Staff Support
This site serves to collect information designed to track the needs of library faculty and staff during the pandemic, as well as efforts to provide support to library employees. Since March 2020 when FAU closed down campus in response to the pandemic and since the partial reopening of the University in August, the Libraries have been trying to address the physical health and safety of employees, as well as their mental and emotional well-being. Some of those efforts are documented here.
Training
The Libraries have organized training on a variety of topics during 2020 to help people cope with the radically new environment. Some of those opportunities are listed here, although there are many other opportunities made available through the University and outside agencies that everyone has been encouraged to attend, as their time and interests permit:
Chronic Uncertainty: How to Approach the Future when it is Anything but Certain / Workshop presented by Dr. Jenny Bloom on August 28, 2020.
FAU Police Department De-Escalation Workshop / presented by Lieutenant Mary Douglas, August 13, 2020 https://drive.google.com/file/d/1Ql_lnq1XLe_CUKd60iulAnn319-b1Gvx/view?usp=sharing /
Staff Surveys
Periodic surveys to gauge how people have been coping with the new work environment have been conducted every four to six weeks. The results of those surveys appear below.. The Libraries Senior Leadership Team and Leadership Team have taken feedback from the surveys to make changes and improvements to the work environment.
Shout-Outs
In addition, in late October 2020, the Libraries launched a program for library employees to offer words of encouragement to each other through Shout-Outs. This program recognizes that every employee has an important role to play in creating and maintaining a healthy and supportive work environment. https://library.fau.edu/shout-outs
Communication
One of the most important aspects of a healthy work environment is regular communication. Department heads meet on a regular basis with their departments. A variety of working groups meet regularly. Every staff member can communicate with the entire library staff at once through postings to the libstaff list, ask questions, and get answers. The Dean meets on a weekly basis with the Senior Leadership Team and on a monthly basis with the Libraries Leadership Team. There are periodic all-staff meetings and open sessions for people to ask the Dean and other administrators questions. The Dean also issues regular updates to the all-staff email list that are archived and can be viewed here: https://sites.google.com/a/faulibs.com/committees/all-staff-committees/all-staff-meetings