During the initial onset of the COVID-19 pandemic with citywide lockdowns and stay-at-home orders, many companies were forced to radically alter their approach to work. The majority of businesses around the globe—many for the first time—adopted full or hybrid work-from-home arrangements in compliance with COVID restrictions.
Since then, many workers have found that having more flexibility around when and where they work boosts their overall productivity and improves their work-life balance. In light of this, more and more companies have begun to explore the possibility of allowing employees to continue working remotely in some capacity, even in a post-pandemic world.
Whether your company is considering adopting a hybrid setup or a full WFH arrangement, providing your employees with the appropriate guidance is key. It is advisable to also make yourself available to address employees’ questions and concerns regarding remote work. You might even consider encouraging your employees to join you in virtual trainings for organisations for extra professional support on how to work efficiently anywhere.
Before anything else, though, it’s necessary to first craft a clear and comprehensive guideline on remote work that your employees can refer to and sign off on. If you’re wondering about what to include in your WFH policy statement or how to go about writing one, you need only read on. The tips below will give you a clear sense of how best to support your team and guarantee their success anytime, anywhere.
Define Scope and Eligibility
The first and most foundational question your policy statement needs to answer is this: who is eligible to work from home? You can determine baseline eligibility for remote work based on the specific duties attached to a particular role, as well as any related technology or equipment needs. Someone in charge of inventory management and monitoring, for instance, can only do their work on-site. Meanwhile, researchers and digital marketers can just as easily and efficiently do their jobs from out of the office.
Detail Protocols for Requests and Approvals
Once you’ve established who can work from home, it’s essential to outline what the process is for requesting permission to WFH, and what it entails. Specify, for instance, what forms your employees need to complete and/or what documentary requirements they must submit to your human resources department. Clarify any differences in the process when requesting to work from home on a full-time versus a part-time basis. It could also be helpful to draw up a list of acceptable reasons for requesting to work from home, such as parenting duties, specific health or safety concerns, and the like.
Define Work Hours and Communication Channels
As the employer, it’s important to define when and how your employees communicate with you and one another. Having a clear guideline regarding work hours is especially important for companies that employ people across different time zones to ensure easy coordination between team members.
Start by outlining your expected work hours for employees working from home. Do you expect them to be on the clock, for instance, from 8:00 A.M. to 5:00 P.M.? Or is it enough for them to complete a set number of work hours each day, regardless of the time?
Be equally clear on what tools you expect your employees to use for communication. If your company prescribes particular apps for video conferencing, messaging, file sharing, or email, specify these in your policy. As a rule, it helps to limit all company communications to a few set platforms for streamlining purposes.
Define Metrics for Productivity and Performance
The hours your employees spend clocked into work are easy to measure, but they don’t tell you much about the quality of the work getting done. Determine what specific productivity metrics are most relevant to your company’s needs and make sure your managers know to track them.
Track the number of hours it takes to complete a task, for instance, or the number of tasks completed in a day. Consider using task management software to make each team member’s process and workflow visible to supervisors. Clarifying how you intend to measure productivity and performance will help your employees better understand what’s expected of them under a remote working setup.
Outline Technology Requirements and Available Support
Your work-from-home policy should clearly outline any tech needs for easy coordination among your employees. These needs include specifications for work computers and other devices, additional hardware like headsets and monitors, software, internet speed, and the like. Identify what tech, if any, the company can provide for employees working from home.
Also, outline a procedure for requesting technical support in case any employees working remotely encounter tech difficulties. It might be wise, for example, to invest in remote desktop sharing apps to enable your tech support team to access employees’ computers when needed.
Discuss Security and Confidentiality
Working from a single location ensures that all employees conduct company business on the same secure networks. Since this is no longer a possibility when working from home, it’s imperative to set clear security and confidentiality guidelines. You may need to prohibit employees from working on particular projects in public or on unsecured wi-fi networks. You might also prescribe that they make client calls only from a private line.
Whatever your particular policy, you must clarify how your employees are expected to handle sensitive company information when working out of the office. Once they know this, they can better work with you to protect your business and its interests.
For many companies around the world, the option to work remotely is not only a privilege, but also a boon in terms of employee performance. To maximise these benefits for yourself and your employees, setting and managing expectations clearly via a comprehensive policy statement is key. The more informative your work-from-home guideline is, the smoother and more efficient your remote working experience will be for all concerned.
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