At a university with about 5,000 undergraduate students, making sure that upkeep, maintenance and the provision of basic services for those students all run smoothly requires a staff of considerable size. In order to find people to fill those positions, Tufts employs a variety of hiring practices to make sure it finds the best people possible for the job.
For Dining Services and the Facilities Department — which includes electricians, grounds crews and plumbers — the university prefers to fill positions with Tufts employees rather than hire outside contractors to fill the positions for them.
According to Vice President for Operations Dick Reynolds, this practice has numerous benefits.
"This gives us the opportunity to have personnel who are fully trained in our high level of service, brings continuity to their interaction with the Tufts community and assures us that they are receiving the high quality of employee benefits and services that the university believes is appropriate," he said.
Senior Director of Human Resources and Talent Management Alison Blackburn told the Daily in an email that Human Resources helps staff Dining Services and Facilities.
"Tufts strives to be an employer of choice: a place that attracts talented staff because we're a great place to work," she said. "As part of this effort, Human Resources works in partnership with hiring mangers at the university on their recruitment efforts for staff positions. The ultimate goal of any recruitment search is to produce a qualified and diverse pool of candidates from which to choose a successful finalist."
Positions are posted on the Tufts Career Center on the Human Resources website, as well as on external sites that focus on candidates from underrepresented groups, job boards and industry−specific organizations.
According to Blackburn, Dining Services places an emphasis on professional growth and advancement, and employees are often promoted from within.
"It is not uncommon to have one recruitment effort result in several subsequent job openings," Blackburn said.
Positions for Dining Services are posted on the Human Resources website and advertised internally to the dining staff.
"If an opening becomes available for a senior culinary position, an employee at the junior level who meets the requirements can apply … The vacated junior position would then be posted via the same process, and another Dining employee may apply and be promoted," Blackburn said. "The process gives all Dining employees an opportunity to apply and be interviewed for any given position in Dining."
Hiring for Facilities works somewhat differently.
"Trades, grounds work and mailroom hourly employees in Facilities Services are unionized. Therefore, they are covered by a collective bargaining agreement which outlines a specific process for posting positions," Blackburn said.
Unlike Dining Services or Facilities employees, Tufts employs contractors to provide janitorial workers.
"Because of the nature of the custodial work — off−hours supervision, higher rate of turnover — we have chosen to use an outside contractor for that assignment," Reynolds said.
This past summer, the university changed its contractor for janitorial services, moving from American Building Maintenance (ABM) Industries to UGLUnicco.
"We had the same contractor for a number of years, and the industry standard is that you want to make sure the contractors compete every once in a while," Reynolds said. "We wanted more competition from the contractors to make sure we were getting the most favorable deal for the university."
According to Reynolds, the university decided on UGLUnicco after mandating that the new contractor would agree to certain conditions.
"We have … retained a new contractor after going through a Request for Proposal (RFP) process in which we required each of the proposers to agree that they would honor the existing union contract with Service Employees International Union [SEIU], retain any previously employed custodians who wanted to continue working at Tufts and who had appropriate documentation, and provide services based on standards set by the Association of Physical Plant Administrators, whose members are institutions like Tufts," he said. Reynolds went on to explain that a team made up of people from both Facilities and the finance division's purchasing department did a thorough review of each of the proposals and selected UGLUnicco.
However, this shift created a great deal of controversy.
There is uncertainty over whether UGLUnicco is keeping its obligation to provide jobs for former ABM Industries employees. In a meeting in October between SEIU and UGLUnicco, the organizations could not agree on how many janitorial employees worked for ABM before the switch was made, and SEIU has filed a grievance with UGLUnicco.
Additionally, on Oct. 23, Tufts students joined with janitors and union representatives in protest against UGLUnicco, questioning why 62 open janitorial positions that they claim were vacated during the switch had not yet been filled, despite a substantial number of part−time workers who were willing to work full−time.
Tufts also employs outside contractors for a variety of other services in addition to janitorial work.
"We also will use outside contractors on occasion, such as with snow removal, tree pruning and other heavy landscape work," Reynolds said. "We use outside contractors for all building construction and renovation. In those cases we use similar RFP processes and make selections based on pricing and how well that proposal responds to the specific requirements."
The Office of Equal Opportunity (OEO) deals with the issues of antidiscrimination and affirmative action in hiring. The OEO works to establish guidelines and to ensure that Tufts' hiring practices are free from discrimination.
In November, Jill Zellmer became the new director of the OEO.
"The OEO tracks, on an annual basis, all hires … in accordance with government regulations on affirmative action," Zellmer said. "I take these policies and my role here at Tufts very seriously."
The nondiscrimination policy, outlined in the OEO Policies and Procedures Brochure, states that "Tufts prohibits discrimination against … any applicant for employment because of race, color, national or ethnic origin, age, religion, disability, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity and expression, veteran status … or any other characteristic protected under applicable federal or state law."
Additionally, the brochure states, in accordance with the Americans with Disabilities Act and Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act, that Tufts is required to provide "appropriate … employment accommodations to employees … with disabilities unless doing so would create an undue hardship, compromise the health and safety of members of the University community, or fundamentally alter the nature of the University's employment or academic mission."
