Adjusting to the new normal
Mark Winston Griffith
Hey folks. Just want to give you a heads up on BMC's organizational policy in response to current health conditions and the fact that BMC now has a critical mass of full time staff persons, with more to come.
Beginning Monday 3/16, BMC will suspend the holding of public meetings over 10 people at 375 Stuyvesant. (The CBFC board will determine its own policy and practice.) Meetings that can be converted to video or conference calls should be.
I will be sending out a note to the BMC membership that announces how we plan to operate.
In the meantime, all staff must participate in a mandatory weekly BMC staff video meeting, the first to be scheduled on March 17, 11am-12:30pm. Subsequent meetings will be scheduled on the call. In person staff meetings will resume as a regular part of BMC organizational culture beyond this moment.
Until further notice, full-time staff members (in other words, this does not apply to Max or Raina who already sets her own office hours) will have the option of working from home, with the following conditions:
- Inform your supervisor and the rest of of your co-workers of your work-from-home status each Monday, on a weekly basis.
- Staff should carry out the same duties, assignments, and other work obligations at their home as they do when working at the BMC office -- as opposed to viewing it as flexible personal time. It’s important that we operate in an environment of trust, good faith, and staff equity, so please be conscientious about how you use your time.
- Staff members have to fulfill the same 35 hours of work per week, with an average of 7 hours per day, as they do when not working from home.
- We as staff members must be available to one another or accounted for during work hours, at least by phone.
- Daily 30-minute video supervisory calls will be scheduled for staff working from home. Updates to staff work from home status must be shared with your supervisor at these check ins.
- Any constraints to your work from home schedule will be discussed with your supervisor.
- Use of the BMC Zoom feature has to be scheduled through Zoom to avoid meeting conflicts.
We will discuss this policy at the next staff meeting and amend it as necessary.
For the foreseeable future, I WILL be coming to the office as usual.
Thanks for pushing through this moment. Let me know if you have any questions.
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