Are you finding it harder to balance work and home?

The University’s Work/Life Program can help.

Available to all University staffers—and their relatives, no matter where they live—the program provides a free, 24-hour, seven-day-a-week hotline to counselors, social workers and other professionals whose mission is to provide research and guidance regarding a wide range of problems.

You can contact the Work/Life Assistance Program by calling 800-833-8707. The service is contracted by CUNY to the private company Corporate Counseling Associates (CCA). The counselors—at a minimum—all hold master’s degrees.

“The University launched this program in November 2008 because we knew that it was something that our employees needed and wanted,” says Vice Chancellor for Human Resources Management Gloriana Waters. “To date, every single CUNY college has utilized this program. In 2010 alone, CCA held more than 60 wellness seminars and employee orientations on the campuses. There were more than 20,000 hits on the website. The program is an overwhelming success. Our employees deserve no less.”

The service is confidential. Supervisors, for example, are not notified when calls are placed to the hotline. An employee can get help for problems ranging from drug addiction and domestic abuse to finding a good child care provider or nursing home.

And for those work-balance issues, the counselors also can recommend solutions to less daunting problems—a reliable pet kennel for example, or a better gym.

Recently, a staffer called the hotline with a concern about her elderly mother who lives hundreds of miles away from New York and had moved into an assisted living facility.

While it was safe and secure, her mother needed more care than she could get on site. So it fell to the CUNY staffer’s sister—who didn’t live too far away but has a full-time job—to spend all of her free time taking her mother on excursions to lift her spirits and make sure she was taking her medication properly. The staffer needed to fly home for a week every two to four months to give her sister some relief.

The staffer, who is not named to underscore the confidential nature of the Work/Life program, says what she experienced was the kind of heavy responsibility that could affect an employee’s work. The solution was to hire people to help her mother. But there were so many agencies? Which one to pick? Who to trust? And how to do it all from afar, with her siblings scattered?

But within five days after calling the Work/Life hotline, the problem was solved. A counselor helped her identify the best-rated local agencies. As a result she was able to make a few calls instead of many. She hired a companion for her mother to drive her to appointments and take her on excursions. The program also helped her find a home health care nurse to monitor medication. “A lot of the groundwork was done for us,” the staffer says. “I was saved an enormous amount of time … And this has allowed my mother a certain amount of independence she would not have had otherwise.”

“Well-balanced employees are more engaged, productive and focused,” says Veronica Alabi, an account executive for CCA. Alabi, a social worker, was until recently a counselor who answered hotline queries from CUNY employees and their relatives. She emphasizes that employees “achieve more balance when they use our service to proactively manage their needs.” She says that in 2010 more than half of the employees who called needed help with psychological or emotional issues.

For example, one CUNY employee needed help in dealing with a family member’s suicide. “Through short-term grief counseling, the Work/Life Program provided the employee with a safe place to express feelings and to receive support and education about coping strategies,” Alabi says.

Others employees asked about work-life challenges and sought help with personal and job-related situations.

For more information on the program please see: http://www.cuny.edu/worklife. The site also offers free webinars with assistance on a wide diversity of life-balancing subjects—even including one on the use of feng shui, the ancient Chinese system of architectural choices, to turn a home into a more soothing environment.

First-time users need to register using the organization code “advantage” to access the Savings Center. If you are already a registered user, you can access and login to the Savings Center from the link below.

To access the Savings Center, visit the OHRM University Benefits website, and click on the “CUNY Work/Life Program” link under the “Programs” heading on the page.

The answer: 667

Some details about who chose the benefit offered by the University in 2010:

Of that number, 281 were faculty members, 141 were non-teaching instructional staff, and 245 were classified staff.

Part “A” of the ERI drew 635 applicants. It was open to eligible employees age 50 or older with at least 10 years of service, who were members of the New York City Employees’ Retirement System, the Teachers’ Retirement System of the City of New York, Board of Education Retirement System of the City of New York, or participants in TIAA/CREF.

Part B had 32 participants, and was available to eligible employees age 55 or older with at least 25 years of service who were members of the New York State and local employees’ retirement system, or the New York City teachers’, employees’ and Board of Education retirement systems.

Last year, 149 more CUNY employees took advantage of the ERI than in 2002, the last time such an incentive was offered. ERI-2002 participants totaled 517, including 311 faculty, 125 non-teaching instructional staff, and 81 classified staff.

Community college employees transitioned late last year.

Employees who were previously enrolled with the commuter program administered by JPMorgan Chase have had their old cards deactivated and received new cards from WageWorks. And here’s some more good news: Balances on the old JPMorgan Chase cards were transferred to new WageWorks accounts.

As reported in the last issue of For Your Benefit, the new WageWorks program gives CUNY employees who use public transportation to commute to work more and better ways to save. It covers virtually any transit system in the Tri-State area.

The program provides a stored value card loaded with pre-tax and post-tax payroll deductions. It works just like a credit card. Other options include a transit pass plan, a plan for Access-A-Ride and a Park-n-Ride plan for those who park at or near public transit on their way to work.

