Author: Peg Rasmussen

It appears the addition of the WTW boxes at the bottom of time sheets is working very well to catch errors before I verify time sheets. Thanks for making the time to add this information!

I have printed a new Weekend Schedule chart and posted it outside the director’s office. Please look it over carefully and make sure your schedule is accurate; if not, let me know and I will correct it.

Thanks!

After six years, Denise has decided to resign her position at JPL. We’re sad to see her go and we wish her well.

A few of you may notice a 15-minute tweak in some of your shifts. The primary reason for the tweak is to better align your start or end time with an On Desk shift without reducing or increasing your hours. If WTW shows that your end time is the exact time as closing, you are free to leave at that time. At the present time, other staff shifts will be ending 15 minutes past the hour and they should still leave as scheduled.

Couple things I noticed from last pay period:

1) A few employees still used the old time sheet form, please begin using the new form

2) In the new form remember to enter your name

3) Manually entering the numbers in the “review WTW grid is fine, you don’t need to enter them digitally

4) If your hours between WTW and your time sheet don’t match, don’t fudge the numbers to make them match, write a note explaining what you think might be wrong and I’ll dig into it.

I know we promised that we would publish a new week’s schedule every Friday.

Publishing the week of August 6-12 will happen tomorrow by 5 pm.

Peg

1. Please make a copy of the time sheet template and save it to your individual folders on the P drive.
2. Most of the cells in the template are locked, meaning you can’t change them. That’s on purpose because many contain formulas.
3. If you encounter a cell that you should be able to use, but it’s locked, please let Peg know and I’ll correct the template.

To All Staff,

In an effort to make our time sheets as accurate as possible, I have added a section at the bottom of each template for you to manually enter the weekly total hours your WTW account says you worked.

This means that before turning in your time sheet, you must access your employee WTW account to find the hours it says you worked. If there are discrepancies, please speak to Molly or Peg prior to the end of the pay period.

The modified time sheets can be found on this staff intranet. Look at the top ribbon, click on PRINTABLES/MASTERS, scroll down to the T’s.

We have four primary employment levels, see below. Please make sure you use the correct time sheet. Although they look similar, the codes differ on each. If you do not know which time sheet to use, please ask your supervisor.

• Exempt Full time
• Regular/Non-Exempt Full time
• Regular/Non-Exempt Part time = working 20-30 hrs/wk (meaning you earn PTO)
• Part time = Working less than 20 hrs/wk (meaning you don’t earn PTO)

Circulation has been trained to open the Google Chrome shortcut when needing to access the Library Calendar events to view or modify reservations and not use the Firefox link.

When opening Google Chrome, the web browser used to open automatically to the Library Calendar URL.

Opening Google Chrome now will have one additional step. Users will see a screen asking “Who’s Using Chrome?” Please click on the Johnston Public Library option. The new web page to open will be the Library Calendar. Please do not modify the startup settings on this account.

If you open Google Chrome to access your personal Google accounts, please choose a user other than Johnston Public Library to sign in.

I’ve posted In/Out schedules for the weeks of July 2-8 and 9-15 in the staff kitchen. When you have time, please take a look. Highlight errors and send me an email. If everything is correct, you don’t need to do anything.

Step One of our plan to utilize WTW to reflect employees’ positions during their scheduled shifts is working well, albeit with some hiccups, but we expected some. Thank you for your patience during the rollout.

We now want to roll out Step Two of our plan to better utilize WTW, which involves exclusively using the Time Off feature to request time off work and “dipping our toe” into using the Tradeboard feature.

Starting immediately, all time off requests should come through WTW and should not be requested verbally, via email or text. Why? To streamline the request process, make it more efficient and reduce the time supervisors spend on this task. If you have not used the Time Off feature of WTW, please watch this video to learn how: https://youtu.be/WN0e8pnQJ10

The City of Johnston Employee Handbook (pg 19) states that time off should be requested at least seven (7) days prior to requested day/s off and that approval is subject to adequate coverage. If multiple employees request the same day/s off, supervisors may need to use a first-come first-served approach to approving the time away from work, but every situation is unique and will be handled as such.

