Monday, May 2, 2016

More of the Human Costs of Administrative Ineptitude

So as I was touring the campus earlier today conducting my own damage assessment, I ran into a newly recalled former employee who was returning to work after a weekend of unemployment. Yes, loyal readers, she had the privilege of spending the weekend in an indescribable state of distress over loosing her job on Friday. She filed for unemployment, looked at dipping into retirement savings and began sorting through the damage of the firing tsunami that swept through the campus Friday afternoon.
If you have ever been let go from a job, I am sure you are aware of the psychological cost you paid in loosing that job. To let employees know late on Friday not to return on Monday was cruel and utterly unnecessary. It violated HR 101. Those employees did not have the opportunity to begin the rebuilding process. They simply had to wait and worry over the weekend with no one to call and limited support available as most offices, like the insurance company and unemployment offices, are closed on weekends. 
What left me utterly speechless was to be told by the aforementioned employee that she was contacted 30 minutes prior talking to me, to come pick up her recall notice from HR. Huh??? The university fired someone on Friday and recalled them on Monday? 
Why? What university interest was served by doing that? That utterly unnecessary cruelty should result in the immediate termination of whoever was responsible for that decision. I realize that the new president of the university would likely step forward as an ethical chief executive and accept responsibility, which I would wholly reject. He is responsible and he is not in charge. If he were in charge he would not need the highly paid bureaucrats from the previous failed administration who surround him. He could micro-manage the university by himself. Since that isn't the case, whoever developed the "plan" that has been identified numerous times by senior administrators to manage this process, should be given a box for their belongings and promptly escorted off campus as they have proven that they have no ability or capacity to manage human beings. 
I thought the roll-out of the layoff notices in February was bad and it was. It was subsequently followed by the key turn in debacle. Now this. These holdovers are holding the university hostage to bad management, likely with the acquiescence of the Board of Trustees. 
Enough!
It is time for the president of the university to make the decision to transform the university. Anyone who has been around for five minutes knows what that will take. And if the Board who are primarily responsible for the state of the university object, then they should tender their resignations and be gone. The lives of human beings are being broken by people with no concern for the impact of their decisions. 
Enough!

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