Dartblog

In the bad old days of Boeing Airlines, the company was known in Seattle as The Lazy B because of its slack work habits. To my mind Dartmouth has justly earned the sobriquet The Lazy D. To see what I mean on the ground, talk to students who try to get administrative help during lunchtime or after 4pm.

The current financial crisis is an excellent justification for changing the easy-going work culture at Dartmouth. How about moving everyone back to a 40-hour workweek? Judging from the mid-afternoon traffic jams in Hanover, nobody seems to linger at their desk even a minute beyond the 35 or 37 hours that they are asked to work.

And how about implementing a real world employee vacation policy at the College? When you add up the 22 vacation days, the four or five days of Christmas break, and the eight paid holidays — privileges that, astoundingly, are available to all employees immediately after their first year of employment! — it is hard not to conclude that the dispensation of largesse is a higher priority around here than the efficient provision of education. And it gets worse: employees in union and non-union service positions can get up to 36 paid days of vacation and personal time off (plus holidays and the Xmas break) after 20 years of service. That’s more than nine weeks of time off with pay each year.

On a national level, this generosity puts Dartmouth in the top 1% of employers. Is that where we can afford to be? Is that where a big chunk of the $50,000+ cost of a Dartmouth tuition should be going?

Here’s an idea: let’s set the College’s vacation policy at the median of paid vacation days offered by employers around the country, and then mandate that employees take vacations only when students are not on campus (like between Xmas and New Year). By keeping the College fully staffed when classes are being held, we will ensure that students and faculty are getting the best support possible.

The below chart was produced by benefits broker Zywave from a survey of almost 1,800 companies; it shows the total vacation days provided by employers across the country. Right now Dartmouth would fall on the far, far right of the chart: