PG&E – IBEW Joint Non-Productive Time Subcommittee Report 2010

PG&E – IBEW

Joint Non-Productive Time SubcommitteeReport

2010

The members of the Joint Non-Productive Time Subcommittee as identified below jointly prepared this report.

Company /

IBEW

Kathy Price – Co-Chair / Debbie Mazzanti – Co-Chair
Michelle Lee – Labor Relations / Dorothy Fortier – Asst. Business Manager
Steve Rayburn – Labor Relations / Arlene Edwards – Business Representative
Frances Wilder-Davis – Labor Relations / Elieen Purcell – IBEW Staff
Francine Speer – Human Resources / Donna Ambeau – Member
Juanita Elliott – Energy Delivery / Lorenso Arciniega – Member
Gary Gaither – Customer Operations / Anna Bayless-Martinez – Member
Ina German – Customer Operations / Cecelia De La Torre – Member
Nick Glero – Customer Operations / Adrianne Franks – Member
Ontario Johnson – Energy Delivery / Jennifer Gray – Member
Mary Pimentel-Wheeler – Shared Services / Gracie Nunez – Member
Ben Shaffer – Accounts Payable/Payroll / Tim Ramirez – Member
Diane Tatu – Member

Objective: A Joint Non-Productive Time Subcommittee was established in an effort to:

  1. Define non-productive time.
  2. Review current non-productive time trends as well as including the impact of such time to employees and the Company.
  3. Review the PG&E-IBEW Agreement and other PG&E policies on non-productive time.
  4. Identify any additional ways to meet the needs of employees’ time off as well as the operational needs of the Company.

Subcommittee meetings were held on:

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PG&E – IBEW Joint Non-Productive Time Subcommittee Report 2010

  • January 19, 2010
  • February 18, 2010
  • March 1, 2010
  • March 15, 2010

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PG&E – IBEW Joint Non-Productive Time Subcommittee Report 2010

  1. Non-Productive Time

The Company defines non-productive time off as any time an employee is off the premises during their regularly scheduled work hours. This includes but is not limited to: sick leave, scheduled and unanticipated vacation, any type of leave, T-Time (time off with permission/without pay), funeral leave, etc. The Union does not agree that vacation time should be included in the “non-productive time” calculations as this is an “earned” benefit.

  1. Types of Leaves

The Subcommittee reviewed the Types of Leaves Comparison Chart (Attachment 1) and the provisions of each type of leave. The different types of leaves include:

  • Family and Medical Leave Act (FMLA) of 1993 and California Family Rights Act (CFRA) of 1991
  • Pregnancy Disability Leave (PDL)
  • Company Medical Leave
  • FMLA/CFRA Child Bonding Leave
  • Company Child Care/Child Bonding Leave
  • Military Leave
  • Personal Leave
  • Victims of Domestic Violence Act (VDVA) Labor Code 230.1
  • Victims of Crime Act (Labor code 230.2)
  • FamilySchool Partnership Act (FSPA) of 1994
  • Emergency Firefighter
  • Company Sick Leave
  • Family Sick Leave (California Labor Code)
  • Paid Family Leave (PFL)
  • State Disability Insurance (SDI)

Some of the leaves are provided by federal or state law and some are provided via the Agreement between the Company and Union.

The Company noted that when someone is off on a Family Medical Leave Act (FMLA)/California Family Rights Act (CFRA) leave for their own health condition, sick leave runs concurrently with the FMLA/CFRA. The exception is under Pregnancy Disability Leave where use of sick leave is optional. Sick Relative runs concurrently when time off is taken for a family member under FMLA/CFRA.

The Types of Leaves Comparison Chart can be accessed by clicking on “chart” under the “Types of Leaves Chart” heading on the HR intranet site at:

  1. Leave of Absence Data

The Company reviewed the Executive Dashboard – Long Term Disability and Leave of Absence report for the 2nd Quarter 2009 (Attachment 2) and the Absence and Accommodation Solutions Report for 2009 (Attachment 3) with the Subcommittee. The reports provided Leave and LTD absence information for all departments and employees at PG&E. The Executive Dashboard identified organizations in one of three categories: greater than 10% of Company average; equal to or within 10% of Company average; or less than Company average. For leaves of absence, the Customer Care organization was identified as being greater than 10% of the Company average. All other organizations were identified as less than the Company average.

