CAUT

  • 1.  University staff position verses out sourcing

    Registered Piano Technician
    Posted 01-29-2025 02:20

    Hello.  Has any full-time university staff piano technician had to present a rationale to administration to support keeping the staff position current and in place verses eliminating the staff position and fully contracting out all piano maintenance service?  If so I would be interested to hear and learn what approach was implemented to support the staff position and the results.  To provide a further detail, this would be at a designated All Steinway & Sons University with 95 Steinway pianos.  The Steinway & Sons pianos are 18 years old.

    Is it rash for a university that has invested nearly $3 million in Steinway & Sons inventory to eliminate the full-time staff position?

    OR 

    Could it be cost effective for the university to out source if the staff employee has been employed over 15 years with salary increment scaling and benefits?

    I'm looking for some help and advise from those that may have had a similar situation and perhaps some suggestions on what might be an effective approach to present support for maintaining the full-time staff position. 

    With that said, I also realize that we are living in a very competitive world and environment that is revolving and changing like never before.  I wish to approach this matter fairly, factually, and objectively.

    I thank you in advance for any input and am more than happy to take the discussion off line should there be any sensitive content that might be better served discussed privately.  Many thanks.

    Daniel A 

        



    ------------------------------
    Daniel Alberts RPT
    Connellsville PA
    (724) 628-4298
    ------------------------------



  • 2.  RE: University staff position verses out sourcing

    Registered Piano Technician
    Posted 01-29-2025 07:43
    Hi Daniel

    I can't answer your question directly, but I have some for you. First, how many pianos are under your care? Second, how much is your parts budget?  You don't have to answer, but what is your annual income? Why is the school considering doing this?

    I suspect that the school is looking to save money. They might be looking at your income, including benefits, and parts budget, and think they can get the same service for less money. What you might want to do is do a comparison between what they paid you last year, and what the school would need to pay a piano tuner to do the same amount of work. Include all the minor repairs you did, for which they would need to pay a contractor a minimum fee to come to school. (assuming they will keep the parts budget the same). 

    I'm a contract tuner at a local university with only 52 pianos. I have a budget of $20,000, which includes parts and my labor. I put together a budget showing how much money I would need this school year based on my previous year's charges, to justify an increase in how much I charge them my services. My budget was not approved. I went ahead and increased my charges, but when we get to end of the school year, I will need to cut back on the number of concert tunings I can do.

    Wim  







  • 3.  RE: University staff position verses out sourcing

    Registered Piano Technician
    Posted 01-29-2025 10:37

    Hello Daniel,

    The institutional sales representative from Steinway & Sons should have resources and guidelines for inventory maintenance that they would be happy to share with you if requested.  These resources might help give a foundation for the case you are attempting to make. 

    You might already know who the Institutional Sales Representative is for your location, but please reach out to me if you need help getting in touch with the right person.



    ------------------------------
    Daniel DeBiasio
    Technical Education & Support
    ddebiasio@steinway.com
    718-267-3229
    Steinway & Sons
    ------------------------------



  • 4.  RE: University staff position verses out sourcing

    Registered Piano Technician
    Posted 01-29-2025 10:58
    From my distant perspective not knowing anything except what you wrote in your message, your situation raised a question in my mind: does the school not feel that they are getting their money's worth from your time at the school?  If they don't think that all of your 40+ hours per week are actually being used productively in piano work, then it would be natural for them to think a contracted person could  handle it with fewer hours.

    Independent contractors need to charge roughly double the hourly rate in order to have the same take home pay as a salaried and cover expenses, insurance, etc.  So if school administration feels that the work you are doing can be done in ½ the time by a contractor they will only come out with about the same expense, and will not have the benefit of having someone on hand when extra work is needed - broken strings, special event tuning, etc.

    So, I'm wondering if they simply aren't aware of what all you are doing with your time!  Are you the silent efficient type who handles stuff and no one realizes the work is being done?  Perhaps that is part of the problem.  Are you regulating, filing hammers, cleaning pianos, and doing other background types of work when not tuning pianos?  Are you replacing hammers and rebushing keys and keeping the pianos in the best condition possible and thereby justifying your time to the school?  

    On the other hand, if I may be a little blunt, are you perhaps a person who is often sitting around chatting and sipping coffee?  That could be the root of the problem.  I'm not accusing you, understand, I'm just suggesting that you spend time to think about how your activities at the school are viewed by faculty and staff.

    So yes, evaluate your own work habits as well as outlining the job requirements to keep the piano inventory working well.  Help them to understand what it is you are doing besides only tuning the pianos occasionally.

    By the way, it seems that Steinway published service suggestions for Steinway Schools in order to maintain the instruments properly.  You might find those guidelines and use them in your discussions.