Do you have a new WageWorks Commuter card? If so, make sure to activate the card so you can begin to use it.

And here’s some additional and important information about

the new Commuter Benefits Program administered by WageWorks.

• The Commuter Card is a MasterCard stored-value card that works just like a credit card at transit agency ticket vending machines and ticket windows.

• When using this Commuter Card be sure to select “credit.”

Not “debit.”

• If you enrolled in the Transit Pass Plan, make sure to log in to the WageWorks website to choose the particular transit pass you would like to have mailed to your home.

• Unused balances will remain in your account, and/or on your card as long as you work at CUNY.

• If you leave, you will have 90 days from your separation date

to spend the balance of your account.

For more information visit www.getwageworks.com/nyc.

Epifanio Rebollo, a Brooklyn College Peace Officer, has also served in war—in Basra, Iraq. Assigned to National Guard Company 442 in Jamaica, he was deployed in June 2009 for fourteen months.

A married father of three, Rebollo, 43, received certain military benefits from CUNY which, like those provided by the city and state, have been extended each year since 9/11 by the University’s board.

In 2010, CUNY had 71 reservist employees.

Rebollo says Human Resources personnel at Brooklyn College helped him to get financial and medical benefits. “I was not aware of the specifics,” he said. “But they were great and they put in for it.” Also, his family was able to use his CUNY medical benefits during his time in Iraq.

CUNY covers the first year of health benefits for families of individuals who are deployed.“The key area we are concerned about is the family,” says Leslie E. Williams, University Executive Director of Shared Services.

Rebollo was assigned to assist Iraqi civilians — and transport troops, envoys and journalists, “often through the city, outside the [military] wire,” or the zone of relative safety and protection. He describes seeing thousands of Iraqis travel miles to his base for medical care and the heartbreak of having to turn most away due to a lack of facilities and doctors.

Before 9/11, CUNY-employed reservists called up for active military duty were eligible to receive one month of full University pay, once a year. This benefit is still in place. The extension provides an additional “once in a lifetime” one month’s pay for reservists deployed to fight the war on terror.

Since 2001, these reservists also receive financial benefits to ensure that together with their military compensation there is no reduction from what would have been their CUNY pay while they are deployed. As long as the CUNY board renews the policy, this “reduced military leave pay” is available for the full time of deployment during a calendar year.

CUNY’s Office of Human Resources Management is putting together a deployment package to help explain these benefits. That might some day help Tanesha Orridge, 29, a City College Peace Officer, who has been in the National Guard since 2003. She served in Iraq but has not been deployed since she began working at CUNY in 2008. “It’s not a matter of wanting to go. I have to go,” she says. “I am single. I’d rather go than have someone who is married and has children go.”

If you are a part-time employee you may also be eligible for some benefits. Since CUNY offers so many varied benefits, the specifics of what may be available to part-timers are detailed. So please check with the Human Resources office at your college. That’s an important thing to do to make sure you don’t miss getting a benefit to which you may be entitled.

To give you a general idea of what might be available for you, let’s look quickly at what kind of benefits a non-teaching adjunct, who has worked at least 10 hours a week for two consecutive semesters and has begun a third—not counting winter or

summer semesters—might receive:

Health benefits are often what employees ask about first. Our non-teaching adjunct depicted above could get coverage through the PSC-CUNY Welfare Fund. To be eligible a part-timer may not be covered by another health plan offered through other employment, a spouse or a government entitlement.

Our part-timer would also be able to enroll in the Teachers’ Retirement System of the City of New York. This is a defined benefit plan in which members contribute 3 percent of their gross salaries for the first 10 years. Five years of service credit

is required to be vested.

If our part-timer commutes by public transportation to CUNY then the pre-tax transportation fringe benefit plan offered by WageWorks makes sense.

Our part-timer would also be eligible to enroll in the voluntary, self-pay John Hancock Long-Term Care Insurance and the Marsh Catastrophic Major Medical plans, as well as a tax-deferred annuity, and the New York State 457 Deferred Compensation Plan. More information is available at the PSC-CUNY Welfare Fund website.

Here are some links for information about these three benefits.

Teachers’ Retirement System – http://www.trs.nyc.ny.us

WageWorks – http://www.getwageworks.com/nyc/

PSC-CUNY Welfare Fund – http://psccunywf.org/

Do you know what constitutes workplace violence?

Here are some answers:

CUNY’s policy defines workplace violence as any physical assault or act of aggressive behavior that occurs where an employee performs any work related duty.

It includes, but is not limited to:

1. An attempt or threat, whether verbal or physical, to inflict physical injury upon an employee.

2. Any intentional display of force that would give an employee reason to fear or  expect bodily harm.

3. Intentional and wrongful physical contact with an employee without his or her consent that entails some injury.

4. Stalking an employee in a manner that may cause the employee to fear for his or her physical safety and health. This refers to an action that occurs during the course of employment or has arisen as a result of employment.

