Dear Colleagues:
Throughout this week, we have been operating in an unprecedented situation as Pitt responds to the COVID-19 global pandemic. As a supervisor or HR liaison, you have an important role to play in helping your team and colleagues navigate this changing environment.
I am writing to reiterate that our University remains open and dedicated to fulfilling our mission and serving our students, faculty, staff and community.
Earlier today, the University’s senior leadership team received guidance for decision making processes to ensure the continuity and availability of facilities and programs. This team is the only approving authority for making such changes, and they will be partnering with your unit and department to field any questions or concerns about changing the status of a facility, service or program.
In addition, our Office of Human Resources, Center for Teaching and Learning and Pitt IT have compiled a number of resources to serve you. These include:
As a reminder, supervisors must approve their employees’ transition to a remote work environment and additional approvals may be required, perestablished department protocols.
In addition, a participating employee’s duties must be compatible with a remote arrangement. For work requiring a physical presence on campus, we expect these employees to continue coming to work as long as they are healthy and able.
Later today, all employees will be receiving additional information about the changes we’ve recently enacted in our work environment. I encourage you to communicate openly and often—and remotely, when possible—with your team, supervisors and colleagues as we work together through these new challenges and opportunities.
Please be sure to share this message with all supervisory faculty and staff in your units.
Thank you for your continued leadership and partnership.
Sincerely,
Ann E. Cudd
Provost and Senior Vice Chancellor
Dave DeJong
Vice Chancellor of Human Resources
3/14/2020