Georgia colleges see more employee departures after return to office mandate

That’s not the word Mick Gusinde-Duffy, 65, would use to characterize his departure.

“I regard it as a forced retirement,” said Gusinde-Duffy, who spent 13 years as an acquisitions editor for the University of Georgia Press, recruiting authors to publish their academic work under the UGA banner. “Without this mandate, I would still be working hard on behalf of the press and the university for at least the next two years.”

Gusinde-Duffy had been working remotely since moving to Colorado in 2020. His request to have his arrangement extended for two more years, until he reached official retirement age, was unsuccessful. An email from human resources apologized for the circumstances, writing that the UGA libraries “have 4 employees in this same situation.” Next month, he’ll be joining the University of Pittsburgh as a part-time acquisitions editor, working remotely.

The increase in departures from USG schools “could be” a result of the mandate, according to Chancellor Sonny Perdue. “I do regret that some people felt like they had to leave, and there were some good people, I’m sure,” Perdue told the AJC.

He said the USG went with a universal mandate because it would have been difficult to implement it on a case-by-case basis. “Not to say that we won’t look at particular jobs in the future that could be as productive that way,” Perdue said. Regardless, he believes the benefits that come from colleagues working together face-to-face “outweighs the convenience that many people talk about from remote work.”

Additionally, Perdue was concerned that some employees were using telework to complete personal tasks during the work day. “I’m not assuming it was abused, but talking about taking kids to school and things like that, it was not really the purpose of [telework], if we’re being honest with one another,” he said.

Georgia’s public universities shifted to remote learning and work at the start of the pandemic. The schools returned to in-person classes in the fall semester of 2020, when many schools nationally and private colleges in Georgia were still remote. Many conservative politicians across the country have pushed for return-to-office policies; Hours after his inauguration last year, President Donald Trump signed an executive order requiring federal employees work in person.

The USG announced the mandate last year and said it had received complaints from students and parents who were unable to get in touch with staff or faculty.

Government is in the customer service business, said Perdue. When people call an office, he expects someone to pick up the phone. It echoes a policy he instituted when he was governor; workers were “abusing” voicemail, letting calls go to voicemail rather than picking up the phone, he said. “It spoke much better for us as a system to greet people with a warm phone call rather than going to voicemail or not being answered at all, which is worse,” he said.

Credit: Jason Getz/AJC

Credit: Jason Getz/AJC

The systemwide mandate also applies to jobs that are not customer-facing. As a web developer at Georgia Tech for nearly 20 years, Vickie Okrzesik’s work did not require contact with students or parents. By working from her home office in McDonough for the past three years, she said she became more productive. Teleworking allowed her to log on after hours and fix bugs on her department’s website long after her shift had ended.

However, her requests to extend her teleworking agreement, even for just one more month, were denied. According to Okrzesik, she was told that once returning to campus, she’d have to share an office and equipment with other employees. Feeling disrespected, she chose to retire.

“Whenever they needed me, I was there. And the one time that I needed them, they couldn’t be there for me,” she said. “I love what I do, and I wasn’t ready to leave.”

The United Campus Workers of Georgia has petitioned the USG to rescind the “cruel and unnecessary” mandate. In a statement, the higher education labor union said the increase in departures verifies what it’s heard directly from workers: Remote work is “a necessity for many employees who depend on the flexibility to care for family members and themselves.”

The expense of transportation and on-campus parking, it said, “make a 5-day in-office work week unviable for many employees, especially those with single incomes supporting families.”

Okrzesik doesn’t see the logic in the sweeping mandate. She called it a “control mechanism” that created chaos.

“We have the best tools in the world to work remotely. Yet they want us to come in,” Okrzesik said. “It was just an easy way to push people out the door to bring in cheaper hires.”