For the details of the University’s policy on workplace violence prevention, please see: http://www.cuny.edu/violenceprevention

A married father of three, Rebollo, 43, received certain military benefits from CUNY which, like those provided by the city and state, have been extended each year since 9/11 by the University’s board. In 2010, CUNY had 71 reservist employees.

Rebollo says Human Resources personnel at Brooklyn College helped him to get financial and medical benefits. “I was not aware of the specifics,” he said. “But they were great and they put in for it.” Also, his family was able to use his CUNY medical benefits during his time in Iraq. CUNY covers the first year of health benefits for families of individuals who are deployed.“The key area we are concerned about is the family,” says Leslie E. Williams, University Executive Director of Employee Benefits. Rebollo was assigned to assist Iraqi civilians — and transport troops, envoys and journalists, “often through the city, outside the [military] wire,” or the zone of relative safety and protection.  He describes seeing thousands of Iraqis travel miles to his base for medical care and the heartbreak of having to turn most away due to a lack of facilities and doctors.

Before 9/11, CUNY-employed reservists called up for active military duty were eligible to receive one month of full University pay, once a year. This benefit is still in place.  The extension provides an additional  “once in a lifetime”  one month’s pay for reservists deployed to fight the war on terror.  Since 2001, these reservists also receive financial benefits to ensure that together with their military compensation there is no reduction from what would have been their CUNY pay while they are deployed. As long as the CUNY board renews the policy, this “reduced military leave pay” is available for the full time of deployment during a calendar year.

Are you finding it harder to balance work and home?

The University’s Work/Life Program can help.

Available to all University staffers – and their relatives, no matter where they live – the program provides a free, 24-hour, seven-day-a-week hotline to counselors, social workers and other professionals whose mission is to provide research and guidance regarding a wide range of problems.

You can contact the Work/Life Assistance Program by calling 800-833-8707. The service is contracted by CUNY to the private company Corporate Counseling Associates (CCA). The counselors – at a minimum – all hold master’s degrees.

“The University launched this program in November 2008 because we knew that it was something that our employees needed and wanted,” says Vice Chancellor for Human Resources Management Gloriana Waters.  “To date, every single CUNY college has utilized this program.  In 2010 alone, CCA held more than 60 wellness seminars and employee orientations on the campuses. There were more than 20,000 hits on the website.  The program is an overwhelming success. Our employees deserve no less.”

The service is confidential. Supervisors, for example, are not notified when calls are placed to the hotline. An employee can get help for problems ranging from drug addiction and domestic abuse to finding a good child care provider or nursing home. And for those work-balance issues, the counselors also can recommend solutions to less daunting problems – a reliable pet kennel for example, or a better gym.

Recently, a staffer called the hotline with a concern about her elderly mother who lives hundreds of miles away from New York and had moved into an assisted living facility.

While it was safe and secure, her mother needed more care than she could get on site.  So it fell to the CUNY staffer’s sister – who didn’t live too far away but has a full-time job – to spend all of her free time taking her mother on excursions to lift her spirits and make sure she was taking her medication properly. The staffer needed to fly home for a week every two to four months to give her sister some relief.

The staffer, who is not named to underscore the confidential nature of the Work/Life program, says what she experienced was the kind of heavy responsibility that could affect an employee’s work. The solution was to hire people to help her mother. But there were so many agencies? Which one to pick? Who to trust? And how to do it all from afar, with her siblings scattered?

But within five days after calling the Work/Life hotline, the problem was solved. A counselor helped her identify the best-rated local agencies. As a result she was able to make a few calls instead of many.  She hired a companion for her mother to drive her to appointments and take her on excursions.  The program also helped her find a home health care nurse to monitor medication. “A lot of the groundwork was done for us,” the staffer says. “I was saved an enormous amount of time … And this has allowed my mother a certain amount of independence she would not have had otherwise.”

“Well-balanced employees are more engaged, productive and focused,” says Veronica Alabi, an account executive for CCA.  Alabi, a social worker, was until recently a counselor who answered hotline queries from CUNY employees and their relatives. She emphasizes that employees “achieve more balance when they use our service to proactively manage their needs.”  She says that in 2010 more than half of the employees who called needed help with psychological or emotional issues.

For example, one CUNY employee needed help in dealing with a family member’s suicide. “Through short-term grief counseling, the Work/Life Program provided the employee with a safe place to express  feelings and to receive support and education about coping strategies,” Alabi says.

Others employees asked about work-life challenges and sought help with personal and job-related situations.

For more information on the program please see: http://www.cuny.edu/worklife . The site also offers free webinars with assistance on a wide diversity of life-balancing subjects – even including one on the use of feng shui, the ancient Chinese system of architectural choices, to turn a home into a more soothing environment.

Corporate Counseling Associates, which administers the program, is a provider of services that also include critical incident stress debriefings throughout Asia. CUNY campuses that may need similar help with students, staff or faculty can also contact the program. The number to call for this assistance is 212 646 6827

A resource list is available at the Work/Life website and at

http://library.constantcontact.com/download/get/file/1103573720891-13/CUNY+WorkLife+Resources+for+the+Japan+Tsunami.pdf