Remote work is on the rise, and more businesses than ever are offering remote work policies to allow employees to work from home, and releasing remote work policies for the first time. This is no strange as remote work brings many benefits that could impact businesses hugely.
From the ability of hiring talents and experts from around the world, which gives businesses access to more powerful teams, and savings the costs of preparing and maintaining offices, which could save businesses millions of dollars in some cases.
These benefits come beside increasing the satisfaction of employees and allowing them to balance between their work and life in a better way. Researches confirm remote employees are more satisfied and able to balance between work and life. They could be even more productive.
And while millions of people were already working remotely full time, millions of people have at least tried working remotely during the coronavirus pandemic. In which have made remote work a more widely trending topic, that seems to be here for long.
As a business, especially if you are a small business, medium-sized business or startup, you can benefit much from remote work by getting the talents you need.
To do so, you need a remote work policy. Then we have the most essential terms or guidelines you need to think about when allowing remote work for your employees.
Eligibility to Working Remotely
One of the main guidelines you should consider early in your remote work policy is the eligibility. Naturally, not all of your employees would be eligible to work remotely, and that should be clear in the policy.
Positions that are eligible to remote work and positions that aren’t should be stated clearly, It’s because this helps in eliminating time wasted on future enquiries about it.
Some companies would have a whole team working remotely, which is fine, while others can have no remote work positions with a few exceptions, which is also normal.
Availability During Remote Work
One of the most important aspects of a remote work policy is the availability of the employees. Whether your business will set a 9 to 5 availability requirement or allow flexible schedules for all or some. All of this should be outlined in the remote work policy.
This makes the workflow much better especially in the first weeks, and also removes frustrations based on inaccurate expectations. If an employee expects a flexible schedule and doesn’t ask, then knows the schedule isn’t flexible, it is never good.
Remote Work Equipment
Remote work is away from the office, but employees still need equipment. There are many choices for companies when it comes to this. These choices should be included in the terms of the remote work policy.
You can make it clear if you provide employees with certain equipment or not, like laptops or other needed tools. If you are not providing employees with equipment, then you should state the minimum requirements.
Also if you require things like a fast internet connection then it should be clear within the policy. Security standards while using the internet should also be clear in the remote work policy.
Rightful Termination and Information Confidentiality
Rightful termination is always addressed in business policies. But it can be also a part of the remote work policy. There will be no termination of an employee without the manager having the right to do so, just because the employee is working from home.
Information confidentiality should also be a part of the remote work policy. Discussing or sharing information related to the business should be through clear guidelines set by your business.
Productivity Evaluation
A remote work policy should always consider how to evaluate productivity for various positions. This could be through time, projects completed, interactions and any other aspect that can be determined.
There are many tracking tools that can help you keep track of hours worked or tasks during remote work. Also, if you use a workflow automation software then it can help you track completed tasks easily through the available analytics.
