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How we are doing covid staffing right now, a short thread.
We are using working pods. By luck and good planning, we haven't had any covid cases among staff, but it's only a matter of time. How can we keep the library open if key staff are on quarantine? 1/13
We are using working pods. By luck and good planning, we haven't had any covid cases among staff, but it's only a matter of time. How can we keep the library open if key staff are on quarantine? 1/13
We are in curbside mode right now because the numbers in St. Louis are absolutely atrocious. We determined that we need 2 staff members to run curbside, one to work the phone and the other to run items outside. 2/13
We also need 2 as a basic safety thing. No one should be stuck in a public-facing job without backup. 3/13
So what we've done is divide staff into working pairs or pods, with one librarian/full-timer and one circulation clerk/part-timer in each pod. On any given shift, only one pod is working curbside. Everyone else stays away to avoid cross-contamination between pods. 4/13
If someone else (i.e. our shelver) has to be in the building, that should be as rare as possible, and they have to work on the opposite side of the building from the front desk/front door area. 5/13
(One librarian can't work from home so she secludes herself away in the kids' room. Another hides in the cataloger's room during brief visits. The shelver has to work out in the stacks. Etc.) 6/13
So, only two working the desk at a time, one full-time and one part-time. If someone has to test for covid, then both members of the pod will quarantine away from the library, but the library can stay open because one of the other pods can pick up a day for that week. 7/13
(Realistically, only two of the pods have part-timers with a flexible enough schedule to pick up any day, and another two that can pick up day shifts only, etc., but I'm fairly confident we can work it out.) 8/13
Meanwhile, part-timers and full-timers both work from home as much as possible. The full-timers have jobs that can keep them busy all week without having to step in the library. The part-timers are working on projects and doing online training. 9/13
This summer, the librarians handled curbside alone (during a time when part-timers were staying home with pay). This time we're trying to make it a bit more equitable by sharing the load equally between full-timers and part-timers. 10/13
No one has to be in-building more than one shift a week. People who are high risk need not enter the building at all. There is someone to offer free notary service on every shift (well, the Monday staff is waiting on their person to finish certification, but soon). 11/13
We've been running this way for a week now with no problems. If we do have problems, we have a backup pod configuration with larger pods of 3 staff and everyone working 2 shifts a week that we can use. My thanks to another director in our consortium for the pod idea! 12/13
What I really love is that people ran with the pod language - pod people, our pod, etc - immediately. 13/13
