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Creating a Working From Home Policy

Emira Mears

| April 4, 2011

Image by: Flickr / Emily Penguin

Many managers question the activity of staff who work from home, but with a good policy comes productivity.

What does a manager need in order to implement an effective working from home policy?

Working from home is nothing new, but it’s become a popular topic in our office. I'll admit to having a bias against employees working off-site, and we've been reluctant to formally incorporate it into our work culture. My inclination toward in-office work is rooted in bad experiences with past contract workers and their lack of accountability. However, when it came up this time, I had a better understanding of the value in working from home and its potential for uninterrupted work time.

Since having my daughter last year, I've been working from home a lot. I often marvel at my productivity levels when I remove the ringing office phone, the meetings, and other distractions.

Working From Home Resources:

Telecommuting and Working From Home

Results Only Work Environment

Seven Legal Issues With Telecommuting

How to Manage Remote Employees

My trust in our employees assuaged any further concerns I had around off-site work. A manager’s biggest fear is that when staff are left to their own devices at home, they won't work. But, as my colleague put it in a recent post: Trust is cheaper than control. Do I think an employee might run a load of laundry while they're working from home? I do. I also know they won’t miss deadlines and will complete the work they've committed to. If trust were a real concern, they probably wouldn't be my staff.

When sorting out your guidelines for off-site employees, there are a few key things to consider.

Working from home policy questions

– What hours will the employee keep?
– Which communications tools does the employee need to stay in touch?
– Will the employee participate in meetings from off-site?
– How do you monitor and supervise the employee's work?
– How often are you comfortable with staff working from home? Do you set limits on the number of days/hours?

Once you've solidified your guidelines and communicated them to your team, you'll also want to consider your legal responsibilities as an employer. Most importantly, your employees require a safe work environment at home, and you must ensure that they're carrying out best practices around your clients' privacy.

We're currently drafting our working from home guidelines and will be starting trial runs shortly, adjusting our policy as new issues arise. I'm looking forward to creating an environment of flexibility, freedom, and trust.

Tags

Employee Engagement

Submitted by latr on Fri, 2011-08-19 18:24.

I work for a large organization which has implemented and fully supports a formal "work from home" program. My department (including myself and my team) all work from home anywhere from 1-3 days/week. This has been a huge benefit to our team-members, allowing them some flexibility and eliminating the cost and time of commuting. You need to set the "ground rules" right up front, my team knows my expectations (they let me know their plans each week, and ensure that they log in so I know that they are "connected"). I could never work from home 100% of the time, nor could any of my team-members as we still like to ensure we are connected and meet face to face regularly.

As far as trusting your employees, well it's just as easy to have an employee in the office and not producing as it is to have one working remotely. Success is not measured by the hours you put in, it's measure by your achievements. Your employees should have targets and deadlines no matter if they work from home or in the office, if these are monitored properly then you'll know if your employee is working.

I think it's time for organization and managers to look at this as an opportunity to have more highly engaged employees. Surveys have shown that employees who are able to have the flex workstyle are much happier employees. I know I am. :)

Thanks for this. My manager

Submitted by dangerouspenguin (not verified) on Tue, 2011-04-05 10:36.

Thanks for this. My manager got a lot of flack from his managers for allowing me to work from home two days a week. I live quite far out of Vancouver, and commuting daily just isn't workable for me or my family. Commuting M/W/F is perfect, and I get way more done on T/Th than I ever do when I am in the office. Do I do laundry? Yes. Do I take my dogs out for half an hour? Yes. Does having this flexibility make me a better employee? Absolutely. Still, I am an anomaly at my workplace and I am encouraged not to advertise my situation with the understanding that it could lead to the loss of my job. That would be a real shame for me and for them, because I LOVE my work, I am highly trained, I have an in-demand skill set and I am very productive. The status quo is a win/win situation, I find it frustrating that the upper echelons can't appreciate that. I certainly don't believe that everyone could work well in my situation, but a good manager should have no trouble recognizing good work-from-home candidates.

You make a good point at the

Submitted by wkriski (not verified) on Tue, 2011-04-05 09:43.

You make a good point at the beginning of the article - most of the issue with remote work is the manager's hangups, mistrust and actual lack of management. If you simply have a way to measure the expected results (this done by this day, etc) then you can leave the hours, time of day to work, how it gets done up to the mature and responsible worker. I just signed a 1 year IT contract for the BC government (BCeID) working remotely from New Brunswick and have done many remote contracts in the past. If someone doesn't complete the tasks as to agreed to, he/she should be terminated. But I think the main problem is managers don't have specific enough tasks that they can measure. Or maybe it's that subconsciously they want everybody to suffer the same amount by having to commute to one central location in rush hour traffic :)