Harvard College Staff Expected to Face Five-Day Office Requirement Under FAS Restructuring

All Harvard College staff are expected to be required to be in the office five days a week beginning this fall as part of a sweeping staff restructuring in the Faculty of Arts and Sciences, according to an FAS staff member familiar with the matter.

The staff member said some employees were informally told of the change by managers, but that official communication about the policy has not yet been sent to staff.

The FAS currently employs more than 2,000 staff. It is unclear how many would be affected by the new policy, particularly since some offices support both the College and other FAS schools. College spokesperson Jonathan Palumbo wrote in a statement that conversations around hybrid work are ongoing.

The change comes as part of a broad staff reorganization that has been in the works for more than a year and that could result in up to a quarter of FAS staff being laid off. The change to College hybrid work is a signal that even staffers who keep their jobs will be affected by the restructuring.

FAS Dean of Administration and Finance Warren Petrofsky alluded to potential changes in remote work during town halls with faculty and staff last week, but did not specify which staff would be affected.

“We’re working with HR and functional leaders to ensure that hybrid schedules are closely tied to the needs of the work and of the faculty and students that those roles support,” he said, according to a recording of a June 9 Sciences Division town hall obtained by The Crimson. “We expect some roles will require a change in a hybrid schedule that necessitates more time on campus.”

Those changes, he added, would not take place until the fall.

Harvard’s current policy allows flex-work decisions to be made at the school, department, or unit level. Options range from fully on-site work to partially remote work to primarily or fully remote work.

A summary of the policy located on a Harvard Information for Employees website says that since the pandemic, flex work has become “further and permanently integrated into the University’s approach.”

The Harvard Union of Clerical and Technical Workers also enshrines flex work protections for employees covered under its contract, including a joint University-union committee on flex work that provides recommendations to the University and union “on the advantages of increased flexibility.”

HUCTW organizer Carrie Barbash said the union would “strongly push back” on the proposed change in College staff work schedules and encouraged affected union members to file grievances.

The changes to flex work come as the FAS implements a vast staff restructuring to shore up an estimated $365 million budget deficit.

Top administrators unveiled plans to group departments and other academic units into clusters with shared administrative functions at the town halls last week and opened applications for a clutch of high-level administrative jobs.

Harvard College Dean David J. Deming was not among the administrators presenting at the town halls last week. But last time he made public remarks on the restructuring, he said the College would aim to cut back-office staff operations before tackling student-facing supports.

“We have a lot of things we do that you would never really know or care about, frankly. And those are the first place I’m looking to try to save money,” Deming said at an open forum in April.

Those comments elicited fierce criticism from HUCTW, which called them “dismissive and demeaning.”

“This work is only ‘invisible’ when it is functioning,” organizers wrote. “The moment it is disrupted, it becomes urgently and inconveniently visible to everyone.”

—Staff writer Amann S. Mahajan can be reached at [email protected] and on Signal at amannsm.38. Follow her on X @amannmahajan.