In my first benefits of telecommuting Insight, I talked about how companies can go about determining if telecommuting is right for their organization.
If you’ve determined that it is something you’d like to try out at your company, the first thing you’ll need to do is draft a telecommuting policy.
Creating a Policy and Agreement
A telecommuting policy would cover the terms and conditions of what it would mean for employees to work from home.
For example, the policy could mention that telecommuting is a privilege and it can be revoked at anytime if the company feels like the arrangement isn’t working. The company will need to have certain standards that employees have to meet and if they can’t meet them from home, they’ll have to return to working at the office.
It’s important for all terms and expectations on what employees need to do to keep the telecommuting arrangement to be outlined and clear within the policy.
For example, if employees need to come into the office for meetings, that needs to be written in the policy. Also, if you hire someone who doesn’t live within driving distance of the office, you need to think about what options you will offer them for attending meetings, such as web conferencing. These accommodations need to be written into your policy, as well.
If everyone involved—both employer and employee—has a clear understanding of the rules and expectations of telecommuting, it’s a lot more likely that the arrangement will work out.
When you’re finished writing your telecommuting policy—preferably with the assistance of an HR professional—it’s important to consult with an employment attorney who is well-versed in any state or federal laws affecting the policy to ensure it is well-written and legally sound.
Once your policy is drafted, you’ll want to continue working with your HR professional and attorney to create a telecommuting agreement between you and your employees. This agreement would establish that the employees have read and understand the telecommuting policy. It also would outline specifics of each employee's particular telecommuting arrangement with the company and re-emphasize important stipulations from the policy, such as how the company is going to track the telecommuter’s time, how the employee will be paid, etc.
This agreement will help to further provide an avenue for legal compliance.
Making Telecommuting Work
Successful telecommuting hinges on work getting done, and that work being quality work. That’s the bottom line. It doesn’t really matter where the work is being done, just as long as it is good-quality work and is being completed in a timely manner. If this is happening, and the lines of communication between the employer and the telecommuting employee and his/her colleagues remains strong, telecommuting is working. And if these things do not occur, that’s when telecommuting starts to hinder productivity.
Employers are starting to offer telecommuting to employees more and more, which represents a shift taking place—from the traditional workplace to a more flexible, work-life balanced workplace.
In fact, I recently ordered a pizza and I could tell when I was ordering that the person taking my order wasn’t at the pizza place, so I asked them, “Where are you?” and they told me they were taking calls from their home. So what they were doing was taking phone orders and entering the information into their computer system, which was probably hooked up to the store’s ordering system.
So I think telecommuting happens more than we even realize.
As long as employees have the equipment they need and scheduled work-at-home hours, there’s no reason for employers, barring evidence to the contray, such as late or incomplete projects, or complaints about not being able to access the telecommuting employee, to believe employees aren’t performing. Of course, the company should, as it does with employees who work on a traditional work schedule from the office, monitor performance and deliverables, but there are plenty of effective ways to do that.
I think telecommuting is a great idea. And companies need to be more open-minded when it comes to telecommuting. For example, employers shouldn’t say, “If everyone can’t telecommute, than no one can.” That’s not necessarily fair to the employees who are able to do it, and by allowing even part of your staff to telecommute, you can cut costs in many ways, such as saving on real estate.