The University of Utah will soon require that most employees come into the office at least three days a week.

The shift to more work in-person will take effect by the end of the calendar year, a university spokesperson confirmed Thursday after rumors about a potential change spread on the social platform Reddit.

It applies university-wide to all departments and units, including University of Utah Health, but the spokesperson noted that individual supervisors will have scheduling discretion.

Already, the U.’s employees have been required to be in-office two days a week under policies for state employee instituted in 2025, the spokesperson also said. To make that change, legislators repealed a previous state law that allowed public employees to work from home more often as a way to help with air quality.

Remote work became especially common during the pandemic. But state agencies have been directed in the years since to start returning to the office.

During a news conference last year, Utah Gov. Spencer Cox said he was in favor of more employees working in-person, according to reporting from The Utah News Dispatch.

“Remote work has its place, but so does being together,” he said at the time. “It’s not healthy to be isolated.”

In a 2018 article in The Deseret News, though, Cox had called himself “a televangelist for telework.”

The University of Utah’s teleworking policy states telecommuting “can benefit both the institution and the employee by promoting an effective work/life balance, increasing space utilization, reducing impact on the environment, and increasing employee recruitment and retention.”

The U. is the second-largest employer in Utah after Intermountain Health. The state’s flagship university has more than 46,000 employees, including its health arm.

More in-person work, a school spokesperson said, will encourage stronger mentoring and accelerated problem-solving, as well as help build culture and support innovation.

Already, most employees that are part of the U.’s main campus — 75%, according to a recent survey — have been coming in three or more days a week. The 25% who aren’t work mainly in information technology or finance support areas.

On the health side, 85% of workers also won’t see a change based on their current schedule and obligations, the spokesperson said.

On social media, though, some employees shared concerns.

“My department absolutely doesn’t have the space to accommodate this change,” one person wrote.

Another added, “We’re stacking 2-3 people to an office and rotating days, trying to coordinate a million moving parts.”

“There isn’t enough parking, and public transit isn’t reliable,” a third said. A shortage of parking spots at peak hours prompted outcry from students and faculty last fall.

Some offices, the U.’s spokesperson said, are developing space-management plans and will use rotating schedules to make it work.

The directive has come from university leadership, the spokesperson noted, and additional leaders are discussing it this week. Communication on the change should roll out to employees over the next month.

In 2025, an audit commissioned by the state found that 45% of all assignable square footage on the U.’s campus is dedicated to offices, including administrative offices. That’s the highest percentage of any of the state’s public colleges and universities.

The report noted that even before the pandemic, offices were “among the least utilized spaces on campus,” used between 20% to 50% of the time. At lowest use, that amounts to about an hour and a half during an eight-hour workday.

The state audit argued that campus buildings that aren’t used at capacity can be a waste of resources, such as for lighting costs or heating and air conditioning.

Regarding parking, the university did recently acquire land at Fort Douglas and already opened a lot there with additional spots. Separately, the new parking garage planned for west of the Jon M. Huntsman Center won’t finish construction until at least summer 2028.