Work Succeeding: resources for fall planning

June 24, 2021
Ramona Allen, Vice President for Human Resources | Joe Higgins, Vice President for Campus Services and Stewardship | Krystyn Van Vliet, Associate Provost and Associate Vice President for Research, 2021–2022 |

Dear colleagues,

Last month we wrote to provide an update on Work Succeeding, an initiative to support the future of work at MIT.

Today we are pleased to share resources with the MIT community to assist in your discussions, planning, and decision-making about work arrangements for the fall and beyond. With these materials, we begin an iterative process; the next few months in particular will be a period of experimentation and discovery. Together, we will explore and refine work models, informed and inspired by lessons learned.

Work Succeeding Resources

The Work Succeeding resources we are providing today include:

  • Toolkits: Guidance on work decisions and design; work planning protocols; technology and equipment; culture, well-being, and inclusion; communication and collaboration; and performance management.
  • Policies: Updated MIT policies relevant to remote and hybrid work arrangements, reflecting the Institute’s support for flexible work arrangements to best advance team and unit goals.
  • Worksheets: Exercises to help managers and teams work together to assess what work models are best suited for specific roles and responsibilities.
  • Documentation: Forms to help teams track decisions on work arrangements. We encourage you to use these forms or another method of documentation to periodically assess how arrangements are progressing.

Visit the Work Succeeding site to access these materials.

An important note: These resources are being released to the entire community at once. Teams should take the time to review and digest the information before moving on to action items.

Work Succeeding seeks to establish a foundation for thoughtful dialogue between supervisors and staff about ways of accomplishing the work of the Institute – informed by our experiences before and during the pandemic, but also open to fresh thinking. Every team has diverse needs; team members should work together to determine work arrangements that best accomplish those needs, while considering individual preferences.

Faculty, Instructional Staff, and Research Staff Survey Findings

Thank you to the faculty, instructional staff, and research staff who shared their perspectives in the survey they received last month. That feedback, along with the information that administrative and support staff provided in the Work Succeeding survey this spring, helped to shape and refine the resources we are sharing with you today and will continue to inform future iterations of these tools. Both sets of survey results are available on the Institutional Research website.

Thanks also to the steering committee of faculty and staff who provided guidance, input, and feedback throughout this process and to ambassadors from many MIT units who helped shape early thinking and were a key conduit of communication to and from their units over the past several months.

Training and Support

Based on requests we received from community members, we are preparing training and support materials to assist in the work arrangement decision-making process. This information will be posted to the website soon. In the meantime, if you have questions about Work Succeeding, you can reach the team at worksucceeding@mit.edu.

The pandemic has taught us what we can do remotely. Over the next few months, we’ll learn about what’s possible as we pursue a more broadly hybrid environment in terms of where, when, and how we contribute our time and talents to the MIT mission. We look forward to this new and exciting phase for the MIT community, and to exploring and experimenting with new ways of working together.

Sincerely,

Ramona Allen, Vice President for Human Resources

Joe Higgins, Vice President for Campus Services and Stewardship

Krystyn J. Van Vliet, Associate Provost and Associate Vice President for Research

Work Succeeding Steering Committee Co-Chairs