    Don Mannino
    Note and disclaimer: I have never worked full time for a school, but only contracted to schools in the past. I am retired from a corporate job, and am back to working for private customers.





  • 5.  RE: University staff position verses out sourcing

    Registered Piano Technician
    Posted 01-29-2025 11:04
    Is there a union on your campus representing staff, and do you know your union representatives? On the 23-campus California Stare system, the union would be raising holy heck at the prospect of any of their salaried staff being replaced by contract work. 

    Kathy

    Sent from my iPhone



    Original Message


  • 6.  RE: University staff position verses out sourcing

    Registered Piano Technician
    Posted 01-29-2025 12:12
    When considering changing from employee to contract, they need to understand that they are also changing from (presumably) someone who is organized, knows what needs to be done and when, keeps track of inventory, has relationships with faculty and is able to anticipate and respond to their needs, has experience in the school environment, (I could go on and on). 

    Going to contract, some other employee will need to oversee the job. Who on faculty or staff is capable of doing that? Scheduling regular tuning AND maintenance. (They probably just think it is a matter of tuning, certainly are clueless about the actual procedures involved in keeping instruments at a high level - with the high expectations they are assuming will go along with the "all-Steinway" moniker). They will need to communicate endlessly to arrange for the emergency service, figure out parking, access keys, schedule of rooms, deal with the times that the contractor has available for them. They and the contractor will need to bid out every single little service - how much for a broken string? how much to remove a pencil from an action? 

    I know that when I retired and there was an interim where there was contract fill in, it was pretty much a disaster just keeping the pianos in reasonable tune, as they were clueless about how often which pianos needed service, certainly unaware of the RH cycle and its contribution to the needs.

    And then there is the question of whether there are adequately qualified technicians who would be willing to put up with the hassles of contract work. And how will they be able to determine the experience and skill of whoever they are hiring? 

    In any university situation, odds are you hire someone who is not fully qualified, and provide for professional development opportunities. One of those opportunities is simply being in that job: following yourself week after week, year after year, learning what works and what doesn't, finding out just how skilled you are, gradually learning how to do work that lasts.

    Just some random thoughts. It is conceivable that a contract situation can be made to work, but it's a lot harder than they are likely to think it will be, and it is very doubtful they would save money, unless they want to sacrifice quality.

    Regards,
    Fred Sturm
    fssturm@comcast.net
    Youtube Spotify Deezer Apple Amazon
    http://fredsturm.net
    www.artoftuning.com
    "Art lives from constraints and dies from freedom." Leonardo















    Original Message


  • 7.  RE: University staff position verses out sourcing

    Registered Piano Technician
    Posted 01-29-2025 12:13

    Don's sage advice reminds me of something I routinely tell my trainees: there is the deed of service, and there is the perception of service. As Don has pointed out, some of us are long on the deed, but short-shrift ourselves on the perception. Then again, there are those that make a mountain out of a molehill where perception is concerned, but are short on the actual deed of service itself. My goal is to be long on the deed, and not keep it a closely guarded secret.

    Best,

    Alan



    ------------------------------
    Alan Eder, RPT
    Herb Alpert School of Music
    California Institute of the Arts
    Valencia, CA
    661.904.6483
    ------------------------------

    Original Message


  • 8.  RE: University staff position verses out sourcing

    Registered Piano Technician
    Posted 01-29-2025 12:20
    On the topic of making known what you do, I simply sent a quarterly report to the department administrator, generated from my service record database. I don't know that anyone looked at it in any detail, but everything I did was documented. 

    OTOH, my aim was to be generally invisible, behind the scenes, making it all happen without any fuss, anticipating needs and filling them
    . 
    Regards,
    Fred Sturm
    http://fredsturm.net
    www.artoftuning.com
    "A mind is not a vessel to be filled, but a fire to be kindled." Plutarch













    Original Message


  • 9.  RE: University staff position verses out sourcing

    Registered Piano Technician
    Posted 01-30-2025 15:22

    Daniel,

    I've been asked to justify my existence in the past. In addition to the Steinway Guidelines there are CAUT Guidelines I copied the URL below.

    https://higherlogicdownload.s3.amazonaws.com/PTG/d907a2ed-72af-49c3-a4eb-b72ee7020db5/UploadedImages/files/CAUT-Guidelines-2023.pdf

    It's probably just a the normal process of review that your universities Human Resources does. When this type of thing happens around here I use the opportunity to explain how overworked I am and that they should hire an assistant.

    It looks to me that your workload is above both the CAUT guidelines and Steinway's. 

    Mitch Staples

    Ohio State University



    ------------------------------
    Mitchell Staples RPT
    Baltimore OH
    (740) 862-9212
    ------------------------------