Non-Closure Emergency Leave

In an effort to benefit as many eligible employees as possible during this emergency while also enabling the University to sustain essential on-campus services and provide for continuity of instruction, Dr. Kyle Marrero has approved the use of paid Non-Closure Emergency Leave for some Georgia Southern employees.

Under this policy, employees eligible for Non-Closure Emergency Leave include regular full-time and regular part-time employees who:  

1. are not able to perform duties through telework or other flexible work arrangements, and
2. assigned duties do not directly impact the University’s ability to sustain essential on-campus services and operations.

(Please note that while temporary student workers, rehired retirees, and other temporary employees are not eligible for Non-Closure Emergency Leave, they are still permitted and encouraged to perform assigned duties through telework or other remote or flexible work arrangements.  Federal Work Study students will continue to receive their applicable financial aid for student employment during an emergency in accordance with Department of Education guidance.)

Use of this Non-Closure Emergency Leave must be approved at the cabinet level for impacted employees. The vast majority of Georgia Southern employees will not need to utilize Non-Closure Emergency Leave with Pay. The small group of employees who will need to use the leave will be contacted by their supervisors.

Effective immediately, vice presidents, deans and other major unit heads have been directed to reassess their staffing plans on an ongoing basis. 

1. Continue teleworking, remote work assignments, and flexible working arrangements in order for employees to perform duties to the fullest extent possible.
   • Supervisors and managers are still encouraged to be as flexible as possible with telework and work from home assignments for all employees, including temporary, part-time, and student workers. Please remember: Employees may be balancing child/family care while working from home, so managers should, when possible, be flexible with employees on when they complete their work unless it is required that it be completed between regular business hours.
   • Identify those employees who cannot perform duties through telework or other remote and flexible work arrangements as eligible for Non-Closure Emergency Leave with Pay when there is not work for those employees to perform.
2. Identify those employees whose work assignments are designated as essential for their respective unit to sustain essential on-campus services and operations.
   • Unit heads can achieve proper social distancing for employees working on campus by implementing balanced rotational schedules within the unit’s designation of essential staff whenever practicable.
   • Unit heads are directed to implement balanced rotational schedules for employees designated as essential. For example, a unit may have six staff designated as essential for a certain job duty and currently have all six staff members reporting to campus to work. The unit head has the ability to rotate the job duties among the six staff members, which allows for the essential duties to be performed without all six staff members needing to report to work at the same time. Rotational schedules may be configured on an hourly basis whereby a staff member could work 2 to 4 hour shifts while the remaining time in the day could be covered by Non-Closure Emergency Leave with Pay or a combination of Non-Closure Emergency Leave with Pay and work from home assignments.
3. Utilize Non-Closure Emergency Leave with Pay for those employees who cannot perform duties through telework or other remote and flexible work arrangements and who are not scheduled to work in support of essential on-campus services.
   • Employees are to be compensated for hours not worked up to the equivalent of their regularly scheduled hours per week. For example, employee A normally works 40 hours per week and cannot work remotely. Through rotational scheduling, employee A is now scheduled to work in support of essential on-campus services for 8 hours on Monday and 8 hours on Thursday; Employee A should be paid 24 hours of Non-Closure Emergency Leave with Pay for Tuesday, Wednesday, and Friday.
   • Employees who are not in the Non-Closure Emergency Leave with Pay status will continue be compensated at their normal rates of pay.

For more information, please refer to the University’s FAQ page that is updated regularly. 

Also, visit  https://www.usg.edu/hr/benefits/coronavirus to sign up for alerts related to USG Benefits and COVID-19. 

If you have questions, please submit them to HR through a MyHelp ticket. 

Last updated: 4/6/2020