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Administrators answer quesations from tour

When ITD administrators met with employees throughout the state earlier this summer, they fielded a number of questions related to the department’s organization and operations.

The commitment was to answer as many of those questions as possible. Following are responses to some of the key questions employees raised during the tour:

Question: Employees are not uniformly being compensated for being on- call.
Response: (Steve Hutchinson) This will likely be resolved this summer. He said Human Resources and the Legal staff. (Mary Harker) says an ITD team was formed with representatives from each division. The team agreed that they would like to see on-call time compensated but struggled with granting compensatory time as the type of compensation to award since there are already challenges to managing comp time balances.

The policies from other state agencies that award on-call compensation were reviewed. Those state agencies award compensatory time compensation, not cash compensation. The state will be drafting a statewide on-call policy, and the team determined that it was best to wait for that policy so that ITD does not create a policy that might conflict with the state’s.

Question: New GIS Manager is to meet with Districts and find out what the districts need.
Response: (Matthew Moore) "The meeting schedule is as follows:

Nov. 13 – District 2
Nov. 14 – District 1
Nov. 17 – District 4
Nov. 18 – District 6
Nov. 19 – District 5
The week of Nov. 24-26 – District 3

Question: The question was raised (in D4) about why it took so long to hire a surveyor. I would like to find out what took so long in D4 to assess any process issues
Response: (Mary Harker) The situation in District 4 was evaluated and HR's initial assessment was that the long time frame was due to the difficulty of recruiting in the Land Surveyor's job class.

Question: What is the status of the design career path? I have heard everything from it is held up downtown, to it is held up here, to it is a budget issue.
Response: (Mary Harker) The Chief Engineer (Steve Hutchinson) had requested an updated cost of implementation from Division of Highways staff. It was determined that the entire TT series from TTA to TSEA needs to be studied, and Hay and Associates has been contracted to conduct this study. Hay and Associates will begin the study in December and it will run through February. A team made up of ITD employees will work on this study with the consultant.

Question: Pay compression status.
Response: (Scott Stokes): Pay compression data is being analyzed to establish the extent of the compression and how much it will cost to correct it. A draft document is in progress and will be reviewed with the Comp Team in October.

Question: Why do people who work 10-hour shifts only get 8 hours of holiday pay? I recognize this decision has been made, however, it would be good to get the rational out to people again. Especially as there is more of a focus on 10-hour days now.
Response: (Mary Harker) DHR Rule 073.03 states that “schedules resulting in holiday time off in excess of 8 hours must only be approved in such as way as to treat all members of the affected job classification equally. Appointing authorities may suspend flex schedules during holiday weeks or may grant administrative leave or otherwise adjust work schedules to ensure equity.

Therefore, since not every TT for example is on a 4 x 10 schedule, the affected job class would not be treated equally. The proposed DHR rules changes would allow for employees on 4 x 10 schedules to receive 10 hours of holiday pay provided the agency’s compensation plan establishes this option. At this time, the department is not planning to modify our comp plan because this would need to go through the legislative process.

Question: Consider adding something to the Drivers License Manual to inform drivers about work zone safety.
Response: (Alan Frew) I didn’t recall it at the time but we already have guidelines for driving in work zones in our Driver License Manual, section 6-6.

Question: Web site still shows old mission and vision statements.
Response: (Jeff Stratten) The current mission statement is on Web site.

Question: Consider an "Ask the Director" or "Ask Exec. Management" column in the Transporter.
Response: We are making changes to the Transporter in January that will include a “dialogue” box where employees can ask questions related to policy, technical issues, Human Resources, etc.

We will work with the appropriate person to provide answers. We are also going to have division administrators write columns in the Transporter as well.

Question: Have we done anything with the Workforce Summit? There is a need to get an update out to people.
Response: (Mary Harker) Action items from the workforce summit were provided to the “Investing in Our People” team and recommendation for moving forward were made by this team.

Those recommendations have been accepted by executive management and some action items are under way. Action items that are currently in progress are:

determining the organization’s values,
branding and marketing the department as an employer of choice,
enhancing recruitment efforts,
establishing pipeline programs to expose school students to the field of engineering and ITD as an employer,
delegated authority to conduct recruitment (careers@itd.gov)