Message #34612

[countrigal]

The measure we took seems so simple that it was amazing how it worked.  Electricity is pricey, so the last person out of the office was required to turn off the office lights.  Security made passes through the facility and any office that had no one in it (after hours) and had lights on, were written up and reported to the Director.  Standard response was the office that was negligent had to pay a small "fine" to re-inforce the new policy.  Each office handled this differently, but it worked and folks started paying attention to lights.  This included the restroom lights... if no one is in there, the light is out (and we're a hospital, so bathrooms are plentiful and available to public).  Some of the restrooms in the more public areas have sensors that turn the lights on when someone enters, and will turn them off again if there is no movement for xx minutes.  Others, like the one down from our area, tends to be out of the way for patient/visitors, so the light is turned off/on by individuals entering and leaving.  These procedures have helped to cut costs some.

With office supplies, especially if you have more than one office paticipating, standardizing supplies allows bulk ordering and cuts costs.  We've done this with types of pens, folders, notebooks, and other standard office supplies.  We also created a mail group that has a representative from each office in it, which we use to see if anyone has extras of items we need before ordering.  If an office finds a surplus of stuff, they let everyone on the group know and others can take advantage of that surplus.  I just did that with binders.  I had approx 15 3-ring binders that I had cleaned out (they held outdated data we no longer needed to maintain) and a couple of the other offices needed some and were able to use these.  With pens, a standard black and standard blue was decided upon and if anyone wants a different type, they are welcome to purchase it themselves.

CountriGal
Peer Moderator