USP saga: New staff review talks
Currently, there is no formal performance review system in place. So potentially one will be created to review staff contracts. This is for non-academic staff at all levels from the junior staff to the senior staff.
Professor Ahluwalia told staff that there will be no increment or bonuses given to staff until further notice and they will create a new staff review process to review staff for contract renewal.
Professor Pal Ahluwalia has finally come out through the university’s Executive Director People and Workforce Strategy, Jone Maritino Nemani who talked about the instances in which USP staff will lose their jobs.
After days of stating categorically that the restructure which is being proposed by Professor Ahluwalia will see no job losses, we can now confirm that a review of staff contracts will be undertaken. Yesterday, it was confirmed to the Fiji Sun by Mr Nemani that one of the two scenarios in which jobs could be lost is if: “the position is no longer required because of either financial reasons; or there is no longer a need for a position in that area.”
This is the crux of the rest ructure which will start this year and head into the end of 2021 and the start of 2022.
This revelation had not been made through the media before. However, university staff had been informed on Tuesday of a few things which left them with a few unanswered questions. On Tuesday, Professor Ahluwalia told staff that there will be no increment or bonuses given to staff until further notice and they will create a new staff review process to review staff for contract renewal.
Currently, there is no formal performance review system in place. So potentially one will be created to review staff contracts. This is for non-academic staff at all levels-from the junior staff to the senior staff.
This is what was revealed in the documents prepared for the Coun Council and this is what was denied at all levels.
Professor Ahluwalia created a money saving strategy in which he highlighted that the contracts of 71 Intermediate and Junior Staff were ending in 2020 and 2021.
The 71 does not include 19 posi positions which are currently vacant vacant. USP is unlikely to fill in those va vacancies, especially when out of the 90 positions only 48 will be main maintained post-restructure.
There are currently 62 cleaners cleaners. Post-restructure, he had budgeted for only 3 positions. When he met with staff last Monday, the slide which showed the plans for 62 cleaners was not shown.
He had also planned to absorb the non-academic staff into the academic pool. We understand that this plan has since been shelved. However, given that too many versions of restructure docu documents are floating around around, it is difficult to pinpoint what will be present presented to the Senate on
Monday.