Friday, April 24, 2020

Regarding the standing issues / staffing / office opening / re-organization & recruitment

Attendance - FS (till 4.40), TH from 4.30, RZ, LZ, AN
Time - 4.00 pm - 6.00 pm

AGENDA
       Review from last Admin Meeting minutes  
       KMV - Rushmi Wickramagamage is going to help - what can we assign 
       Proposal Arrangement for Ranmalee Bandara - next steps - see AQI Trello Board 
       Any special issues for Ramazan 

STANDING ISSUES 
  • Status of OCW 
  • Attendance Review 
  • Weekly Reporting
  • Staff payment arrangements  for April 
  • Office Status - Digana and Akurana
  • Envisioning Reopening 

STAFFING 
       decisions that need to be made 
       departures and  recruitment     
Ø  Admin re-organization - TH - Feedback on Questions about Review of Admin functions for Brainstorming  
Ø  Financial re-organization - RZ  - Feedback on Questions about Review of Admin functions for Brainstorming 
Ø  Online Re-Org Meetings - Do we need to do this? If so who shall lead this?  

STAFFING - INTERPRETING POLICY ON RECRUITING EMPLOYED PERSONS AND PG STUDENTS 

       Different Options for Assigning Work on the Weekly Climate Reports were considered. RZ wanted to be careful about disturbing what Ain’t broke. The trouble is that the opportunity is not leading to growth or science nor is there a career future there. Maybe there are unemployed persons who may benefit from the 10K we pay per month. We have to consider capable folks we are not able to keep due to the budget and other reasons in the tough times to come. 

       Anyway, prospective candidates shall be tried out for producing the climate report. Good to have a backup 
       We need a person whose work we can rely on and who is willing to go the extra distance. 

       LZ wanted to know the policy on engaging otherwise employed staff or post-graduate students for such assignments? 

       So as to pick the candidates. 

       We seem to permit the first. Hiring Employed staff (RL) does not seem an issue that is contradicts our Staff HB. Although one could argue. Perhaps it is because it is a limited weekly assignment for a task that we cannot find an internal person. 

       Perhaps it a person with specialized skills who saves us funds overall. Or a person who brings in funds (like our PI’s), Think we need to accommodate such exception for such engagement case by case. What about the post-graduate student - not sure why the case of a post-graduate student is different if they have specialized skills or aptitudes. We are not engaging PG students who do part-time Masters in FECT except for limited engagements. 

REGARDING THE OFFICE OPENING

       Digana Office to Reopen for all staff: PT has visited the office twice - he reports not problems. As long as the curfew is lifted, we decided to facilitate the staff to work following the safety procedures provided by the Ministry of Health in the Office. That office can accommodate a maximum of 5 including the office inside. Staff may have to each lunch two at a time and have some facilities for wiping down surfaces, door knobs, bathrooms. There is a risk in bringing external folks to clean the place. Mgmt. felt that our staff shall help in this.  Existing staff at Digana - CG, TH, DV - to be given priority - We could have rotating attendance by 2 other staff members we may need to help with their transport within limits. 
      
The Akurana office opening is not in the horizon yet. And when done has to be gradual. 
       Due presence of elderly person downstairs, we shall have to take additional safeguards when it is opened - it has to be partitioned to areas where staff habituate.  We shall need the office staff numbers to be brought down from 8-9 to around 5 for the benefit of all.
       We may give the opportunity for work from home to staff members who are more effective and those who are most exposed from travel.  

      (An email to be sent to the staff on this). 

RE-ORGANIZATION & RECRUITMENT
      Admin re-organization - TH presented a preliminary list of Admin Activities - he was requested to provide a list of immediate tasks, and to circulate the list of tasks to be done.   After that he should work on how to transform the work towards OCW - and how to do this step by step. Recruitment for Admin support from NAITA, SLIATE and other VTI to be prioritized. Current Assessment by TH - A person for hardware support who can do other tasks online is needed. 

      Financial re-organization - LZ suggested RZ review the organizational structure - e.g. Accounts, Auditing, Purchasing - to Add Attendance to this from Admin, to break up Accounting into a few functions - such as book-keeping, petty cash, payroll -  suggest what are the immediate tasks, what are the opportunities and challenges to move functions to online work. 

