Happy New Year, fellow housing professionals! For many of us, a new year means loads of winter weather. Several feet of snow, school closures, and the far-too-frequent inappropriate snow sculpture needing to be documented. For those of us living far enough south, we’re lucky to see just an inch or two of snow. Although, not every town has the snow removal infrastructure to deal with an inch or two of snow, so it might mean a day off from work nonetheless. In fact, as I am writing this, I’m enjoying a cozy work-from-home day thanks to a little less than 6 inches of snow in Northern Virginia.
Despite the seasonal lead-in, we’re not here today to talk about the weather. Rather, I want to talk about the adjacent conversation that winter weather often sparks: what is the telework policy for Resident/Community Directors?
As a former RD/CD/whatever-your-instutiton-may-call-it who now comfortably enjoys 2 telework days per week in my more administrative role, I have to admit I don’t have as much skin in the game as my RD colleagues. But in the spirit of advocacy and not pulling up the idiomatic ladder, teleworking for RDs is an important and timely topic worthy of discussion. So what are the pros, cons, and considerations for a RD telework policy?
Pros
- Employee Safety During Inclement Weather
- Whether or not RDs live in the buildings they supervise, any kind of commute during inclement weather can put their safety at risk. Whether that means driving in poor conditions on a Monday because they spent the weekend away from campus or walking to work and slipping on black ice, if campus is closed, telework offers RDs safety and peace of mind.
- Dedicated Time for Administrative Work
- At the height of my RD days, my one dedicated telework day was the only guaranteed time that I could complete my administrative tasks. While getting your budget in line is essential to the function of your unit, a RD’s work has so much variety that it’s hard to prioritize budget reconciliation over a student actively experiencing a crisis in your office. Being able to work from home gave me the privacy I seldom got in my bustling upperclassman community.
- Increased Work-Life Balance
- Work-life balance seems to be a hotly debated topic these days, whether you’re all for it or simply don’t believe in it at all. However, who among us with dedicated telework days can honestly say they’ve never run a quick errand or gotten a few chores done while working from home? Perhaps I’m telling on myself, but my gut says that number is close to zero. Working from home has been an essential part of me balancing shared household responsibilities with my partner, who has a fully remote position.
Cons
- Less Visible Presence in Your Community
- Compared to other typical roles within housing departments, it is true that RDs are some of the most publicly facing employees in residents’ eyes. When I was a RD, students also favored stopping by my office rather than formally scheduling an appointment in advance. Given students’ busy schedules, RDs also often need to be very flexible with their availability. For RDs, this means that even one telework day would result in a 20% reduction in face-to-face availability for residents.
- Decreased Work-Life Balance
- Before you say anything, I know that “Increased Work-Life Balance” was one of the pros I listed for telework. However, telework isn’t the solution for everyone, as some people find that doing work in your home blurs the line between work life and personal life, making it harder to establish boundaries with work and truly feel that your personal time is your own. I’ve certainly noticed an increase in after-hours messaging expecting a response in the past 5 years.
- For RDs, a Telework Day Doesn’t Always Mean a Telework Day
- As employees who live where they work, it can be easy for coworkers and campus partners to take advantage of a RD working from home. “You’re in your apartment right? Can you just go check on this student really quick?” If there isn’t a supervisor toeing the line, a telework day in which telework privileges are constantly trampled doesn’t really amount to much and may end up having the opposite impact on RD morale.
Considerations
- What are your Campus Policies and Definitions?
- Every campus has different policies and definitions for vague, fairly new terms like “telework” and “work from home.” Does work from home literally mean working from your apartment, or does it mean you can work from a local cafe within a certain radius of campus? When the school closes due to inclement weather, does everyone telework, or only those with dedicated telework days? Without clearly defined terms and university expectations, conversations on telework are meaningless and unproductive, and employees will derive whatever meaning from your terminology that suits them best.
- The Essential Employee Designation and Duty
- Let’s be real for a moment: someone still has to be around to turn the lights on and answer the phone in the case of an emergency. So if RDs are called upon to act in an emergency capacity while other employees are not required to work (whether it’s a holiday, snow day, or weekend), where is the equity? Can work from home days be a way of compensating the hours beyond the 40 hour workweek that RDs often work? If RDs can work from home, at what point does their status as an essential employee trump their telework privilege?
- Setting Precedents During Inclement Weather
- If your university typically does not allow RDs to telework, but requires it during inclement weather days, what does that say about employer-employee relations? At the very least it’s a double standard that should spark conversation about whether or not your institution cares as much for its employees as it does its profit.
In my personal experience, having one telework day was extremely beneficial to supporting my workplace productivity as a RD. But just because telework is a hot topic doesn’t mean it’s the only innovation worth looking into to support RD job retention and satisfaction, especially since it isn’t a one-size-fits-all solution. If you’re reading this and you directly or indirectly supervise RDs, take some time to truly listen to their needs, learn more about the “why” behind your current policies, and challenge the existing status quo as a true demonstration of support for your RDs.
