As many of you may recall, on March 13, 2020 we received notice that we were to limit all campus activities to essential personnel and all others would need to stay at home. In a short period of time, we learned that many jobs could be performed effectively in a remote setting (although many staff and faculty continued to work on campus in order to address essential activities). For some, the flexibility of working from home offered opportunity for better work-life balance, while performing their jobs as needed. Our staff and faculty have been incredibly productive over the past 14 months, and as we expand on-campus operations we intend to be thoughtful and strategic to learn the lessons from this past experience, while recognizing what was effective while instruction was essentially all remote may need to be adjusted as we move back towards a more normal campus density.
During the week of June 14 ,2021 staff members will receive an email from Willis Towers Watson, the firm surveying on UCR’s behalf, with an invitation to take the Flexible Work Survey. This email is not spam, so please do not delete the email invitation. The survey will take approximately 15 to 20 minutes to complete and the window to take the survey closes on June 28, 2021. The results will be used to inform the Operational Continuity Workgroup in developing recommendations to UCR leadership which may include alternative ways of working, office space planning and other considerations that best support our staff and our organization in a post pandemic “normal”. The survey is entirely confidential. Individual responses to the survey and personally-identifying information will not be shared with UCR. Additional periodic surveys may be conducted as operational continuity considerations continue to evolve.
As a reminder, the specific duties and responsibilities of a position dictate whether or not remote work is even an option. It is also critical to recognize that many UCR employees never left campus during this pandemic, as their duties and responsibilities did not provide them with options other than being on campus to fulfill their responsibilities to the institution. Whether an employee works primarily at a UCR location or is a hybrid-remote or remote worker, their first responsibility is to ensure they are completing their assigned job duties.
We look forward to your participating in the survey.
If you have questions, please contact flexibleworkforce@ucr.edu.