Remote Work

• We encourage supervisors to have a conversation with their employees to discuss the requested work arrangement and expectations in advance of submitting the RWA. Employees should clearly understand the responsibilities associated with a remote work arrangement including maintaining scheduled hours, good standing on PMDP reviews, reliable internet access, a professional workspace and regular check-in meetings.
• Supervisors should provide clear expectations for activities that would require attendance on campus or other work-related travel.
• Both employee and supervisor should understand what levels of secure data will be encountered in the employee’s role (ie: public, internal, sensitive, restricted).
• If it is determined that an employee is Not Meeting Expectations during the Performance Review process, they should not be working remotely. Exceptions to this should be discussed with Human Resources.

• Navigate online to MyUW Home portal at wisc.edu. Launch the “Personal Information” app.  Choose “Update My Personal Information” near the bottom of the page. You may need to select UW-Madison campus and log in with your NetID credentials if you have not already logged in the same day.
• In the next screen, you’ll find “Remote Work Agreement” near the bottom of the left navigation bar. Choose “Add a Remote Work Agreement”. You can find detailed instructions on accessing your Remote Work Agreement here.
• As you continue, keep in mind that the system will time out after a brief period of inactivity. A Save button is provided at the bottom of the form.  After you hit SAVE, you will need to locate your drafted form again by choosing “View A Remote Work Agreement” in the left navigation bar and searching by your first and last name.

• Work through the online Remote Work Agreement, completing any fillable sections with the appropriate information for your work arrangement. There are instruction prompts throughout the form to assist you.  You will enter N/A in various sections that do not apply to you.  A few questions, such as the agreement dates, require special care.  Be sure to follow the tips below on these key sections to ensure timely approval of your RWA.
  • Agreement Start Date: Enter 7/1/20XX
  • Agreement End/Review Date: Enter 6/30/20XX
    • If you are a new employee who will be completing a remote work agreement for the first time, you will use your hire date as the Agreement Start Date and the Agreement End Date as 6/30/20XX of that fiscal year. You will then renew annually.
  • Headquarters: The headquarters location is the position’s assigned office or work location at the university unless the below criteria is met.
    • The employee is assigned to work remotely 100% of the time as a condition or expectation of employment and their home or alternate work location is greater than 85 miles from the position’s normally assigned office or work location. In this instance, the employee is eligible for travel reimbursement when coming to their Madison office location.
    • Employees are not eligible for travel reimbursement when coming to the their Madison office location unless there is an established business necessity.
  • Equipment for Remote Workspace: You must list all equipment you use for your role in the RWA.
    • UW-Madison Owned Hardware: Enter your computer equipment here (laptop, monitors, printer, MiFi etc).
    • Office Equipment provided to you for remote work: Enter applicable items like a standing desk here.
    • Will UW-Madison need to ship anything to you in your remote work location: Select Yes if you are a remote employee living outside of Wisconsin.
    • Record any known S/C/D reimbursable expenses here: Enter applicable items like monthly landline office phone charges or out-of-state driving record as appropriate for your situation.
  • Technology Access, Cybersecurity, and Compliance: UW-Madison will conduct additional scrutiny of any remote work arrangements that appear to pose a greater risk to data security.
    • What types of data do you work with?: Carefully review the definitions for the various data types and select Yes for only those levels that you will encounter in your role. Most staff do NOT access Restricted data.
    • Are you regularly using employee-owned hardware as your primary device when accessing / downloading / transferring data? If you have been provided with a work laptop or desktop computer, then you should answer No here.  It is expected that you will use your work computer as your primary technology to store and manipulate data.
  • Terms of Agreement and Attestations: Review the remote work expectation statements and verify your understanding.

Click Submit to complete Remote Work Agreement

• Verify that you have received an automated email receipt.
• Your Supervisor will be the first approver. Supervisors may approve, deny, or request modifications to the remote work agreement.  If you recognize an error in your recent RWA submission, you should contact your supervisor immediately to send it back to you for modifications.
  • Supervisors should review the Supervisor’s Guide – Travel Reimbursements and Headquarters Locations when reviewing remote work agreements.
• Upon Supervisor approval, the RWA will be send to Human Resources for final review and approval. Human Resources may approve, deny, or request modifications to the remote work agreement.
• You will receive another automated email notification when all approvals have been completed.
• At that point, you can access a final executed copy of your RWA by going back to the Remote Work Agreement section through the MyUW portal (see Step 2 above) and choosing “View a Remote Work Agreement”.

If you are working remotely on a consistent basis, then yes, you need a remote work agreement. You do not need a remote work agreement if you generally work fully on-site but request a temporary remote work schedule/flexibility with your supervisor (such as a week remote to complete an important project).

Yes, any change to your remote work agreement, including changing positions through open recruitment, percentage of time changes or days of week in office/remote changes, or changes to data access will require a new remote work agreement.

UW–Madison will not reimburse travel expenses between an employee’s remote workspace and the UW–Madison workspace. Employees operating under a remote work agreement must receive approval from their supervisor and department administrator before incurring any reimbursable travel-related expenses.

Select General Hours if your start and end times will be consistent from day to day and you are working from only one remote location. Select Daily Chart if you need to specify different work hours or remote work locations depending on the day of the week.

You will only enter in your information if you are using personally owned equipment to store, access, or manipulate internal, sensitive, and/or restricted data (see below). This does not include routers/modems, monitors, etc.

Please refer to information here that includes data classifications: Handling sensitive university data – UW–⁠Madison Information Technology (wisc.edu)