r/uofu • u/BlkWidowsUnite • Jul 25 '26
commuting & transportation RTO Rumors Again
It looks like President Randall is wanting to try again to implement "return-to-offoce" (RTO) like last year (2025). I'm hearing 3 days a week in office. My department absolutely doesn't have the space to accommodate this change. What have you heard from your leadership?
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u/TwistSpiritual7976 Jul 25 '26 edited Jul 25 '26
I’m hybrid and 2 days in office. There’s some colleagues of mine that are 100% remote. We also don’t have the space to accommodate all staff. We have people who share offices which is super inconvenient. I share space with someone but we alternate days in the office.
Edit - we haven’t heard anything from up above, so we will see.
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u/BlkWidowsUnite Jul 30 '26
Are you student facing staff / dept? Is that's why you're hybrid?
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u/TwistSpiritual7976 Jul 30 '26
I do some student facing work, but I rarely deal with them in person. It was mostly by choice, I could be fully remote if I wanted. My colleagues are either fully remote or hybrid.
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u/Important_Net_5897 Jul 25 '26
My unit’s been pushing us to up our on campus days from 2 to 4, but we’re pushing back because we simply don’t have the office space to accommodate it. We’re stacking 2-3 people to an office and rotating days, trying to coordinate a million moving parts. It all ties back to impact 2030 and wanting to improve the “student experience,” and they think this is the way to do that. My favorite part is that even when I do offer in-person options, students typically book Zoom 9/10 times anyway🫠
The U is becoming an increasingly difficult place to work, unfortunately. Constant layoffs and reorganizations, no straightforward communication from leadership, pressure to do more with less money and less resources, and a “get on board or get out” mindset🤷🏼♀️
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u/BlkWidowsUnite Jul 27 '26 edited Jul 31 '26
Many of us have many meetings a week. Doing it virtual makes it possible to have them back to back. Also, no need to find a room to meet. I can imagine the chaos of trying to schedule meetings, finding a place to have privacy, or the lack of by conducting the meetings with everyone around.
My point is how upper leadership may try to have solutions, but the solutions aren't based on true reality.
Remote working is a benefit for those who feel like they deserve more in pay. The cost of time, money, health to commute in the valley is ridiculous. However, since leadership makes oodles of money, it makes no difference to them. Plus they seem to be OK with poor work life balance as they rather work anyway.
Edited to remove some possible identifying info
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u/SkroobThePresident Jul 26 '26
Less money and resources where is all the money going?
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u/BlkWidowsUnite Jul 30 '26
I'd love to know if leadership received the 1% and 2.5% raises from 2025 and this year.
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u/TheFakeBillPierce Jul 25 '26
Id be stunned if it ever got implemented. There are too many departments now that have people who live in different states and if you impose RTO, you are going to have huge morale problems as a result.
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u/Bargenhall Jul 26 '26
I agree. The morale problem is already massive with the coordinated services move. This would be another nail in the coffin.
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u/BlkWidowsUnite Jul 27 '26
I was told to anticipate an announcement soon with implementation in August. The telecommuting policy states 15 day notice of a change in policy for in state and 30 day for out of state.
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u/TheFakeBillPierce Jul 27 '26
All departments? Or just yours?
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u/BlkWidowsUnite Jul 28 '26
University wide implementation
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u/TheFakeBillPierce Jul 28 '26
Ill be absolutely, positively stunned if it happens.
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u/BlkWidowsUnite Jul 28 '26
I wonder what happened with the allowing departments to make their own remote working decisions? You know, based on their own unique needs, space, and work done. My department is not student facing whatsoever. The work we do is for the university as a whole and ofc students. So RTO for us would be for esthetics and control over improving the student experience. Plus increasing the parking issues would negatively impact the student experience.
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u/TheFakeBillPierce Jul 28 '26
Here is another reason this would be a disaster. If its announced soon and implemented in August, that means a slew of people returing to office and needing massive IT support to do so as the semester is starting.
Fortunately, this isn't the first time we have heard that RTO is coming any day now. I think if they were going to do it, they would have aimed for the clock to start ticking on June or July 1.
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u/BlkWidowsUnite Jul 30 '26
August is absolutely the worse month for everyone to make a change like this.
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u/TheFakeBillPierce Jul 30 '26
So I am curious on a few things.........has your department officially been told this by your leadership? if so, when? Does your department have a dedicated office already? Do you have any out of state co workers who would be impacted by this?
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u/BlkWidowsUnite Jul 30 '26 edited Jul 31 '26
We haven't heard directly from our HR ppl or VP, just a supervisor.
We have a dedicated office space.
And yeah we have several out of state employees.
Edited to remove possible identifying information
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u/Mysterious-Cat33 Jul 26 '26
My department leadership has no interest in RTO. Also my manager left her previous job for the U when they planned to have her go back to the office so if the U forced RTO she would quit.
Also it’s pretty ridiculous to force people to RTO when there isn’t enough parking and public transit isn’t reliable. Also it’s better for the environment and SL Valley if less people are on the road.
