CITC Telecommuting Policy

Work From Home Internal Policy - DRAFT

April 2008

Purpose

University policy 1.2.7 establishes a work week at UNT as
starting at 12:01 AM on Sundays and ending at midnight the following Saturday.
In addition, the policy defines the location where UNT work may be performed.
The relevant section of the policy says:

3.
Regular Work Location/Work Performed at Personal
Residence:

An
employee shall, during normal office hours, conduct University business only at
the employee’s regular place of business or assigned duty point unless the
employee is on travel status or has received prior written authorization from
the department administrator. In no event shall an employee’s personal
residence be deemed to be his/her regular place of business or duty point for
the purpose of this subsection without the written authorization of the
administrator. For this purpose, the “administrator” is defined as both
the department head and the vice president.

The nature of some jobs within the Computing and Information
Technology Center (CITC) does make it possible for those jobs to be performed
at locations that aren’t confined to CITC employees’ physical offices. For
example, a server can be administered or monitored from any Internet-connected
computer, programming can be accomplished anywhere, etc. For that reason as
well as the increasing costs of commuting to campus, many CITC employees have
asked that a work from home policy be implemented that would allow them to work
at home for some of their scheduled work shifts for their convenience or
benefit.

The CITC’s senior administrators have discussed a work from
home policy that would serve the needs of the University, the CITC, and as much
as possible, the desires of the CITC
workforce. The outcome of these discussions is the following policy/procedures
that are effective as of mmm dd, yyyy:

Policy

Working from home, defined as working at home for some of an
employee’s regular work schedule for the convenience or benefit of the
employee, is a privilege, not a right of employment at UNT or in the CITC.
Because the CITC is a service organization to the UNT campus, the needs of the
CITC’s users always take precedence over an employee’s desire to work from
home: many jobs within the CITC require direct face-to-face interaction with
our customers, collaboration with other campus-based staff, or resources not
available at home. For maximum
effectiveness and to serve the CITC’s primary constituencies, those jobs are
not candidates for being performed outside of a CITC office.

There is no standard template that can be applied across the
many jobs in the CITC to determine whether a particular employee in a specific
job may work from home. The privilege of working from home will be granted at
the discretion of the supervisor based on his/her assessment of the effective
use of resources to meet the department’s workload, the skills and experience
of the employee, and ultimately on the needs of the university.

Employees must seek
approval in advance to work
from home, providing the supervisor with work plans that ensure equal
productivity as when working in the office and demonstrating measurable output
while working from home.

Infrastructure
Support

Since this benefit is being provided for the convenience of
our employees, the CITC will not provide any infrastructure to support the work
from home effort, i.e. PCs for home use (unless they are available from
surplus), reimbursement for internet connectivity at home, or reimbursement for
home telephone expenses (although the employee may apply for a cell phone or
broadband allowance if they qualify for it). The university will provide campus
connectivity in the form of basic internet access to UNT and VPN access where
necessary. When an employee works from home, his/her office phone should be
forwarded to the employee’s home or cell phone to provide ready access to the
employee from the campus community.

Compensatory Time

State
law prohibits employees from accruing compensatory time or overtime while
employees are working from home. Specifically, Texas State
statue Article IX, Section 2.6 (3) (d) states that

PLACE WHERE WORK PERFORMED. Except under circumstances specified in the General

Appropriations Act, an employee of a state agency as defined by Section 658.001 may not, for hours worked during any calendar week, accumulate compensatory time off under Section 659.015(f) or 659.016 to the extent that the hours are attributable to work performed at a location other than the employee's regular or temporarily assigned place of employment. The employee's personal residence may not be considered the employee's regular or temporarily assigned place of employment.

In addition, UNT Policy 1.4.2 also states

No employee, whether or not subject
to FLSA, shall accrue state compensatory time for work conducted at any
location other than the employee's regular place of employment or assigned duty
point. In no event shall an employee's personal residence be deemed to be that
employee's regular place of business or duty point.

Approval

CITC supervisors (persons
who supervise one or more employees as part of their normal job function and
who have oversight over all functional aspects of the subordinate employees’
job in the CITC rather than over only a specific project or task) have
the authority to grant work from home privileges to persons working in their
departments on an intermittent basis. If the supervisor wishes to grant a
regular, recurring day on which an employee may work from home (e.g., each
Wednesday,) the CITC Director who is in charge of the department must also
approve the supervisor’s granting of that privilege. In addition, under UNT policy (cited earlier,)
the department head as well as Vice President Andrew Harris must approve in
writing an employee’s work from home privilege on a regular basis.

The effectiveness of this work from home policy will be
evaluated approximately three months after it takes effect as well as on an
annual basis to insure that it serves the best interests of UNT and of the
CITC.