Our 2018 university winter break closure will begin Monday, December 24, 2018 and continue through Tuesday, January 1, 2019. Please be reminded that this year's closure includes two weekdays -- Friday, December 28 and Monday, December 31 -- that are not university holidays and for which employees must either apply available leave or perform approved alternate work to be compensated. To maximize energy and cost savings, we must work to limit on-campus activity during the closure period to essential operations, to the extent possible. At the same time, we are committed to minimizing the impact on employees who may not have sufficient vacation or bonus leave to cover the non-holiday closure days, or those who may prefer to conserve their available leave for other purposes. Alternate work may include community service or telecommuting options.
Community Service Leave
We encourage employees to consider utilizing community service leave as a way to manage the winter break closure and also support our community. The University’s ACT Office Community Partners Database is a great resource for identifying community service opportunities.
Telecommuting
Where productive work that can be performed remotely is available, employees may seek approval of their supervisors to work from home to offset non-holiday closure hours. To utilize this option:
The supervisor and employee must agree on the work to be performed and it must be documented.
Work to be completed must be measurable and completion must be verified by the supervisor.
Hours spent performing work must be documented by the employee and provided to the supervisor for approval.
Any university work materials (hard copy or electronic) that would be removed from campus must be documented with the supervisor and their return must be documented.
Anyone needing assistance accessing university computer systems remotely should contact IT Support Services (http://support.appstate.edu/contact).
Note:
In prior years, we have also been able to offer employees the option of engaging in online professional development though Lynda.com, an online database of professional development and training videos. However, this resource was costly and underutilized and is a service to which we no longer subscribe. Our goal is to develop online training resources in-house and have this option available again in the future.