Weather or Emergency Event Status FAQs

If you are designated, you are considered a “first responder” to maintain or restore critical operations during emergency events. You are expected to come in to work unless your manager expressly notifies you otherwise. It is your manager’s responsibility to identify designated employees and communicate that status. Your designation status is also listed in Workday (Workday --> Job Profile --> click on Position Title --> see Additional Information, Job Classification).

If you are non-designated, you are expected to stay home during serious weather or emergency events, even if you are able to make it in to work, unless you manager expressly notifies you otherwise. Alternatively, you may be asked to telecommute or work from an alternate location.

Depending on the nature of your work, you may be designated to come in to work during an emergency event. One frequently-cited example is student affairs. If there is a serious winter storm and classes are in session, some student affairs staff are designated and are expected to come to work. If there is a serious storm and we are on winter break, that same set of employees are not designated. This type of designation may also depend on the type of emergency.

While it is your manager’s responsibility to designate you, if you have ANY question whatsoever, you should ask your manager.

Yes. All employees at the University can be designated or non-designated.

No. The University appreciates your willingness to help! But it is not worth the risk. Acting with the best intentions can sometimes have the opposite effect. For example, if you have an accident on the way in, you redirect critical emergency services. If the parking lot at your building is not yet plowed, your need to park requires service in an area that could have waited until later. While you should always check with your supervisor, the safest and most helpful option if you are non-designated is for you to stay home.

Check with your supervisor, and follow his or her direction. If you have questions about whether you are properly designated, make an appointment to discuss your designation.

Employees cannot change their own designation. Managers can do it through Workday. It is important that the designations be kept up to date as employees change jobs or take on new responsibilities.

Managers can change designations in Workday by doing a "Change Job" and editing the details tab. The change is “real-time.”

Individual schools or units may set a deadline so that they can ensure readiness as the winter season approaches. There is no system-mandated deadline. Designation can be changed as needed, but the employee/s must be informed.

All employees are pre-populated as non-designated. To change that to “designated” a manager must actively make the change. 

Yes, managers can run an Emergency Event Status report from Workday for their employees that specifies who are designated vs. non-designated. 

• In Workday, using the search feature, search for "emergency event status," and click on it
• Input the effective date
• For the department, put in a key word for your department; e.g.: "Economics"
• Select your department, starting with letters "ACD" that matches your department name (e.g. ACD-31750 AS-Economics)
• Click OK
• Depending on your screen size, you may need to scroll to the right to see the Job Classifications-Position column, which shows designation status

Exempt Employees: 

• Needs no time entry - Do not earn leave for working on an agency closure 

Non-Exempt Employees: 

• Non-exempt employees should enter scheduled hours not worked as "Comp Special-Agency Closure" and any hours worked as usual in the Time application in Workday.