Hybrid & Remote Work
Hybrid Work
For most employees of Marketing & Communications, BU allows for a hybrid work arrangement of two days of remote work per week for those employees who meet the eligibility requirements for a flexible work arrangement. Please review the BU Human Resources information on Flexible Work at BU for all University guidelines.
The general Marking & Communications hybrid work schedule provides 2 remote days and 3 in-office days per week—Wednesday being the mandatory day. However, if you have vacation or sick time during the week, you are not expected to make up your in-office days.
New Employees
New employees are required to work on campus for their first 30 days.
After that period, they may begin participating in hybrid work.
Flexbank Days
In addition to the hybrid work days, employees working a hybrid work schedule are also allowed 15 Flexbank days per year to work remotely. These are days of your choice, subject to your manager’s approval. You are asked to request use of Flexbank days from your manager at least two weeks in advance; however, if you cannot make your request two weeks in advance, you may still make your request—if we can accommodate you, we will.
The Flexbank schedule runs from June 1 through May 31. On June 1, the Flexbank resets to 15, but unused Flexbank days cannot be carried over.
The flex day allocation is pro-rated for new employees based on their hire date. New employees are required to work on campus for their first 30 days. After 30 days, new employees may request Flexbank days from their managers.
In order to be eligible for Flexbank days use, you must continue to be eligible for work-from-home privileges as defined by the University’s existing guidelines. Flexbank Days Example:
Starting with 15 Flexbank days: You wish to work remotely for a week while visiting family in another part of the country. You can use your regularly scheduled two remote days per week and “withdraw” three additional days from your Flexbank (leaving 12 days left in Flexbank), allowing you to work remotely for the entire week.
Remote Work
Each department has specified remote work policies and procedures.
Interactive Design Remote Guidelines
Audio/Video Call Guidelines
- You’re expected to call in at the time of the meeting. If you’re running late, please let the meeting organizer know via the project slack channel.
- Mute your microphone when not talking. Usually, holding the spacebar will un-mute you while it is pressed and resume mute when you let go.
- If you have to type, absolutely make sure you’re muted.
- If you would like to take over screen-sharing, please speak up.
- In order to reduce feedback and other noise, if you have headphones or an external speaker, please use them. If your headphones have a built-in microphone, even better.
Communications Tools
Using BU’s Virtual Private Network (VPN)
(To access the MarCom server, BU Photo’s image library, and certain other BU-specific resources, you must be logged into the VPN first.)
Accessing Your Voicemail Remotely
(The following items could live here, or they could live in a nonspecific tools area, as these are used by everyone, whether in the office or out)
Zoom for online and hybrid meetings
Outlook for emailing and meetings
Slack for quicker chats and project groups
Print Design Trello Board for print project job tracking
ActiveCollab for time tracking and billing
Smartsheet for job organization