Two more University employees, Sue Robeson and Paula Murphy, have won awards for their time- and money-saving ideas.
Robeson, a medical records clerk with Student Health Service, sent in an idea to save her office $7,440 a year by recycling divider tabs. Six weeks later, she received an $1,800 award.
Robeson started with an idea to save money by removing the blank divider tabs before the files were microfilmed. That saved a penny per image. She later expanded her suggestion: Instead of throwing away those divider tabs--as many as 62,000 every year--why not re-use them? At 12 cents each, the savings added up quickly.
Robeson said the office informally made the change in November, and it wasn't until she read an employee manual that she realized her idea might be worth something. With her boss's help, Robeson filled out the forms and sent them to Raleigh in June.
She has no plans for the money, she said, other than taking some of her co-workers to lunch.
The second winner, Lab Research Specialist Paula Murphy, suggested a way to streamline the School of Medicine's purchase order system for which she received a certificate from the governor.
Murphy noticed that every time a research lab received a shipment, an employee had to fill out an inventory statement and send it to the Health and Safety Office. Murphy proposed that the lab simply include its inventory statement on the original purchase order, thus saving the time and paper of completing another form.
After going 10 years with just two winners, UNC has had four in the past academic year. Other winners this year are Alan Johnson (Horace Williams Airport) and Tonya Sworski (pathology/laboratory medicine), who were featured in the Aug. 9 University Gazette.
For more information on the State's Employee Suggestion System, call Employee Services at 2-1483 for a brochure.
Sue Robeson poses with a fraction of the dividers that she suggested be recycled. Her idea won her $1,800.
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