In my last Insight, I talked about what would be included in a basic telecommuting policy, as well as addressed some common mistakes employers make.
If you’re interested in implementing effective telecommuting policies at your company, here are some steps you can take:
- Do your research—You need to look at the different technologies available for telecommuters that have been successful in other workplaces. You need to do research to get an idea of how your employees get their work done and what kind of environments they work best in.
- Look at the positions within your organization with an open mind—Ask yourself: Do my employees have to be in the office to get their work done? If the answer is “no,” then you need to determine how you’re going to measure your employees when you can’t watch them working.
Telecommuting forces you to place a greater emphasis on deliverables and less emphasis on face time.
It’s especially important that you train your managers and leaders to manage employees who are off-site.
- Determine deliverables—Once you’re ready to implement telecommuting in your workplace, you need to look at project due dates, study employee milestones and set check-in meetings so you can get responses back from your telecommuting employees. That way you make sure they are on-track for their deliverables.
An Example
I once worked with a company to implement a pilot telecommuting program. This company wanted to offer telecommuting opportunities to its call center employees.
What I did was help the company set things up, and then together we created a really good guidebook that addressed any telecommuting issues. It also addressed employee expectations as far as when they would be required to come into the office, what work they would be responsible for, how they would check-in with their manager, etc.
I also addressed a lot of issues the managers had, such as how they could check up on their employees’ productivity.
Being in a call center, the company was fortunate that there were detailed reports available for who answered what calls, how long the calls lasted, which calls were missed, etc. They were also able to view customer service stats and the quality assurance work that was completed.
This company set up its telecommuting program without limitations initially, because this was when telecommuting was still a new concept (back about 10 years ago).
The company faced a lot of challenges and it took a lot of trial and error, but in the end it worked out very well.
The employees were very satisfied, which was a huge plus, and the company saved big n real estate costs. This was fortunate because the company was national and had offices in places like New York City and Tampa Bay, Fla., where real estate costs are significantly higher.
Overall, offering telecommuting can be beneficial for everyone involved—employees and employers.