This past summer, Pitt Digital — formerly Pitt Information Technology — laid off 13 Technology Help Desk employees, jobs which Pitt will now outsource to the company Logicalis.
On July 22, Pitt help desk employees received an email from a Pitt Staff Union representative notifying the employees they would be terminated within one week. The leaked decision was confirmed two hours later, according to a former Pitt help desk employee.
“Honestly, when that first happened, we thought it was a fake email. Pitt deals with scam emails on a daily basis,” the former employee said. “After an hour and a half or so, we got invited to a sudden emergency meeting where we met with our supervisors and a member of the union and were basically read a pre-written break-up speech. It very much was, ‘It’s not you, it’s us.’”
An email sent to the affected employees cited the reason for the change as “challenges with service consistency due to staff coverage and scalability during peak periods.” The employment switch will allow Pitt Digital to “better align resources with the University’s evolving needs,” the message said.
One of the largest ways students, faculty and staff interact with Pitt Digital is through the centralized University help desk. The Help Desk has now transitioned to a vendor-based model using an outsourced company, Logicalis.
Logicalis has been a Pitt partner for almost four years and has been involved with the Help Desk for the past three, according to Brady Lutsko, Pitt Digital communications director. Logicalis’ involvement with the Help Desk originally began with the outsourced partner taking calls during the evening, overnight and weekend hours.
The former Help Desk employee noted that, as Logicalis took over more hours at the Help Desk, the employees “were worried for a while about [their] jobs.”
“We would ask them during team meetings outright, ‘Are our jobs in danger? Are we going to be outsourced?’ And they outright assured us, ‘No, no. We’re not outsourcing you,’” the former employee said.
The change in staffing, Lutsko said, “allows us to use resources more effectively and adjust help desk staffing according to fluctuations in demand throughout the academic year.” He said the Help Desk will be fully staffed for anticipated increased support requests, which “often occur during move-in and the first week of classes.”
The rebrand from Pitt IT to Pitt Digital, along with other changes made over the summer, marks what Lutsko called the department’s “commitment to the Plan for Pitt.”
Communication surrounding the elimination of the 13 employees has opened the door for legal action and bargaining between the University and the Staff Union. Yet, as of Aug. 20, the Staff Union is still in the process of bargaining a baseline union contract.
A University spokesperson said the University is “prepared to take appropriate measures in response to the serious challenges that the union’s actions have caused for our staff and administration.”
The former employee said they don’t expect this to “be the end of what Pitt will do for the sake of cutting costs.” Pitt Digital used to employ student workers, but according to the former employee, they cut all student workers, “and the reason was cited as money.”
“I would hazard it’s a safe bet that they’re going to try this again with other departments,” the former employee said.
Moving forward, as the University continues to implement the Plan for Pitt, Lutsko emphasized Pitt Digital’s commitment to its student body and community.
“We’re always looking for ways to give students, faculty and staff the best tech support possible,” Lutsko said.