This is how we see the process working:

1. Employee submits time off request through WTW which initiates a notification to supervisors.
2. Supervisors or designee will review the request and approve or deny it. Don’t worry, we expect denials to be rare; just be aware it may be necessary sometimes.
3. The supervisor will review staffing levels for the requested day/s and reassign scheduled employees to different positions as necessary.
4. Based on the positions the employee is scheduled to cover on the requested day/s off, the supervisor may ask the employee to post all or part of her shift to the WTW Tradeboard. If this happens, the supervisor will teach her how to post to the Tradeboard and what will happen next. Evening and weekend shifts are the most likely shifts to be offered for trades.
5. If shifts are posted to the Tradeboard, employees eligible to work the posted positions can receive a notification, if enabled, and submit their interest in trading a shift. Anything on the Tradeboard will be approved by a supervisor. Again, supervisors are available to teach all employees how to use this feature.
6. For last minute requests, i.e. less than 7 days, TEXT your supervisor, and GET AN ACKNOWLEDGEMENT, in addition to submitting a time off request in WTW.

For those of you already using the Time Off feature of WTW, the only thing new is posting to the Tradeboard. If you’ve not used the Time Off feature before, your supervisor is happy to teach you and answer any questions.

In the staff kitchen, you will find three printed charts reflecting each staff person’s In/Out schedule for the weeks of

June 18-24

June 25 – July 1

July 2 – July 8

Please look at each chart and make sure it accurately reflects your scheduled hours these weeks.

Place a check mark beside each time that is correct.

Highlight any dates that are incorrect and send Peg an email.

Thanks.

Thank you for your patience and understanding as we hurriedly transition from one method of visual scheduling to another (blame the rush on Peg because she is leaving on vacation and we need to get it done before she leaves).

Currently, in the WTW application, shifts are input as employees’ start and stop times. In the new WTW account, shifts are entered by positions such as Circ Desk, PS Off Desk, YS Programming, etc. Following this approach, WTW will now be the go-to application for daily desk schedules, replacing the Google sheets used in the past. You may access WTW through a web browser as well as the WTW app. We encourage you to install the app on your cell phones and begin using it regularly.

On June 1 around 11:15am, each employee was sent an email from whentowork.com with a subject line “Your WhentoWork.com Login Information.” Please open this email and follow the instructions to create your personal employee account in the new WTW account. The WTW application itself has not changed so you shouldn’t notice any difference between the old and new.

For a short period of time (today through Saturday, June 3, at midnight) you will have access to both your old and new WTW accounts. On Sunday, all employee accounts in the old WTW will be deactivated and no longer be accessible.

Peg has printed everyone’s IN/OUT schedule from the old WTW account. The paper copies are stored in a bright pink file folder near the green time sheet folder. Please do not remove these printed copies from this area. This is our “backup” as to the current schedules published in the old WTW account.

What will you see in the new WTW account? You will now see where (meaning the location) you are supposed to be every hour of your scheduled shift. Position colors were based on the previous desk schedules and are only used as a visual tool. You can also see everyone’s IN/OUT schedule. In short, you are not losing any functionality, instead actually gaining more.

You have the ability to update notification settings in your “My Info” section of your account.

Need more help? First, visit the Help feature of WTW (top ribbon, upper right hand), it has LOTS of videos to teach you how to use WTW to its fullest. Second, seek out your supervisor, they are happy to help you navigate this change.

Continue to use WTW to submit time off requests as you’ve done in the past.

In the future, we hope to introduce the Trade Board feature, but we aren’t ready for that step yet.

At the bottom of your time sheet, please write the hours recorded in WTW and your initials before placing your time sheet in the green folder. Attach a completed PAR if you are using PTO. Remember, we have a holiday this pay period, Monday, May 29, was Memorial Day and the library was closed, update your time sheet accordingly.

Important update for JobNow/VetNow. You may have noticed that OptimalResume is no longer listed on the homepage. It has been rebranded and revised to become SkillsFirst, which includes the popular resume building tool. You’ll notice a modernized layout and additional tools specifically designed with ATS in mind. There is a complete set of career preparation tools to help your community members navigate the hiring funnel and land a job. For an overview of all that is offered within SkillsFirst, you can watch an overview here: https://vimeo.com/763597654