Essential Employees

Overview

Essential employees play an important role in maintaining the safety and well-being of students, faculty, and staff who may be remaining on site throughout emergency events.
During a campus closing, only employees designated as On-Campus Essential may be present on campus.

On-Campus Essential – Working on campus

Continuation of critical and/or essential services that must be completed on-site
Maintaining integrity of infrastructure, property or systems on-site
Necessary on-campus work to maintain the safety and wellbeing of students, faculty and staff

Remote Essential – Working from a remote location, may need periodic access to campus

Work is required to maintain operations and business continuity of the University and can be completed remotely
Supervisor approved access to campus may be needed periodically to complete required work

Remote Non-essential – Working from a remote location, does not need access to campus

Work is important to the University and can be completed remotely, but is not essential to maintain operations and business continuity

Colleges and Departments are responsible for designating and notifying essential employees.
Essential employees may be required to report to work, be “on call” to report to work, and/or work remotely if required in order to maintain the critical functions of the University during a closure.
In the event of an emergency closing, supervisors notify essential employees if and when they are required to report to work.
Essential employees have a responsibility to monitor official University of Florida communications related to an emergency, including UFAlert and UFL.edu, as well as maintain up to date contact information in myUFL.
Essential employees should receive and acknowledge written designation from their supervisor.
A standardized designation letter template is available to departments.

TEAMS non-exempt and Law Enforcement non-exempt employees who are required to work during an emergency closing will earn one hour of special compensatory leave for each hour worked during the emergency closing, in addition to their normal pay.
If the special compensatory leave is not used by the end of the fiscal year, the employee will be paid for the leave.
TEAMS exempt employees who are required to work during an emergency closing are eligible for compensatory leave at the discretion of the supervisor — although this compensatory leave is handled informally at the department level and not accrued in myUFL.
Faculty and graduate assistants are not eligible for compensatory leave under this policy.

HR Liaisons record the designation in the UF Essential Employee Designation file in myUFL.
- Navigation: myUFL Main menu > Human Resources > Workforce Administration > Job Information > UF Essential Emp Designation

HR Liaisons can run a report of all employees in a department or college to share with administrators to confirm all staff designations match the area’s expectations
- Navigation: myUFL Main Menu > Enterprise Analytics > Access Enterprise Analytics > Content > Team Content > Human Resources Information > Workforce Information > UF Essential Employee Designation Tracking

Essential Employees Policy

Essential Employee Designation Letter

Page Contents