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Steven Noble
Editor, Internal Publications
p. 403.440.5692
e-mail: snoble@mtroyal.ca

Fred Cheney
Media Relations Officer
p. 403.440.5195
e-mail: fcheney@mtroyal.ca

 

Transition hit Mount Royal like a whirlwind.

The aftermath has been both exciting and overwhelming.

Maureen Bedard, president of the MRSSA, hopes staff will be honest and take advantage of the forums organized by the task force.

With that in mind, Mount Royal initiated the Support Staff and Exempt Transition Taskforce.

This task force will survey staff to identify how their daily jobs have been impacted by transition.

“We’ve been asking for this for over a year,” says Maureen Bedard, president of the Mount Royal Support Staff Association and co-chair of the task force.

The Taskforce will make recommendations based on identified concerns, with the objective of mitigating the impact and engaging staff during times of transformation.

Heather Haddow, associate vice-president of Human Resources, is Bedard’s co-chair.

“At this point it’s about trying to find out what the impact of those changes is,” says Haddow of transition at Mount Royal.

“We want to get a sense of how support staff have been impacted and use that information to decide how best to respond, from the MRSSA’s and Mount Royal’s perspectives.

Heather Haddow is co-chair of the new task force.

“We hope to come up with some recommendations based on our findings by the spring, so the process should be fairly succinct.”

There are two parts to the process whereby staff can open up to the task force.

A survey will take place as a three-part process beginning this week with the announcement that four in-depth two-and-a-half-hour workshops will be held in order for support staff to discuss their challenges and concerns.

More information will be forthcoming on those workshops in the near future.

The workshops will be accompanied by a web survey designed to gain staff feedback.

Bedard and Haddow hope staff take advantage of these forums and use them to their benefit.

“We want some idea of what has changed about support staffs jobs since transition and to see if there’s anything the institution can do to help make those changes easier on our members.

“It’s important for people to engage in the process because without people actually giving us information we’re just guessing and moving forward, no changes can be made based on guess-work.”

— Steven Noble, Jan 28, 2010

Task Force members: Heather Haddow: Associate Vice-President, Human Resources Co-Chair of Committe, Maureen Bedard: President, MRSSA Co-Chair of Committee, Suzanne Evans: Writing and Learning Strategist Student Learning Services MRSSA Executive, Lucille Gnanasihamany: Director, Marketing External Relations Management, Vanessa Hennigan: HR Consultant Human Resources, Alice MacKichan: Manager, Admissions & Recruitment Enrolment Services Management, Francesca Mancini: Wellness Services Administrator Encana Wellness Centre Support Staff, Connie Papas: Corporate Financial Analyst Financial Services Exempt, Digby Smith: Instructional Assistant Math, Physics & Engineering Support Staff