OS1 Frequently Asked Questions

1. Can a Custodian participate in OS1 and remain in his/her same building? a. The volunteers in the initial phases of OS1 will work in their first facility for around 90 days and then become lead people, and move once again to their next building as new buildings come on line. So they will be moving anyway. This may change as we get into later phases in a year or so.
   
   b. We are teaching a whole new way of cleaning and it is difficult to break old habits. Starting with a new crew in a facility will make it easier for them to get used to this system. If they have spent a number of years in that facility already then they would naturally have more trouble learning a new way in the same space.
   
   c. All that being said we do not want to break up good teams. We are exploring a new pilot in Darryl Betts area where we will keep the existing staff in place. This pilot will help determine how difficult it is for staff to learn a new way of doing things in the same building.
2. How many employees are needed to develop a team? It depends on the building. Probably between 3 to 5 and a building can have more than one team.
3. What is the method used to determine which team member does which specialist position? All members of the team will be trained in each specialty. A rotation schedule will be developed by the team and management within the guidelines of the ASFCME contract. A point of clarification, “Light Duty Specialist” is not intended for light duty work such as an employee with work restrictions.
4. What is included in the job cards and how does the work progress through and area or building? When an OS1 team is set up, job cards are created for the different specialists as a road map for the daily duties, ie: time to arrive in an area, length of time spent in an area, a map of where to start, where to go, etc. Teams work independently, yet in tandem, and each employee works through the building at different times according to the road map. Team members do not necessarily work in the same space at the same time.
5. How is absenteeism covered? OS1 has a plan to cover absenteeism when a team is in a short staff situation. This plan prioritizes the team’s tasks so that the important work is done in the event that one or more crew members are off. However, one of our goals is to create a swing crew to fill in the gaps as much as possible with this new program.
6. Do you have to be a Custodian I to be a Day Porter? The Day Porter position will be a new classification. We don’t know yet what the pay grade will be but expect it to be the same or below a C2.
7. If an employee volunteers and does not like the new building that they are assigned to, can they go back to their original building/supervisor? Volunteers will act as lead people in new facilities immediately after they finish the 90 day basic training. For this reason everyone will be moving regularly until we reach a critical mass of trained employees. Otherwise someone will have to use the normal transfer process to move to a different building.
8. If you categorize a custodian as a “specialist”, will that employee receive an upgrade in pay? The term “specialist” refers to the tasks you do during the shift, not a classification. At this time an OS1 specialist is a Custodian 2 classification. There may be upgrades and/or stepped increases but that will have to be negotiated in the new ASFCME contract.
9. How long will the program be “voluntary”? As long as possible. Over a 3-4 year roll out it is expected that most of the changes will be voluntary.
10. What is the procedure for smaller buildings which only have 1 or 2 custodians? The one or two people can do all 4 specialties or a team can come in and do several 1-2 person buildings.
11. How are volunteers selected from the volunteer list? The list is shortlisted to people who have no disciplinary or attendance issues. From there we ask who is interested according to possible shift changes and building assignments.
12. What will be the shift time for the majority, once all buildings are on line? Shifts for OS1 will occur when the facility is least occupied which can vary. Generally the work will be done at night.
13. Is the OS1 program is about reducing the number of employees? We expect to save 20-30% from our current budget. Since we are 90% labor that translates into less custodians. However, there will be new space coming on line coupled with our average turnover rate, so we anticipate that there will be no layoffs.
14. How are labs, classrooms, and auditoriums specifically handled? How are event buildings handled which have employees working a couple different shifts? Each building will be evaluated individually using the OS1 pin point work loading program. Details on the actual cleaning assignments will be determined at the time a new facility is scheduled to come on line.
15. What is the square footage assigned to each team? Approximately 36 to 40K SF per team member. Similar to what we experience now.
16. Will your work load compare to PBGS standards? It is our expectation that we will increase the level of service we are providing by increasing the effectiveness of our cleaning teams. With our current funding level we should move from a 2.7 APPA level to somewhere between a 1 and 2.
17. What about supervision? Just as we will be training our custodians to be specialists rather than generalists the same will be happening for supervisors. The details have not yet been worked out and our assumption is that it will evolve as the program moves to the various supervisor units.