Mason PUD 3 Adopts New Business Hours

Mason PUD 3 will have new hours beginning May 2, 2022. On April 12, 2022, the Mason PUD 3 board of commissioners voted to approve moving forward with an alternate work week (40-hour work week that is comprised of four 10-hour days with Fridays off) and the District’s union members of IBEW Local 77 voted for the alternate work schedule the following day. The new schedule will go into effect on Monday, May 2, 2022. The PUD’s new business hours will be Monday through Thursday, 7:00 a.m. – 5:30 p.m. Employees will have a half-hour unpaid lunch.

With the pandemic slowing, the PUD will be reopening its doors to the public on May 2, 2022 (after being closed for just over two years) and has aligned the modified business hours with the re-opening. The pandemic forced the PUD to deploy many self-serve options and those tools have been widely adopted by customers. PUD 3’s Customer Service Manager, Diane Hennessy explained, “I’m excited to offer our customers extended hours when we re-open. We know it is more convenient for customers to contact us before and after work – our phone stats show we miss a handful of calls between 7:00 [a.m.] and 8:00 [a.m.]. On the other hand, customers have learned how to use our self-serve tools like PUD’s SmartHub app to sign up or stop service, pay their bill, or understand their usage.”

The 4/10 schedule is becoming an industry trend with several other utilities adopting this schedule. Since other utilities in the District’s labor group have moved or are considering moving to a 4/10 workweek, the PUD recognized this schedule as a recruiting and retention necessity. “The 4/10 work week is something the crews have been requesting for years. Unfortunately, that schedule doesn’t work well when it’s spread over five days because of coverage issues. When vacations are scheduled and then someone calls in sick, it can be a real safety concern,” said Chris Miller, PUD 3’s Operations Manager. With the utility closing on Fridays, it takes care of those safety concerns and allows the utility to more efficiently schedule work for crews. PUD’s General Manager, Annette Creekpaum, added, “Through the pandemic, we have had trouble recruiting trained employees. We are down one crew and can’t afford to lose our skilled labor to neighboring utilities offering this alternate schedule.”

The PUD is still a 24-hour utility and will always respond to outages when they occur. After hours services will remain the same. When an outage occurs, the PUD’s automated meters will notify the dispatch team and crews will respond as usual. Customers can also report outages by using the SmartHub app or by calling the 24-hour outage line at 360-426-8255.