OATdb Archive

2008 - 2009

Custodial And Grounds

Goal
Aid University In Student Retention And Recruitment Of New Students
Provide a beautiful campus for prospective students, as well as for students already enrolled.

Objective
Improve 1st Impression By Prospective Students/parents
Provide a pleasant and tranquil learning environment, to aid in the decision making process of visiting prospective students and parents.

Indicator
Improved Landscaping Of Campus Grounds
Update areas around campus where plant growth is or has become unattractive. Continuous improvement of the campus will lead to better first impressions of the campus.

Criterion
In FY 2009 Grounds Will Complete Landscape Improvements To The New Campus Mall Area
Enhance and expand the new campus mall area with color beds. Work with outside landscapers to expand plantings and increase the amount of color to improve the attractiveness of the area.

Finding
Re-Design Of The New Campus Mall Was Completed In January 2009
Additional hardscape areas were developed and filled with new landscape plantings. The addition of more color plants and shrubs removed the open feeling and provided mall users a greater park like setting.

Finding
Grounds Staff And Supervisors Received Numerous Favorable Comments
Grounds employees and staff received numerous favorable comments from students, faculty, staff and visitors as the re-landscaping was taking place and after it was finished.

Finding
The University President Expressed That The Areas Exceeded His Expectations
The University President personally commented on the improvement and stated it exceeded his expectations. This was an area that the President had asked to be improved after the completion of the Campus Mall Project.

Action
Due To The Success Of This Re-landscaping Grounds Will Re-landscape Additional Areas In FY 2010
Due to input from the campus community Grounds feels it is beneficial to do more updating of our campus landscape and will select one or more areas to accomplish in FY 2010

Action
Grounds Will Priortize The Top Ten Areas Of Campus Needing Re-Landscaping
Grounds will survey the campus landscape and prepare a prioritized list of the top ten areas on campus needing a re-landscape effort.

Goal
Improve Appearance And Cleanliness Of Educational Buildings
To improve the appearance and cleanliness of educational buildings through improved cleaning peformance.

Objective
Assess And Make Improvements To Building Appearance/Cleanliness
Assess and make improvements to the appearance and cleanliness of educational buildings, to provide a better working environment and to present a better first impression to visitors.

Indicator
Building Inspections
Building Inspections are conducted, scored on a scale of 0-100, and custodians are given feedback to make positive improvements. Buildings are subsequently re-inspected and given new scores. Remaining problem areas are given greater emphasis.

Criterion
80% Of Building Inspections Will Achieve A Score Of 85% Or Above
Supervisors will make regulare inspections of all educational buildings and score them on a scale of 0-100 percent. Criteria to achieve objective will be a score of 85% or better on 80% of the buildings inspected.

Finding
The Department Did Not Achieve 85% Scores Or Better On 80% Of Buildings
We did not meet the criteria of scoring above 85% inspection reports on 80% of the buildings. We only achieved 77%.

Finding
The Decline In Building Inspection Reports Appeared In New Employee Buildings
It was observed that many of the lower scores occurred in those building where new employees had been recently assigned.

Finding
Employee Turnover Rate In FY 2009 Has Been Significant
An upswing in employee turnover created a situation where many buildings had to be assigned lesser experienced employees which seemed to contribute to the lower scores in many of those buildings.

Finding
A New Building Was Brought On Line Which Required Much Custodial Attention To Open
The new CHSS Building came on line in the Spring of 2009 and required 5 new employees. Significant time was required of our experienced employees and Supervisors to get this building ready because it was done with classes in progress. This contributed to spot cleaning problems across campus.

Action
Custodial Services Will Look At Internal Employment Issues To Improve Retention Of Employees
Work with Human Resources and focus on our interview/recruitment process for new employees. Work more closely with new employees to determine reason for employee turn over.

Action
Review And Improve Our Training Program For New Employees
We will review and make improvements to our current new employee training program and focus on early employee success in performing the essential elements of the inspection criteria. We will try to catch sub-par performance early and provide remedial training where needed.


Update to previous cycle's plan for continuous improvement

Plan for continuous improvement We have received numerous compliments from students, faculty, staff and visitors complimenting us on the new landscaping. We feel this has improved our first impression and we will continue to seek out areas that can be re-landscaped to provide a beautiful campus.

Employee resignations and new employee training had a significant impact on our performance this year. By focusing more attention on employee retention and adjustments to our training program we should be able to improve our level of cleaning considerably.