Morale issues at shrinking VDOT
Story by Chris Graham
freepress2@ntelos.net
It makes sense that there might be low morale in VDOT offices around the state. If you’re among the people in danger of being downsized, the reason for your low morale is pretty obvious. Not as obvious, but just as demoralizing, is seeing the person who has been sitting in the cubicle next to you pack up and leave, or picking up the phone to talk with somebody in another VDOT office on an issue and finding out that they’ve been let go.
The Virginia Department of Transportation has been in the political crosshairs for most of the last 10 years as Democrats and Republicans fight over what the state needs to do to address its myriad transportation challenges.
VDOT needs to get leaner and meaner, has been the hue and cry from the Republicans in Richmond. We’re past cutting fat, we’re into the muscle and bone, respond the Democrats.
Meanwhile, engineers and maintenance supervisors and front-line employees across the Commonwealth are bearing the brunt of things.
“Certainly it’s a challenge for all of us at VDOT right now. It’s been a tough couple of years for us with our financial challenges. I don’t know a better word for it, though that doesn’t necessarily cover the extent of it. The reorganization and layoffs really has taken a toll on folks. It has,” VDOT spokesman Jeff Caldwell told me recently.
The transportation department has gone from more than 10,000 employees toward a goal of having a staff of 7,500 by July 1, 2010. I asked Caldwell what VDOT might be doing to help employees through the transition in a formal way, for example, by offering counseling services. The inspiration on that question comes from a friend, Cynthia Long, who works in grief counseling, and has expanded her counseling options into areas that you might not traditionally associate with needing help with grief. Job loss is one of her specialties. I can imagine for her a sidebar session on dealing with organizational change.
Caldwell’s first response to my question on counseling was probably expected. “Do you mean career counseling?” he asked me. When I went into more detail on what I was looking for, he did indicate to me that there was a strategy in place for dealing with at least the uncertainty that mass job cuts can bring to an organization.
“It’s a challenge we’ve tried to overcome by providing every piece of information that we can to employees,” Caldwell said, laying out the approach from VDOT that focused on getting information directly to employees in the form of video conferencing and regular e-mail updates to keep employees abreast of the latest on the cuts.
The idea, it seems, was to try to prevent the rumor mill from getting cranked up to the point where there was as much bad information circulating around as there was good, if not there being a lot more of the bad than the good.
“Unfortunately, there are a lot of challenges facing these folks that are impacting morale. Certainly the reorganization and layoffs are at the top of the list. But there’s struggles that we’ve had that we’ve tried to communicate with folks from a global perspective where employee raises have been delayed or removed ftom the state budget on several occasions,” Caldwell said. “We tried more than anything else to keep the lines of communication open. We’re trying to make sure that everybody knows exactly what’s going on.”
You ask me, and I think they could all stand for some of that grief counseling that I mentioned above.
“VDOT employees are very dedicated to what they do. The amount of energy that people put in, and the amount of years that people put in, is just amazing. This is a place where people still put in 30, 40, 50 years,’ Caldwell said. “So when they have to face these times where we’re really changing the shape of the organization, and where it impacts people that they’ve known for years or have sat right next to them, it’s a challenge, there’s no doubt about that.”
We could also stand for the Republicans and Democrats getting past their partisan differences and trying to actually get something done, too. That’d be a huge morale boost.
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I lost my recent post due to a computer glitch so this is the condensed version.
The main focus of the comment was — VDOT is NOT telling the laid off workers anything. Emails from VDOT to the laid off workers…NOT happening. My husband is one of those workers and we have NO CLUE what the heck is going on. He is suffering from severe depression and mood swings, they just don’t care.
One recent rumor suggests that VDOT is rethinking the third round of layoffs after the large snow totals recently. Ask them where that rumor came from and how that affects moral?!
FYI — Also, next year your local VDOT office phones will NOT be answered by local people. You will be lucky to get out of voice mail hell. Your call will go to Richmond, I believe and I wish you luck getting your complaint heard or resolved. Virginia we are in trouble!!!
Call Richmond or whoever will listen about VDOT taking away your ability to call your local office!!! VDOT will simply say, “Gee it’s been like this for almost a year and we’ve had no problems”. Yeah, easy to say when you implement this in April, and it snows in November, 8 months later. Getting rid of the workers who answer the phones and run the offices is super smart VDOT…good work!
Augusta Free Press needs to sniff around about the above comments and issues, I want answers to the questions and VDOT doesn’t share them with the workforce like they say they do!!!
This is why we brought this up, to see if there was more to this story than we were hearing officially. Thanks for the comments. It seems that more digging is in order.
Oh yeah, I know what’s coming…VDOT will respond with the answer that their superintendents will handle day-to-day operations at local offices. HAHAHAHAHA!!! Augusta Free Press needs to anonymously talk to several supers about how they feel about taking over office duties. I bet most will tell you that they have NO CLUE how to even begin handling the office and other duties that will come their way. Also, VDOT is supposed to have a main office somewhere that will handle all payroll and worker support. I hear it will be a skeleton crew handling the paperwork and the road worker (employee) is going to have to be a lot more responsible for paper work. That’s just great, when it snows “Jimmy” will be arguing with “Betty” in the main office about his time card instead of plowing. Or the super will be trying to figure out this mess instead of directing snow removal operations.
Like I said before, kudos to the people who sold state equipment (like, umm…extra heavy equip that could have been used this winter during the devastating snow storms), laid off necessary workers and continue to keep others in layoff limbo…you are doing a great job, I just hope your jobs are next!
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We’ve been underfunding the upkeep and maintenance our infrastructure since the majority of it was originally built. It’s one of those things that politicians find easy to put off until tomorrow because those kinds of things (streets, bridges, water & sewer works, etc.) don’t fail overnight (critically). They slowly deteriorate. But know this, the day to pay piper is coming none-the-less. It’s a dang shame that workers at VDOT, City, Counties, State, etc., have to go through the pain caused by the lack of vision, or maybe knowledge, of our leaders, in the mean time.
[...] It makes sense that there might be low morale in VDOT offices around the state. If you’re among the people in danger of being downsized, the reason for your low morale is pretty obvious. Not as obvious, but just as demoralizing, is seeing the … Read Full Story [...]
This is very suspicious, but yesterday VDOT sent out a memo to all laid off workers. This memo updates them on the replacement process. Apparently on March 15-17, VDOT they will be handing out reassignments to 350 of the 395 laid off workers.
This is the first memo received from VDOT on this issue…I wonder if your article spurred them to take action. Or perhaps, just the research done to compose the article had them formulating a response/memo. Anyway, your article came out days before the first memo, so I do find that odd.
But now we are finally getting some answers! Hopefully the job layoff limbo is over and all employees requesting placement will have employment!!!
They are still going to have a call center somewhere, so your calls to your local VDOT may not be answered by someone who even knows what the heck you are talking about. That my friend will only be a problem next year – during snow season when a bazillion calls come in. It seems like an eternity away after this past snow season, but the seasons change faster than anyone ever expects. I suggest buying your own snow thrower and stocking up on batteries, water and food, because next year may be rougher than this year.
People you have no ideal whats going on and what all services that you will be losing with VDOT’S plan. It boils down to being political they will lay off employees making in the 30 to 45 K Range meanwhile they have jobs that top out at $110,000 to fill. If you think that VDOT is in the red now wait a couple of years after they get everything contracted which is what the general assembly wants. People wake up and demand an external audit of VDOT better yet talk to some of the employees away from there supervisors.