Staff turnover has dropped but workers say they lack promotion opportunities

JACKSON RICKERT REPORTER

Staff raised inquiries on benefits and staff retention to University Vice President and Chief People Officer Sabrina Minor at the first public meeting of GW’s Staff Council on Friday.

The 34-member council, which established its roster in July after two stymied attempts to form a staff governing body in 2014 and 2020, aims to give staff members — employees who are not faculty, unionized employees or administrators — more opportunity to raise and resolve University-wide issues. During their Friday meeting, councilmembers raised concerns on staff benefits and retention, discussed rules and procedures for the newly formed body, coordinated logistics of subcommittees and laid out a plan for testing Zoom webinar and YouTube livestream as platforms for their meetings.

Minor, a guest at the meeting, said staff turnover dropped from 28 percent last year to 16.8 percent this year, despite staff concerns over GW’s issue of staff retention due to the lack of promotion opportunities within a school or department. She said staff may need to change schools within the University to enter a higher ranking position if that position is not available in their current school.

Minor added that she is concerned over the current “use or lose” paid-leave system, where staff lose their paid leave if they do not use it by June 30. She said the use-or-lose system incentivizes staff members to use their remaining paid time off hours by the cutoff date, which she said makes campus feel like a “ghost town” during the summer.

“I can tell you what I’m proposing is that we do not have a cutoff date, June 30, to use your leave by,” Minor said. “I am proposing that we have an accrued bank, and then once you reach a certain number of accrued hours either you use them or you stop accruing.”

Minor said administrators are trying to deliver a “balance” of benefits that satisfy employees of different generations. She said millennials and Generation Z employees value paid time off while Baby Boom and Generation X employees are focused on bolstering their retirement portfolios and health benefits.

Minor said the council should have representatives on the Benefit Advisory Committee — a faculty and staff group that provides feedback to administration on employee benefits — to represent their concerns on leave policies.

Minor also said staff members can serve on an internal review committee that will investigate any use of firearms by the GW Police Department after officials announced in April that some GWPD officers will be equipped with firearms this fall. She said the internal review committee will also include two faculty members and two students.

“You’ll be in charge of looking at the police report, you’ll be in charge of saying ‘Was this an appropriate use of force?’ even if they just pulled out their weapon and pointed it at somebody,” Minor said.

Bridget Schwartz, the president of the Staff Council and the director of student employment, said Minor is one of the Council’s biggest backers.

“Sabrina is arguably the Staff Council’s biggest support and advocate,” Schwartz said. “And she