduardo Champa, Cylenthia Hoyrd, Dominick Spinelli, Nathan Stokes, Sylvia Espinosa, Kelly Patton, Paty Bustamante, Craig Bertuglia, Jennifer Myers, Vanessa Gempis, Maria Powers, Hellena Stokes, Alma Avina, Esther Reyes, Laney McAdow; Guests: Rick Peralez, Jeff Robin, Blanca Quezada, Marjorie Gonzalez, Larry Payne; CE Admin: Michele Gorman, Elizabeth Sargent, Laurie Covington, Mary Wagoner, Patrick Atkins, Pedro Fonseca, Celeste Diaz, and Yolanda Anguiano

Next CE Managers Meeting is on September 25^th at 8:30AM at Central’s Program Place.