The ELS team (including casual staff) will no longer be working in bubbles from today, Monday 14 March.
The reasons for this include:
- The split roster caused a number of significant workflow issues for the ELS team.
- Moving back to the normal roster allows flexibility for some members of the ELS to work some hours from home
- The change in governmental definitions of close and casuals contacts has reduced the potential impact of isolation on keeping the libraries open (thereby reducing the need to split staffing across bubbles).
Other library teams can stay working in bubbles if that best suits them. Note that it is helpful for staff to work from home, if they can, to reduce staff numbers on site. Each manager will discuss with their team any potential changes to current working bubbles.
One of the features of this Omicron outbreak has been a lot of change as we adapt our approach to the situation, changes in government approach and so on. This change to bubble arrangements has been made in response to staff feedback. Nonetheless, this may be unsettling as there are a wide range of perspectives across the library team. If you have concerns, please don’t hesitate to discuss with your manager.
The ELS team were asked to email managers on their views on the bubbles. The majority were in favour of removing them.
Option 1 – Current Bubble 2
Option 2 – Bubble + WFH 3
Option 3 – Regular Roster (ie no bubble) 6
Option 4 – Regular Roster + WFH 10
The bubbles were added with the best of intentions but staff felt that in practice the bubbles were adding more stress than the safety benefit to the team.
Given the strong support in the team for option 4, will WFH some of the week be implemented again for ELS? This was trialled, I believe.
Ngā mihi,
Nick
Tomo is working on possible WFH options for ELS staff.
Ngā mihi, Anne
Kia ora Anne! 🙂
Nick
Out of curiosity is there an end date to the bubbles? Will this be after the peak?
Given the bubbles have stopped for ELS, the bubbles have effectively already ended. However, the Omicron working from home arrangements within each team continue in various forms. For example, the MB team is continuing to work in informal bubbles with staff having set on/off campus days (but flexibility to come onto campus if they wish); while LTR is mostly working from home and not using bubbles. The WFH arrangements will be continually reviewed in response to the Omicron outbreak.