About 24 Ohio U. employees, after being notified earlier this year they would be out of a job, have found they still have a place at the university once the summer is over.
Although OU announced in March that about 42 layoffs would take place, a combination of efforts from several departments has allowed more than half of those laid off to move to various other positions.
“As positions became vacant during the year – people retiring or going to another employer – Human Resources, in anticipation that it would be a very difficult budget year, worked hard to keep positions opened,” said Becky Watts, chief of staff to OU President Roderick McDavis. “So when these layoffs happened, there would be a place for a person whose position was eliminated. (Gwen Brooks in Human Resources) was being considerate about ways she could make it possible to hold vacancies in anticipation that people could move into those, and it worked.”
After the organizational footwork that took place in Human Resources and other departments across the university, the number of layoffs moved down to 18 – 13 administrative positions, four part-time classified employees and one faculty member.
Despite reducing the number of layoffs, OU will still save the same amount of money, Watts said.
“The positions that were eliminated are still eliminated,” she said. “We still will have the savings originally put into place through the elimination of the 40-some positions. But we’ve been able to greatly lessen the negative effect this has on individuals and their families.”
The 18 layoffs will save OU more than $887,000 per next year, based on last year’s salaries. In addition, the elimination of 56 vacant positions – ones still budgeted but no longer filled – will save the university $1.8 million, said Gwen Brooks, director of employment and recruitment in OU’s Human Resources department.
“The placements that we made in HR wouldn’t have been possible without the support and the cooperation of so many departments that we worked with,” said Brooks, who helped to identify open positions. “A lot of the credit goes to how cooperative of an environment we work in and everyone being so flexible and supportive of the process to help reduce our layoff numbers.”
At least two of the classified employees being laid off were eligible to retire and chose to do so.
“Their positions are being abolished, but they offered to retire, so we don’t consider it being laid off,” Brooks said. “We consider it retired.”
Several faculty positions were saved as well because of the $1 million in instructional capacity funding incorporated into the university budget, Brooks said. This money was made available after a decision to institute a faculty raise pool of 1 percent instead of 2 percent.
Classified Senate passed a resolution earlier this year asking the 2 percent raise pool be upheld instead of the 1 percent if the difference would not be used to save non-bargaining classified positions, said Jill Estep, treasurer of Classified Senate.
Classified Senate will work to support the employees who are moving to new positions and to ensure they receive training and a smooth transition.
“I think Human Resources has done as good a job as they can do,” Estep said. “This is a difficult time for higher education in general, and we’re not exempt from that.”
No union members were affected by these layoffs, said Dave Logan, president of the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees Local 1699.