Does Your Remote Policy Have These 3 Critical Components?
One of the first things to review when considering a remote office is having a strong work from home policy. This is what sets the tone for what you expect from your remote workers, what they can expect from you and how someone is considered for remote work. It also can protect you from unnecessary liability in certain circumstances. It is important to understand that this should be a living document. Changes should be made based on ideas or concepts that may not work in your current scenario and should incorporate feedback from your teams to make sure it works for everyone.
Here are three critical items that should be in every remote policy:
- Acceptable work hours
It is important that it is understood by your remote teams when you expect them to work. Traveling to an office helps in defining set schedules for individuals but when workers don’t leave their house it is important to define your expectations on when they should begin and end their work day. This serves two primary purposes:
- It defines hours where the remote worker is actually covered by workman’s comp. Injuries or accidents outside the work schedule are not considered under workman’s comp in most cases.
- It prevents remote workers from defining their own schedules which may conflict with the need for team participation. It is common to experience delays when a team has members that do not have enough overlapping work hours to work effectively on projects or work requiring input from other members of the team.
It is completely up to you how open ended this second item can be. The least restrictive scheduling that effectively allows your teams to work together cohesively is the best. It is very possible that you may want to support varied work hours for certain workers or teams that are more effective not being confined to a standard 9 to 5 regiment.
2. Eligibility
It goes without saying that not all jobs can be remote and not all employees are good candidates for remote work. These restrictions and requirements must be thoroughly documented in your remote policy to ensure that everyone understands what positions are eligible for remote work and what the expectations are of employees who work remotely. For positions that have physical requirements for a worker to be located at the office or work location (i.e. brick and mortar retail, restaurants, factory work, etc.) employees would not be eligible for remote work. Even though this seems straight forward, it must be documented so it is crystal clear to everyone. Second, you need to make sure that any performance requirements, productivity requirements and consequences are documented in the policy. This is important if you have trouble with remote workers not being productive or not producing quality work. It must be outlined how productivity and quality will be measured and what the consdquences will be if an employee falls below this measurement. In many cases an employee’s ability to work remotely can be revoked to allow for closer in office supervision.
3. Well defined job descriptions:
This may not sound like part of a remote policy, but having well-defined job descriptions for your remote workers helps to protect the company from unnecessary or unjustified workman’s comp claims. In my next article I will dive deeper into the topic of workman’s comp, for remote employees but for now we just need to consider that defining the tasks that an employee is responsible for during their work day can help to eliminate claims based on injuries an employee may suffer that is not work-related. For example, a remote customer support representative whose tasks revolve around their computer and phone would have a difficult time justifying an injury claim that occurred while away from their designated home office area where as a sales rep traveling to meet a client would not.
As with all matters regarding insurance it is best to seek the advice of a knowledgeable insurance provider before making any decisions. Laws regarding insurance vary from state to state.
With the changing remote landscape it is very likely that a lot of companies are re-evaluating their stance on remote office work. With any corporate initiative it is always a good idea to begin with a well-defined policy that outlines the purpose, processes and requirements that will make the policy successful. This is equally true for establishing a remote office. There are many other considerations aside from just creating a strong and flexible remote policy but that is a great starting point.
Jason Kistler