The University of Iowa’s Future of Work@Iowa project set out in 2021 to reimagine how our employees work in the wake of the coronavirus pandemic. It has focused largely on understanding the long-term potential for remote and hybrid work, flexible schedules, and other work arrangements that may help the university attract and retain employees and reduce operational costs.

The final Implementation Report, released in July 2023, summarizes implementation milestones and assessment data since June 2022.

While Future of Work@Iowa is a recent endeavor, intermittent flexibility has long been offered to UI employees. Short-term arrangements can be made in response to a life or family priority such as occasional childcare needs, home repairs, or health care appointments. The university recognizes that practicing intermittent flexibility, when possible, can help an employee feel trusted, respected, and supported by their supervisor.

At the College of Public Health, remote and hybrid work is a way of life for many, not only to attract employees to hard-to-fill positions, but also to retain employees by acknowledging the popularity of flexible work arrangements.

Mindy Sickels Sterbenz, a research support manager at the college, gained more time in her day to work on grant requests from faculty and has increased productivity while enjoying a healthier work-life balance.

Dixie Ecklund, director of operations at the Clinical Trial Statistical and Data Management Center (CTSDMC), says offering a remote option helped hire for positions that are hard to fill, like biostatisticians.

“The transition to remote and hybrid work was relatively easy for us,” says Ecklund, who has worked at Iowa for more than 40 years. “But what was more difficult was thinking about the impact on workplace morale, how we keep the heart of CTSDMC. We didn’t want the Center to become a ghost town where people just come and go.”

With that in mind, Ecklund holds Monday morning check-ins with her team, issues surveys to gauge the pros and cons of flexible work arrangements, hosts trainings, and promotes continuous collaboration on projects, whether in person or online.

“We had a lot of discussion around missing hallway conversations, which is a valid concern, but those one-off conversations also meant people could be excluded,” Ecklund says. “Conducting more of our business online has led us to be much more productive around how we conduct meetings, how we document action items, and how we delegate who needs to do what next. For us, tightening those processes led to huge improvements in our work.”

To help employees feel confident interacting with their colleagues virtually, University Human Resources developed Leading Remote and Hybrid Teams training for supervisors.

In the training, supervisors across campus discuss the tools and practices that have helped them lead remote and hybrid teams, such as the two-word check-in, office Olympics, one-on-one meetings, and more.

“We just take two words—one personal, one professional—that describe how we’re feeling that day,” says Jenifer Steil, IT director at Enterprise Services, describing the two-word check-in at the start of meetings. “We all have the human need to see others and be seen. There are wonderful benefits of the two-word check-in. I have found new things out about people that I’ve known for a long time.”

Of the supervisors who completed the training, 95% say they learned a new skill or information they can apply in their work, and 98% say they are confident they can apply their new skills in the workplace.

As a supervisor, Sickels Sterbenz says remote and hybrid work gave her the opportunity to interview a diverse set of individuals who likely wouldn’t have applied otherwise.

“That really attracted a lot of people to the position,” Sickels Sterbenz says. “We had people who expressed to us that the reason they applied for the job was the flexible work arrangement. We hired someone who is working 100% from home, and that’s going splendidly.”

More information about flexible work arrangements and intermittent flexibility can be found at hr.uiowa.edu/employee-well-being/workplace-flexibility.