Better Accommodating Residents and Staff
At the Employee Engagement Committee’s (EEC) April meeting, the first topic we covered was the Alternative Work Schedule (AWS). Our fearless leader, Director of Employee Engagement Yvette Andino, went over a few facets of AWS. AWS enables us to bring services to residents during expanded hours and days at the developments. Residents who are working or have medical appointments can be served at more convenient times than in the past. Employees also benefit from the new work schedules. Security concerns are being addressed, and staff is working together to help ensure our safety.
We then went over NYCHA’s core values. We are committed as a group to the values:
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- We respect NYCHA employees, residents, and stakeholders;
- We operate efficiently and sustainably;
- We are a diverse and inclusive community;
- We are a collaborative workforce, accountable to ourselves and our residents; and
- We create and maintain safe environments for our residents and ourselves.
When we come together as a group, the members of the EEC affirm NYCHA’s core values. When we return to our respective work sites, we spread enthusiasm for and belief in NYCHA’s core values.
We were privileged to have with us representatives from the Department of Equal Opportunity (DEO): Celeste Thomas Segure, Director of Equal Opportunity, and Maurice Robinson, DEO’s Assistant Director and Equal Employment Opportunity Officer. They informed us that we will soon see private “lactation rooms” for employees, where mothers may express breast milk for their children. Hopefully, we will all become aware of the needs of the breast-feeding mothers. EEC members were in agreement about the importance of reasonable accommodations. Each accommodation deserves and requires special consideration and assessment.
We are constantly improving NYCHA as a place to work and a place to live, and I’d like to close with a quotation from Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.:
“The ultimate measure of a man is not where he stands in moments of comfort and convenience, but where he stands at times of challenge and controversy.”
