The IT Optimization: Move slow and break things
AU recently completed a major reorganization of its IT functions, titled the IT Optimization. Hinted at since Jennifer Schaeffer’s arrival, the optimization was announced in January 2020 and repeatedly delayed until now. This process affected roughly sixty AUFA members and has been autocratic, secretive, and harmful to many people. This is the first of two blog posts discussing the optimization. The second blog post will go over the response from the affected members.
Normally, position changes occur under Article 4.5, which includes the incumbent in the plans to change their job. To avoid this, IT and HR used Article 12.2, redundancy. Despite multiple consultations about the reorganization in 2020, AUFA was not informed that AU would be using redundancy language until the process was formally underway. By using redundancy language, IT could draft entirely new job descriptions in complete secrecy, lay everyone off, and then force staff into whatever job IT management deemed appropriate.
Redundancy is normally invoked when a workplace function is eliminated, leaving the incumbent without any work to do. Under contract, AUFA receives 60 days’ notice to investigate alternatives to severance with HR. At the end of the 60 days, the position is abolished, and any staff let go receive severance.
Members were affected in multiple ways. Many members went through the stressful redundancy process only to find they were moved into the same job. Others found themselves moved into entirely different career paths they did not feel qualified for. Others had their work diminished and insulted through the new jobs. Both promotions and demotions took place. Staff who had spoken extensively with IT directors about their career plans and professional development were almost universally ignored.
The secrecy and refusal to reveal important information to AUFA members approached the bizarre. AUFA met with HR repeatedly to glean information about the reorganization and then communicate it to AUFA members as IT leadership refused to say anything useful. The deadline to apply for managerial jobs was the day before members would be told their future career, leaving people to apply for an excluded job or take the ‘mystery box.’ The deadline to accept the new positions expired before the successful managerial candidates were revealed, forcing members to accept a job without knowing who their supervisor would be.
Despite some or all IT functions in Faculty of Business, Student and Academic Web Services, Library, Finance, and Faculty of Science moving into AU’s central IT unit, there has been no communication about what will happen to the work they were doing. The Deans and Directors of the above areas have received vague assurances that the functions will continue, but transition plans do not appear to exist.
All new positions begin on July 1st. HR has informed all IT staff they cannot continue their old duties. IT leadership have said the transition may take years. The contradiction between HR and IT management has not been resolved.
The handling of managerial positions is particularly troublesome and is detailed here. The fallout of the managerial positions is that six prior managers found themselves demoted or moved into different careers despite years of positive assessments and feedback from IT leadership. Cases involve members applying for an excluded version of their own job and not getting it, or others returning from bereavement leave to find they were facing demotion. If they were bad at their jobs, why did they have no invitation for improvement? If they were good at their jobs, why were they demoted?
A similar process was used with AUPE members in the redeployment. Six AUPE members were offered AUFA positions as an alternative to new AUPE positions, all of which were accepted. Despite these promotions, the members were not offered better salaries beyond the contractual minimum and were all placed on probation – even in a case where an AUPE member was moved into an identical position he had already had for sixteen years. In some cases, the affected members will have lower take-home pay due to a lack of overtime and slightly higher paycheque reductions.
During the redundancy process, all affected members were entitled a single 15-minute meeting with either Ted Erickson or Graeme Denney. A team of six AUFA representatives reached out to all affected members and attended meetings with them. Thanks to powerful self-advocacy on the part of members, the meetings typically went overtime, some by as much as two hours. The meetings were often frustrating or pointless as members were told they had only one meeting and one job offer, and to reject the offer was to resign. After significant pushback, a handful of members received alternate, and in some cases more appropriate, job offers.
Although the 60-day notice period expires today, HR and IT introduced an early date of May 10th to accept the new positions. All members were told if they did not accept their positions by May 10th, they would resign effective July 1st. This has no basis in contract. When AUFA representatives confronted Human Resources about this deadline in a meeting, it was downplayed as a soft encouragement to move the process along, despite it being a clear threat delivered in writing. In the same meeting, HR also claimed that the exclusion of managers was due to them being a ‘named exclusion’ in the designation policy like directors. This is a misreading of AU’s own policy, as managers were only a named exclusion in early revisions and were removed in the final draft.
The impact on affected IT staff varies but in many cases it is severe. AUFA circulated a survey to IT staff and in the next blog post discussing the optimization, the response from the staff in the survey, and how staff organized with each other and pushed back against the worst excesses of this process will be discussed.
David Powell
President
Athabasca University Faculty Association