[UUAA news] Staffing-Related Update from UUAA's Personnel Working Group

[UUAA's Personnel Working Group]

Message from UUAA's Personnel Working Group  A STAFFING-RELATED UPDATE FROM UUAA’s PERSONNEL WORKING GROUP Dear Members & Friends of our UUAA Community, We wanted to share a brief update related to staffing and personnel matters at UUAA. Our community, alongside many other institutions, has needed to simultaneously navigate: multiple staffing transitions and departures; fiscally-driven staff team restructuring; and, the need to fill critical, ongoing staff positions that have been vacated or are becoming vacant. As these intersecting dynamics are likely to continue playing out for some time still, we will share with our community periodic updates related to new or upcoming staffing developments. This message contains several such updates. Congregational Administrator Search Process:  UUAA’s Interim Congregational Administrator, Ed Lynn, has been filling what is typically an essential paid staff position at congregations of our size as an unpaid volunteer for almost seven years now. Ed will be ‘retiring’ from his staff role during the summer of 2022 and plans on returning to life at UUAA as a beloved congregant. As a result, UUAA will shortly begin the search process for a new Congregational Administrator. Some months of planning and reflection have gone into the creation of a Position Description and vacancy announcement, which interested community members can access here. The Senior Minister, Rev. Manish Mishra-Marzetti, who holds final authority in matters related to hiring and retention, has formed a Congregational Administrator Search Committee, to assist and support in this task, especially in bringing the experience and needs of the laity to this process. The search committee includes individuals who have worked closely with UUAA’s Administrators and is comprised of: Beth Hospadaruk, Jim Lee, Colleen Crawley, Vilma Mesa, and Manish Mishra-Marzetti. If UUAA is fortunate enough to find a qualified individual for this position, we hope to have the new Administrator onboard by August 1, 2022 or thereabouts. Buildings and Grounds Support: On the other side of some months of recovering from illness and injury, Don Hackney is transitioning out of the position of Buildings and Grounds Manager. We are so grateful for Don’s dedicated service to the UUAA community and invite you to join us on Sunday, May 1, as we plan on honoring and celebrating Don’s work with the UUAA community. UUAA has been restructuring, and will continue to restructure, the way this work is done. To meet a host of building and grounds needs with limited staffing, UUAA is evolving how physical space needs are met, organizing lay volunteers to help support such, and to a limited degree relying on outside contractors to undertake specific tasks. These plans will continue to evolve as UUAA monitors the demand for facilities as our local region, hopefully, begins to ease out of the pandemic. The Acting Director Positions: Music and Spiritual Growth and Development For those community members who have already connected with Personnel Working Group member Leigh Robertson to share feedback on UUAA’s two Acting Director positions (currently held by Carter Smith, Acting Director of Music Ministries, and Stella Anderson, Acting Director of Spiritual Growth and Development), we thank you. If you have feedback for Leigh, and have not had a chance to connect with her or participate in one of the group feedback sessions, please contact Leigh ASAP at: leigrobe at umich.edu. Your feedback is welcome, appreciated, and needed in discerning the best way forward for UUAA with each of these positions. The feedback process that Leigh has been leading will wrap up by the end of March, and then we will move into analysis of the gathered data in April. It is possible that by the second half of April, or early May, UUAA may be in a position to share what will be happening with these two Acting Director positions. Comprehensive Revision of UUAA’s Employee Manual Our Team has just completed a months-long comprehensive overhaul of UUAA’s personnel policies as captured/represented in UUAA’s Employee Manual (rev. April 2022). This represents the most significant updating of our personnel policies and practices in at least eight years, and likely longer. Our Team engaged in best practices bench-marking against other large Unitarian Universalist congregation employment policies, and carefully reviewed every line of UUAA’s existing policies, ensuring that our revised policies were contemporary and relevant, offering protection and benefits for our employees while also safeguarding UUAA’s institutional interests. The comprehensive, revised policies can be accessed here.  Contacting Us Any questions, comments, or feedback for our team can be directed to Rev. Manish (manish at uuaa.org), who helps convene and guide the work of the Personnel Working Group. UUAA’s Personnel Working Group consists of Vilma Mesa, Toni Wander, Leigh Robertson, Gregg Peterson, and Manish Mishra-Marzetti.  First Unitarian Universalist Congregation of Ann Arbor | 4001 Ann Arbor-Saline Rd., Ann Arbor, MI 48103 Unsubscribe news3 at uuaa.org Update Profile | Constant Contact Data Notice Sent by communications at uuaa.org powered by Try email marketing for free today!
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