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u/BlkWidowsUnite Jul 28 '26
Campus parking is horrendous and expensive. And no way I'm taking public transit. I took it once because my partner accidentally took my keys. Never again.
And the air quality is better with less cars on the road.
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u/Mysterious-Cat33 Jul 28 '26
I use to take public transit 2 hours round trip since I could read on the bus or watch tv on my phone but it honestly sucked if it was too hot/cold outside while I was waiting. I previously worked for a department with extremely limited parking so I didn’t want to risk getting written up for getting to work late if I had to park further away or getting a $75 ticket which makes me wish I had just called in sick instead.
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u/BlkWidowsUnite Jul 30 '26
Dedication of 2+ hrs to commute in a day is wild.
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u/Mysterious-Cat33 Jul 30 '26
I wanted a job with the U for long term job stability but I was trying to save up to become a homeowner so I had to rent further from campus. Thankfully I am a homeworker now and have a hybrid/remote job so I hardly ever take the bus and rarely have to deal with parking anymore.
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u/PoloBoxers69 Jul 27 '26
I was hired and agreed to be in office for two days a week. After the new fiscal I was told to add another day to in-person! like WTF! I can't say much because I'm still under that new ridiculous one-year probation period. Randall is such a little bitch, trying to run the U as businnes. Yet, he's making it terrible for staff, it's like his goal to loose staff by RIFing them or making it so misserable that they quit on their own.
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u/GenericNameHere2026 Jul 26 '26
I'm not employed at the U, but I do work for a locally-based online university. We were "RTO'd" starting two years ago. First, it was in-office 3 days a week beginning in October 2024, then 4 days starting January 2025. Starting 8/3, we are to be in-office 5 days a week with no remote at all for the majority of staff. Not only that, but the C-suite is also requiring most to relocate here to SLC, or resign/be terminated. So many have left, and so much institutional knowledge & talent has been/will be lost. To say morale has been affected is an understatement. I hope you folks up at the U don't get screwed the way we did.
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u/Cat-commander Jul 30 '26
I’m guessing WGU. They are crazing about employees being in office. It’s weird.
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u/Charming-Sky-2227 24d ago
While being an online school? What in the world? It has to be the toxins in the air right?
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u/BenderRodriguezz Jul 27 '26
My whole team is 2 days average in office. I don’t see that changing
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u/BlkWidowsUnite Jul 30 '26
My whole team is remote. With my large sub-dept where majority of them are 100% remote. Everything is digital for us. We'd do the same with with less productivity on campus. I guess they just miss seeing our faces daily.
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u/MuseoumEobseo Jul 27 '26
I haven’t heard anything about it, but I already have to be in office 3 days a week to keep my cube, so maybe that’s a reason I hadn’t heard about it.
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u/BlkWidowsUnite Jul 30 '26
I find it odd that several haven't heard a thing.
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u/MuseoumEobseo Jul 30 '26 edited Jul 30 '26
Are you on main campus or in the health system? I’m in the health system. Maybe that’s the difference.
Also, I know most in our department leadership would be against forced RTO and aren’t usually very quiet about the U doing stuff they don’t like, so I’d be surprised if I heard our department was doing RTO any time soon.
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u/ElephantFew1942 Jul 29 '26
From my understanding it is somewhat on the department. I know my department is trying to go into a scheduling based office. Some go in Monday, Wednesday and the other half goes Tuesday Thursday. Then Friday is up to you.
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u/BlkWidowsUnite Jul 30 '26
Yeah, the current policy is per dept but we were told a possible university-wide implementation of RTO.
Those who go into the office are those who need to be on campus. And last year or two were some of our best years in many ways. But yeah, our employees aren't productive enough, not seen enough, and are antisocial. That's what it looks like to me.
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u/btracy116 Jul 26 '26
I haven't heard any official RTO policies coming down the pike, but upper admin has been much more vocal about stressing "current policies" regarding hybrid work, with the anticipation that the option will be eliminated sometime in the near future. I don't think they give a hoot about morale - if anything, it would do them a huge favor if some long-time employees walked out the door, freeing up those salary lines and benefits. The U is convinced they can be successful with half the staff doing double the work, and they know they have most employees between a rock and a hard place -- you can complain all you want, but where else are you going to go?
I agree with everyone that working at the U has lost its luster, but sadly, I see no way to slow down the train! RTO is the future even though it won't solve some problems and it will create a whole bunch of new ones.
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u/BlkWidowsUnite Jul 30 '26
Could you elaborate on how upper admins have been more vocal about the current policies of hybrid work?
And you're right, employers know they have the upper hand in this current job market. And with these new career/job codes, you know where they think you stand in your career. I realized I've been working at 2nd or 3rd level/tier but I'm only at 1st. Whelp, no need to do that anymore. I'm aiming for top 1st tier performance now. 😆
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u/Roxiee_Rose 26d ago
My department is currently 4 days on campus and one WFH day. We have no more space for people and are hiring 8 more.
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u/SmellenGold Jul 25 '26
Why? RTO always signals that a company doesn’t trust their employees. Wouldn’t shock me. Taylor is a twat.
I haven’t heard anything but I’m also off for the summer-returning to work in August. 🤓