Dear Getty Community,

Today, state and local officials emphasized that all large gatherings in the state of California be cancelled or closed, making clear the seriousness of what has become an emergency effort to slow the spread of the coronavirus in our community.

Effective this Saturday, March 14, the Getty Center and Getty Villa locations will close to the public until further notice.

We will transition to a situation where employees who have jobs that can be accomplished remotely will be asked to work from home. Each Program and Trust department will transition on a different schedule over the coming days, and we will ultimately have employees working under several different circumstances: working on site to perform critical functions; working from home; and staying at home and not working.

Fewer people working on site will allow healthy employees to continue to safely work in person as needed at all of our sites. Please consult the senior managers within your Program and Trust departments as they work to determine work assignments on a department-by-department basis.

Getty intends to support all employees, both salaried and hourly, throughout this time. We do not have a timeline for how long these measures will continue. We are working in earnest on the details of compensation policies for this circumstance and we will share them as soon as possible.

During this time, we are also increasing travel restrictions for all Getty employees. All business travel—domestic and international—is prohibited immediately and until further notice. Current travelers in the field are being recalled. Beginning today, anyone who has recently traveled by plane, for either work or personal travel, will be asked to quarantine at home for 14 days before returning to work at any Getty location.

We ask that no non-essential business visitors come to our sites. Essential local vendors will be permitted, but we ask that any other business visitors delay their visits. We will not host job candidate interviews on site, but convene them via Zoom or teleconference for the time being.

We will provide additional information and resources to employees on Getty GO, and also on a special new staff website, www.getty.edu/staff, for those employees unable to access Getty GO from home. When there is new and important information for you to see, we will send internal communication email and eventually issue Getty Alerts to let you know.

We are aware that you will continue to have many questions. We are working on addressing them as soon as possible and appreciate your patience as we work through many complex details. Please continue to send your questions to internalcommunications@getty.edu.

Thank you for your flexibility, dedication, and continued patience at this critical time.

Steve Olsen
CFO and COO
J. Paul Getty Trust