In today’s hot technology job market, CIOs at the University of California (UC) face challenges recruiting and retaining information technology staff, and often encounter legacy rules around contemporary work practices – such as telecommuting and remote work. For this reason, the CIOs collectively developed a statement endorsing UC’s full support for alternative and flexible work arrangements.
UC Santa Barbara CIO Matt Hall was the primary force behind developing the document, “Alternative Work Arrangements: CIO Statement of Support.” He crowdsourced ideas and edits with not only the CIOs, but also more than 25 members of the UC IT community via the UCTech Slack workspace! Hall said the CIOs’ motive for and intended outcomes of writing this statement are simple: “People are our most valuable asset. The question is, how do we make the lives of the people who work at UC better and enhance their effectiveness and retention?”
UC Berkeley CIO Larry Conrad added, “UC will never be able to outbid our commercial and well-funded rivals for talent. However, we can compete on a better work-life balance, but we need to be flexible about where our staff can live. The technologies have advanced to the point where for many IT jobs, it simply doesn’t matter WHERE an employee sits. The IT industry is rapidly adopting this stance, so it’s critical the UC does this as well. The UC CIOs see this as critical to our ability to adequately support students, faculty, and staff at our various locations going forward.”
The document begins with the CIOs’ endorsement statement, as follows, and describes current challenges in IT staff recruitment and retention, as well as the benefits of alternative work arrangements and pragmatic considerations for making them effective:
“As Information Technology leaders at the premier research and learning institutions in the United States, we endorse alternative work arrangements for UC IT. We ask that the University of California system recognize the recruiting and retention challenges for IT, and adopt flexible and remote work practices for all of the UC.
The CIOs endorsing this document believe that flexible work location and schedules — enabled by high-quality performance management practices, collaborative technologies, and a social understanding of how to use the technology to its fullest — allow our communities to thrive in new and interesting ways while benefiting our mission, society, and the environment.”
Read the entire “Alternative Work Arrangements: CIO Statement of Support.”