PG&E’s Monthly Leave of Absence Report for Customer Care illustrated the following:

  • 40% of IBEW Clerical employees were on a Leave of Absence in 2009.
  • Customer Care had 892 Active Claims for Continuous Leave (e.g., Company Medical).
  • 1,037 Active Claims for Intermittent Leave (e.g., FMLA).
  • This equates to lost hours for continuous claims of301,344 (equivalent of 145 FTE’s) and 75,773lost hoursfor intermittent claims (equivalent to 36 FTEs).

It was also illustrated that although the Customer Care Unit was identified as being greater than 10% of the Company average in the Executive Dashboard, based on the data provided, the 2009 average had shown improvement as compared to 2008. The Absence and Accommodation Solutions report provided by the Company indicated:

  • In 2009, active claims for intermittent leave was documented as 1,037 with a high of 543 claims in the month of April. From April to December, the number had decreased by 15% to 459 claims.
  • Active claims for continuous claims had also declined from a high in October of 280 to 198 claims in December, a decrease of 29%.
  1. Strategic Attendance Management (SAM)

The Company reported that it has been experiencing high levels of employee absence in the Contact Centers due to various reasons. The biggest drivers of unavailability are leaves of absence and FMLA/CFRA. During 2009, the full-time equivalent of 15% - 19% of ContactCenteremployees were unavailable to take calls, significantly impacting the quality of service to customers.

The Company stated that it had conducted benchmarking with other utility contact centers and found that PG&E’s Contact Centers have substantially higher unavailability rates compared to other unionized contact centers.

The Company stated that this absenteeism rate has had operational impacts in customer satisfaction through abandoned and repeat calls caused by delays in accessing Customer Service Representatives. In addition, employee satisfaction is impacted through high occupancy rates (call after call being taken by CSR’s at work with minimal micro pauses), reduced opportunities for training and communications, mandatory overtime and closing of the vacation calendar. It is the Union’s belief that technological issues have more impact on customer satisfaction than lead to believe. Significant concerns around abandoned calls include misdirecting the customer in the IVR (e.g., “regular office hours are from 8:00 a.m. – 5:00 p.m.,” winter storm messages, as well as multiple transfers to “specialty groups” to complete the customer’s many concerns. The Company has had a challenge complying with the CPUC’s 80/20 requirement (80% of calls answered within 20 seconds) and operating within its budget target. The Union asked if the Company could track the reasons for abandoned calls. The Company stated there is no way to identify why a customer chooses to abandon a call. Although, there are multiple potential reasons (external/internal system disconnect, customer error, etc.), it is Call Center Operation’s belief that the primary driver is most likely related to the length of wait time on hold for a representative.

The Subcommittee reviewed an hours report (Attachment 4) that showed month by month in 2009, all hours scheduled to work, all hours actually worked, hours coded as off premises, overtime hours and headcount in each of the four Contact Centers (Fresno, Sacramento, San Jose and Stockton).

The Companyis consulting with Hewitt, the Company’s leave management vendor, to work on identifying root cause drivers of absenteeism and to propose corresponding solutions for the Contact Centers. The representative from Hewitt is Deborah Labonar. Dr. Labonar has been working in the area of absence management consulting and analytics for ten years. She has her PhD in Industrial and Organizational Psychology from PurdueUniversity. She reviewed the Strategic Attendance Management (SAM) process that it is using for the Contact Centers (Attachment 5) with the Subcommittee. SAM is a data driven process utilizing actual absence data to identify key target groups and specific absence trends. Hewitt explained that there are different drivers of absenteeism and that different drivers require different solutions. The diagnostic process includes both quantitative and qualitative measures to assess the current state of absence management. This will be done through focus groups with Team Leads and Managers, job observations, detailed analysis of current illness and disability absence trends and a validated survey to measure current organizational culture. The Union expressed concern regarding the confidentiality of employee medical information and survey responses. Hewitt and the Company responded that all individual survey results will remain confidential and will be viewed only by the Hewitt consultant. Only group-level, rolled up results with be shared with the Company.

The Union requested information from Hewitt regarding the companies and unions they have used the SAM process with. Hewitt provided information that it had worked with one Company and union.

The Union stated that they believe something is amiss in the Contact Centers to cause such a high absenteeism rate. The Union stated the Company should be looking for the symptoms causing this absenteeism.

