Year
1989
Abstract
In the winter of 1987, a federal spending bill was signed into law that would provide less money for major programs at the Department of Energy's Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory than the previous fiscal year, confirming what Laboratory officials had feared about cuts to reduce the national deficit. Based on the fiscal year 1988 base funding allocation, the Protective Force Division (the Laboratory's security force) is faced with an $850,000.00 shortfall for fiscal year 1989 and is likely to be faced with fewer wage dollars in coming fiscal years. The purpose of this project report is to provide a work schedule that is designed to save enormous overtime wage expenses within the Protective Force Division. A primary goal was to design and implement a change in work schedules from the existing 8-hour, 5-day per week shift schedule to a schedule that would use the division's human resources more efficiently, thereby reducing much of the overtime expenditures that lead to deficit spending, as well as providing more training time for security personnel. Detailed information was collected from more than ten comparable security operations from various Department of Energy locations across the country to determine the advantages of alternate work schedules. Some facilities made a permanent change while others decided to remain with their current work schedule; the reasons were many and varied. During the last several months, many meetings were held with division members that focused on the feasibility of changing the current work schedule. After much discussion, a consensus was reached by management and employees as to which work schedule would be the most favorable to the employees as well as to the organization.