Announcements: FLSA Exemption and Lead Librarians

As some of you probably know, the Library's senior leadership and the Human Resources department have been working on a couple of things that will affect many of you. The first, moving a number of positions to "Exempt" status will change the way Librarians and a number of other positions account for and record their time and get paid.  The second item, the creation of the Lead Librarian position, will represent the final piece of the organizational restructuring that started with Project Kaleidoscope.

New Exempt Positions

After a great deal of consideration and discussion internally with managers and administrators, and with consultation from our employment counsel, all Librarian positions will be considered salaried and exempt from the federal Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA) beginning November 9, 2015.  The positions affected will be:

• Librarian (full time)
• Lead Librarian
• Cataloger
• Materials Selector
• Oklahoma Collection Coordinator
• Childrens Services Coordinator
• Young Adult Services Coordinator

As with the Library’s other exempt employees, incumbents of these positions will be paid an established annual salary, and not an hourly wage.  This means they will not be eligible to receive overtime compensation pay or compensatory time off.  They will be expected to fulfill the duties of their positions, and won’t be tied to a specific number of hours to get them done, i.e., they’ll be charged with completing the work, not tracking the time.  This will mean that individuals in exempt positions will not use the Paycom timeclocks to punch in or out at the start or end of shifts.  Because there is greater emphasis placed on meeting the responsibilities assigned to the position than on working a specified number of hours, most exempt employees should expect to spend between 40-50 hours per week working, depending on specific work assignments and responsibilities. 

This is not to say that exempt employees don’t have schedules – they do.  Unless otherwise designated by their supervisors, the Library's exempt employees are expected to be present at work during their regularly assigned schedule in order to perform work that is essential to the Library’s operations. They are expected to arrive at a certain time in order to ensure that the workplace is properly staffed for regular business.  And while I said that they won’t be expected to punch a timeclock, working their regularly assigned schedule is an expectation of successful work performance.

Most of our peer libraries also treat positions like these as exempt from FLSA, and doing so keeps us current with those organizations to which we tend to compare ourselves.  We will be communicating more information about these changes to library and department managers over the next few weeks, and if you have questions now, you can contact Human Resources.  For information about the FLSA, exempt positions, and how determination is made, see http://www.dol.gov/whd/overtime/fs17a_overview.htm.

Lead Librarians

We’ve been talking about the Lead Librarian positions for quite some time, and we will finally be ready to pull the trigger on hiring them starting November 9, 2015.  As you may recall, the Lead Librarian (originally referred to as the Team Lead Librarian) will be supervisors of teams for 4-10 staff that will include Library Aides, Circ Clerks, PC Specialists, Librarians, and Associate Librarians, Extension Specialists, and others.  They will work with their Library Manager, Regional Director, or Assistant Manager, to help select, train, coach, and manage the performance of library staff.  Deputy Executive Director Kay Bauman and the Regional Directors have identified as many as 32 potential Lead Librarian positions, however, we will likely hire fewer than that when we first start, and fill in their ranks as needed later.  The initial hiring will be done internally, meaning that we will not list the vacancies externally, but will be fill them from existing staff.  The interview process for these positions is in development, and we hope to begin filling them within a month.  As this is a librarian position, applicants will need to have an MLIS from an ALA accredited college or university.

I would imagine that some of you will have questions about all of this, and I would encourage you to talk with your supervisor, with Human Resources, or with me.  Of course there is always the "Ask Tim" too, so feel free to use all of the avenues to ask and get your questions answered.