Despite a spate of retirements this year estimated to deplete the Facilities and Services' workforce by nearly 10 percent, officials say there is a silver lining.
"This is an opportunity for current employees to move up," said F&S Executive Director Jack Dempsey, "and it's an opportunity for the community because there will be so many new and quality job openings."
F&S supplies a host of construction and maintenance services across the entire Urbana campus. The 1,200 F&S employees represent about a quarter of the campus's total number of civil service workers.
According to the Office of the Provost, 532 employees from across the campus had filed notification for retirement by June 30. F&S has 120 retiring as of June 30.
The increase in the campus retirement rate is attributed to changes made at the state level, which went into affect July 2 and affect the money-purchase formula used to calculate retirement benefits.
Dempsey said he expects a time of "struggle" for the division as managers begin filling positions while trying to keep service at expected levels.
"When you look at our organization, it's a big number - twice the rate of retirement we usually see," Dempsey said. "The time it takes to hire someone and get them up to the same level (as the person being replaced) takes four or five years."
Dempsey said F&S employees, especially those in the crafts and trades positions, must be uniquely qualified.
He said the primary challenge is twofold: finding workers willing to work in an environment that is more service-oriented than at a typical job site, and discovering employees with the skills to work - sometimes simultaneously - on high-tech systems and 100-year-old buildings.
"We want them to be fully prepared to work here because it's a whole different approach," he said. "They're going into buildings that are occupied by faculty and students. It's like going into people's homes."
Dempsey said F&S leaders already are reviewing vacant administrative positions and deciding whether to consolidate or eliminate some of them. They also plan to offer specific training, with one program providing customer service training and
another focusing on general F&S orientation for new employees.
"We want to get the front-line workers hired as fast as we can so we can begin training them and integrating them into the system," he said, adding dozens of interviews were already being lined up in anticipation of the retirements.
"We want to continue to have a good, dedicated workforce," he said. "We've had some amazing people here and we thank them for the tremendous work they have done. Our employees have a passion because they feel like they can make a contribution."
While the decline in manpower represents a temporary workforce strain, Dempsey said he is most concerned with the longer-term struggle to replace workers who possess decades of "institutional knowledge."
That concern is shared across the university, he said, as many of the newly retired have been working on the Urbana campus for decades.
"Somebody who's been here 10 years can get things done more efficiently and effectively," he said. "There are going to be a lot of people across campus asking, 'Who is it that does this now?' It's not just the crafts and trades."
Other challenges include making competitive offers to workers despite recent benefit reductions for new employees, and finding ways to keep them for the long term despite continued financial uncertainty.
And despite the difficult period, Dempsey said he is confident F&S will persevere, with minimal interruption and continued top-notch work.
"I think people are just going to step up and make it happen," he said. "This is a chance, as an employee, to stretch yourself. We just have to rise to the challenge."