Updates to Flexible Work Arrangements and Paid Time Off Guidelines

Dear Members of Carnegie Mellon Faculty and Staff:

We write with important, and we hope welcome, news about a planned extension of the university’s guidance on flexible work arrangements and the Paid Time Off (PTO) use exception. The university made these decisions to recognize the challenging effects of the pandemic on all of you. We are appreciative of the great lengths to which many of you have gone to manage and balance these impacts on your personal lives and remain heartened by your strong commitment to ensuring the health, well-being and success of our students.

We all hoped that the COVID-19 pandemic would be relatively stabilized globally by this time and that we could complete the university-wide transition of all employees back to campus during the spring semester. However, even with the success of the vaccination program and other mitigation strategies at CMU, the communities in which we live continue to be deeply affected by the pandemic, which places additional stress on your personal lives. After careful consideration with the deans and other senior leaders, university leadership decided to extend both the university’s current guidance regarding return to on-site work (including flexible options) through December 31, 2022, and the temporary exception to the university’s PTO Policy. As an institution, we are fully committed to reviewing what we have learned during the pandemic period as we consider workforce planning for the future beyond 2022 and how flexibility may play a more integral role in our workplace.

More detailed information is provided below.

Extension of Flexible Work Arrangements

Earlier this year, the university provided guidance to academic and division leadership that contained a framework and options for transitioning staff to on-site work during the Fall 2021 semester, including the potential for flexible work arrangements through December 31, 2021. Supervisors across the university have utilized this guidance to develop return to campus plans for the fall semester, which have ensured that the work of the university could continue. These plans included flexibility where practicable, while also accounting for a number of positions that require full-time presence on campus. This guidance anticipated a return to campus for all during the spring semester, but, considering the continued impact of the COVID-19 pandemic, the university is extending the current guidance to apply throughout all of 2022. We will re-evaluate the situation in the fall of 2022, taking into account lessons learned about flexible work during the pandemic that will help inform our guidance for the future beyond 2022. During 2022, supervisors will continue to apply existing guidance based on their best judgment to develop a strategic plan of work for their units/schools/colleges to advance the work and mission of the university, including determining which flexible options work best for positions within their units. As they have been since August, supervisors will continue to make these decisions while working with their teams directly.

Extension of PTO Use Exception:

Due to the ongoing impact of the COVID-19 pandemic, many staff members have had to, unfortunately, cancel or reschedule their planned and approved PTO. This situation has resulted in staff members entering their next employment year with a PTO balance greater than their annual entitlement. The excess PTO hours are currently scheduled to move into a staff members’ bank of Reserve Sick Days (RSD).

To provide staff more time to use their accrued PTO, university leadership has authorized the Office of Human Resources to extend the temporary exception to the university’s Paid Time Off Policy to December 31, 2022, for PTO that normally would have rolled into a staff member’s bank of RSD from April 1, 2020 – December 31, 2022. Affected PTO not used by a staff member’s PTO anniversary date subsequent to December 31, 2022, will be converted back to the staff member’s bank of RSD after that PTO anniversary date. Please refer to the Temporary Exceptions to PTO Policy: Viewing Potentially Forfeited PTO [pdf] for instructions on viewing your PTO balance and refer to this example illustrating the PTO exception extension.

Carnegie Mellon University is a complex organization with different needs across various units. As we move through the year, we are committed to receiving feedback and continuously assessing and evaluating workplace flexibility. The insights we learn from this process will enable us to identify and employ the most impactful strategies to deliver continued excellence at all levels while also retaining and recruiting the best and brightest talent to serve the university. We hope the extension of the flexible work guidance and the PTO exception makes it easier for our CMU community to continue working together to accomplish the university's work and mission and more confidently arrange plans for the upcoming year.

In closing, we thank you again for your extraordinary efforts during this unprecedented time and wish you and your families a happy and healthy holiday season. If you have any questions, please submit to hr-help@andrew.cmu.edu.

James Garrett, Provost

Michelle Piekutowski, Associate VP and Chief HR Officer