       Even with a need to reduce staff, we should not hesitate to hire staff such as NAITA trainees who can benefit from exposure to help Finance and Admin work - and that is the way that we can manage better with higher-end staff.  

       RZ had started to work on Financial Projections for next 2-3 years based on current grants and staff and other expenses and needs. She needs to develop a few scenarios to enable current funds to last for 2-3 years. Core staffs have to be sustained longer.  LZ requested her to do this quickly without trying to make this excessively accurate - if the accuracy is 30% or of the order of lakhs, that is as precise as it needs to be because there are big changes that can come up.

       Online Re-Org Meetings - All agreed to proceed with zoom meetings - initial they can be done by THEME - and we can have an ALL-STAFF meeting. The Mgt Team members -RZ, TH and AN-  to take charge check on the next step by next week. TH (?) suggested the team meetings can be done before the meeting.

       Any special issues for Ramazan: Nothing came up

       LZ referred to the Email asking whether ? Is there a CRISIS and DO WE NEED TO MANAGE FOR IT?”

       He said there was no response to the emails - there was no response at the management meeting - maybe because the meeting went for long


Thursday, April 23, 2020

Purpose

The purpose of this blog is to keep minutes of management discussions and references needed for Management of FECT

Monday, April 20, 2020

Difficulties with Time/Work Tracking / Auxiliary Staff

ALLOWANCE PAYMENT - DIFFICULTIES WITH TIME and WORK TRACKING 
As we paid full salaries on April 11th and as we are struggling with crediting folks for time worked in March, we need to reflect the debits in the April disbursement - this cannot be done on March 31. RZ needs a week to get the accounts in order. 

As I understand many places don’t pay on the same day - so I am suggesting that we pay by the 7th of the month. Any thoughts. 
We should inform staff early and if anyone wants exceptions we can consider this time. 

WEEKLY AND DAILY PLANS 
Weekly plans -  Not provided - RZ, CG

Attendance Provided - Weekly plans not clear - DV, TH, 
Weekly plans not provided - NP, MR do  not have tasks in their plans - shall let that be. 

STAFF 

We cannot give staff "Make Work” to cover the time - both MR and NP have a need for physical presence - unless they can improve connectivity and outputs. Tried them with tasks but MR did not send outputs - so also the case with NP on one tasks. NP needed for legal work immediately. 

I have talked to MR, RZ shall follow up today. 
I shall talk to  NP. 

Talked to AA over the weekend at length - she has a thesis submission due on May 11 but is trying to avoid this route - I gave some ideas on how to complete a thesis based on her work - not sure she does that - told her that I am willing to be the external supervisor - if so tries to submit she should suspend all work here. 

She has also has got the govt appointment and given a letter accepting it - although she is not keen on it. She may not like it but I would not bet against her accepting the appointment. Anyway, for that she should get another govt job that she has applied for. 

I eased it to her that given our Masters rule, we shall have to end her appointment this month. I had reminded her of this multiple times including at recruitment. She says that she is learning a lot with us.  

Apart from the rule, we need to stretch out our budgets given that we have one grant and give priority to the core staff in the back end. 

If she wants to work voluntarily she can continue or is willing to do an assignment for me personally (Climate Atlas).  Champika Jayatillake may be more competent with the Climate Atlas. Talked to PW - on this - he supports. CJ worked with us briefly sometime back. 

Also trying to get PW daughter Rashmi’s help with the KMV. 

Talked to SS - we agreed on the work - and rather weakly asked for some financial support - seems she has not got her salary from the University yet. We need to encourage her work. 

Also talked to CC - seems to be on track. 

Talked to Hasmiya as per last mail - regards support for RB AQI on HP proposal. We are doing a zoom call at 7 pm with PE and RB and her. AN may attend and FS can do follow up later. 

AUXILIARY STAFF 
PT has given us value as he got survey plans for free - and has outputs that shall benefit 
Work in Dengue, PO and Hydrology. Shall discuss a payment for him - had told him we shall pay for 1.5 days. 

Going forward We shall pay an allowance based on hours worked to SS as well while on Univ shutout - so as to cover her costs and so that there is no bottlenecks in the paper outputs.