It is also the Union’s belief that incorrect and inconsistent coding of exceptions may have had an impact on the numbers presented. The Company did recognize this and advised that it would provide guidelines and examples of effective documentation. There is also a belief by the Union that there is a level of inconsistency among the Centers and absence management.

The Union stated that exit interviews, which at one time were conducted by local management, were discussed as another means to identify causes of absenteeism in the Contact Centers. The Company stated that these types of interviews were migrated to an outside vendor but had since terminated the relationship with that vendor. The valuable information that was once collected by the exit interviews, per the Company, has not been collected since the severance of that relationship several years ago.

While the data shows unavailability rates to be higher in Contact Center Operations, the Company recognizes this trend is not isolated to the Contact Centers. In an effort to better understand and manage absence trends, the Company distributed a survey (Attachment 6) to ContactCenter employees which is focused on identifying the root cause issues surrounding employee absences. This survey was introduced jointly from the Contact Center Director and IBEW Business Manager (Attachment 7). The survey was reviewed with the Subcommittee and the Union’s input was incorporated into the survey. The Company distributed the survey to Contact Center Operations employees on Monday, February 22 and will receive the results in late April. These results will be shared with the IBEW Business Manager.

The Company reported that as of March 1, 492ContactCenter employees had completed the survey which is a 55% participation rate. The target participation rate for this survey is 60%. The Company expects to have recommendations back from Hewitt by the end of April.

  1. Additional Ways to Balance the Needs of Employee Time Off with the Operational Needs of the Company

The Subcommittee reviewed alternatives that other western utilities use to provide flexibility for employees to meet their needs for time off as well as the operational needs of the Company (Attachment 8). The common trend among the options provided by other utilities is some variation of flex time.

The Union expressed its desire to see more flextime used throughout the Company. The Company stated that this is something that would need to be reviewed by each line of business on a case-by-case basis to determine whether a flextime type of schedule would provide the coverage needed for the department.

The Subcommittee discussed alternative work schedules. The Company and IBEW have generic letter agreements in place for 9-80 and 4x10 work schedules. The guidelines for establishing one of these schedules are outlined in each generic letter agreement. The Union stated that these are not used widespread throughout the Company. The Company stated that the implementation of an alternative work schedule is determined on a case-by-case basis at a local level.

The Company reviewed its current flexible schedule in the Payroll Department that was agreed to by the Company and Union via a letter agreement. Employees are able to select a schedule (start time, morning and afternoon breaks, lunch and end times). The available start times are on the ½ hour beginning at 6:30 a.m. and 8:30 a.m. Breaks are 15 minutes on quarter hour increments. Lunch is on ½ hour increments and must be at least 30 minutes but can be as long as up to 1-1/2 hours. End times are on ½ hour increments and are determined by the start time and length of the lunch period. Once an employee selects a schedule, they are expected to adhere to it. Temporary changes are allowed with the supervisor’s approval as long as the change conforms to the guidelines. Temporary changes are infrequent and require a valid reason. Employees can change their regular schedule and select a new one as long as it confirms to the guidelines. If the change causes a coverage problem, and voluntary coverage cannot be obtained, the least senior employee within the unit and classification is assigned to the needed schedule.

The Company also discussed the schedule trade process available in the Contact Centers. Employees are able to go into the Empower system and request a schedule trade. The Company stated that for the year 2009, there had been over 3,500 schedule trades made in all four Contact Centers combined. The Union asked if the Company could determine the schedule trades that were not accommodated. The Company stated that it accommodates virtually every request for a schedule trade with the only exception being those that fall outside of the requirement of only full-time employees trading with full-time employees and part-time employees trading with part-time employees. The Union stated it would like to see schedule trades available between Contact Centers and also between full-time and part-time classifications.

Attachments

  1. Types of Leaves Comparison Chart
  2. Executive Dashboard – Long Term Disability and Leave of Absence Report for the 2nd Quarter 2009
  3. Absence and Accommodation Solutions Report for 2009
  4. ContactCenter Hours Report
  5. Strategic Attendance Management (SAM) Presentation
  6. SAM Survey
  7. Joint E-mail sent to Contact Center Operations employeesregarding SAM Survey
  8. Western Utility benchmarking data of alternative hours provisions

For the Company: For the IBEW:

Kathy Price Debbie Mazzanti

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