For many people, even a small amount of flexibility can make a tremendous difference in successfully balancing responsibilities at work and at home. UC policy states that an employee may request an alternative work schedule in accordance with local procedures. Flexible work arrangements, where appropriate, are work plans wherein employees come to an agreement with their manager to work from other locations on a regularly recurring basis or adjust the start and end times of their workday to fulfill their position obligations.
UCSB Checklist: Are You Ready to Work Remotely?
Prepare Yourself
- Do other people in your department work remotely? Are those other people doing work similar to yours?
- Familiarize yourself with existing policies about telecommuting and/or remote work.
- Ensure you can use collaboration tools such as Zoom, Google Chat, Slack, Google Docs and Sheets, etc.
- Acquire knowledge of effective techniques and practices for working remotely (LinkedIn Learning: Working Remotely).
- Review UC Human Resources' remote work webpage.
Prepare Your Manager
- Be specific about what you are asking for (Fully remote work? Working one or more days a week remotely? Working remotely as needed?).
- Share the expected benefits and value to the organization.
- Talk about any existing successes with working remotely if you’ve had them.
- Discuss your remote work hours with your manager before you begin — and once those hours are established, make a point of sticking to them.
- Define a start date, trial period (typically 90 days), and intervals of evaluation (at least annually).
- Establish “office hours” approved by your manager, and clearly communicate them so that others in the office know exactly when they can reach you, what to do if they feel it’s urgent, and how long it will be before you return their voicemail or email message.
Prepare Your Home/Work Location
- Make sure you have a dedicated space in which to work, preferably with a closed door.
- You must have Internet connectivity sufficient to support all necessary communication and access.
- Install and set up the Campus VPN, if you haven’t already done so.
- Note: SIS&T-supported staff should install and set up GlobalProtect VPN.
- Note: Library staff should install and set up OpenVPN, which is configured for the Library's internal networks and resources.
- Secure your home wireless network. Learn more about how to do this on the SANS Security Awareness website.
- Your home workspace/alternate work location must be safe, ergonomically suitable, and free from hazards.
- Remember that you need to protect university equipment as well as university data. Learn how to store and protect data properly on devices and in the cloud on the Data Backup and Storage webpage.
- Move business-critical documents to cloud storage (e.g., Google Drive, Box) so that you can access them remotely.
- You may use your personal computing device to conduct University business so long as the data remains in the cloud. You may not download personally identifiable information, sensitive FERPA information, health information, or other confidential information to your personal device. Install and set up the campus VPN if you need to access applications only available to on-campus addresses.
Telephone Tips
Telephone Forwarding
If you need to forward your campus phone to your home or cell phone, visit the link on the IT Services Catalog website.
- Select Telephones & Telephone Lines under “Service to Manage.”
- In the Description field, type “Forward campus line to the following number: (xxx) xxx-xxxx.”
- Service Number: Your campus telephone line, the one you want forwarding.
- Submit a ticket.
For security issues, please only make requests for your phone line. We will typically have this change done in one business day.
If you are an MSO or Department Chair and need to make a bulk request, please use the same process only for people within your department. You can make the description above a list of campus phones with corresponding off-campus numbers.
Review the SSIT Phone System Information Guide for more tips on managing phone options.
Voicemail Notification via Email
You can also register to receive voicemail notifications via email. Visit the VoiceMail Message Waiting Email Notification Service activation page and log in with your UCSBNetID.
Where the form says “Add New Subscription,” enter your mailbox (the last four digits of your campus phone number) and your email address. Click “Add.”
You will receive a verification email: “to activate your service, please click the following link.” You can cancel the message-waiting notification by visiting the UCSB Communication Services link. For more information, visit the VoiceMail Message Waiting Email Notification web page on the Commserv website.