Launching TrueBlue Summer Fridays
Dear colleagues,
Earlier this year, after careful consideration of recommendations put forward by the corresponding committee, I was pleased to share with our community the New NAU Workplace suite of practices, which, when taken together, aim to position NAU at the leading edge of flexible and employee-focused workplace practices among institutions of higher education. This week, one of those practices—TrueBlue Summer Fridays—begins and will run for the next 10 weeks.
The TrueBlue Summer Fridays program compresses NAU’s workweek to four days with several intended benefits for our university and our employees, including higher employee satisfaction, increased productivity, reduced operational costs, and a smaller carbon footprint. For us Lumberjacks, the program represents an opportunity to recalibrate work-life balance during the summer months, repurpose a traditional “business day” to meet our needs without the pressures of pre-scheduled work meetings, and revel in the promise of 10 straight long weekends—including two 4-day weekends due to the summer holidays of Memorial Day and July 4.
At the same time, however, we must recognize that in the short term the transition to TrueBlue Summer Fridays will not be without challenges and localized variations. In addition to the job roles that do not lend themselves to a compressed 4-day workweek, some offices have longstanding commitments on Fridays and weekends or otherwise provide essential services that need continuity during this period. We have several external-facing summer programs that will require in-person support on Fridays, and we know that many among us who are caregivers will need to make adjustments to their lives. Thus, we are committed to closely monitoring the implementation of this new program and to working with each affected employee to minimize impacts on their personal and professional lives. We encourage all employees to check with their supervisor for any specific exceptions or alterations to TrueBlue Summer Fridays needed for business in your department and how our practices around workplace flexibility can be applied. We will evaluate the program this summer to ensure we can best optimize each subsequent edition of TrueBlue Summer Fridays in the years to come.
In closing, here’s hoping that we will all emerge from the summer invigorated and ready for a bold new academic year, powered by the vision of Elevating Excellence and enriched by the vibrancy of a new class of Lumberjacks joining us in Flagstaff and throughout the state.
Sincerely,
José Luis Cruz Rivera
President
TrueBlue Summer Friday Dates for 2022:
- May 27
- June 3
- June 10
- June 17
- June 24
- July 1
- July 8
- July 15
- July 22
- July 29