University of Hartford – Modifying Workforce Shifts

Norm Young, University of Hartford
March 25, 2020

During the COVID-19 crisis, are you dividing up your workforce into different shifts?

“Skilled trades are working only as needed.  Most are home and on-call (still getting paid).  Those who come in on a regular basis are rotated; for example, a plumber comes in three times per week for various duties such as grease trap inspection/cleaning.  An HVAC tech comes in three times per week to check various systems.  Two grounds staff come in three times per week to deal with trash and any other issues that come up.  Our custodial group was planned to be rotated but we changed that in favor of bringing all of them in on regular shifts since we had more activity on campus than we expected. 

“Most of the schools I know of have all of their staff in.  Our reason for not doing that included compliance with ‘stay home’ requests from the state to stop the spread, a desire to stop virtually all spending, and a desire to keep our staff healthy.  I expect more change as we contemplate making more spaces available to our local municipalities and hospitals for patient care should it be needed.”