Working at home is a rapidly growing trend; the fact that we all have access to email, chat, video conferences, cloud collaboration software and dozens of other technologies means almost any job can be done remotely.
Whether your employees work exclusively from home or divide their working hours between home and the office, it would be easy to assume that at the top of the list of concerns for any employer would be productivity.
But worry not; three-quarters of employees actually put more effort in and get more done when working at home!
The trend of working at home is set to rise steadily
And although productivity needn’t be top of your worries, there are things to consider when supporting your employees to work from home either on a permanent or ad-hoc basis.
Be clear on the hours of work
Specify when your employee needs to be available for work – for example, will the employee be required to observe strict office hours, have complete flexibility over when they work or have certain “core hours” when they must be available. Will they be required to account for their time and if so, how? Being clear at the start of the arrangement will help avoid any misunderstandings (on either side).
Keep in touch
It may sound obvious, but if you have employees who predominantly work at home, make sure they feel part of the loop. You can do this with ‘keeping in touch’ days and regular 121s which will help ease any concerns of the worker and help to build trust – something that remote working depends on hugely.
Contribute to costs
Consider whether or not your employee will be entitled to expenses for travel to the office or a contribution towards telephone, broadband, heating and lighting costs. Other expenses to consider include postal/courier costs, stationery costs and photocopying/printing costs.
Salary and benefits
Take care that homeworkers are not treated less favourably on grounds of any protected characteristic. For example, if an individual is working from home because of ill-health and receives less favourable benefits than a comparable office-based employee, they may claim disability discrimination. Make sure that they have access to any work-related benefits such as the staff canteen or workplace gym, even if they don’t use them regularly.
Place of work
If your employee will be predominantly working from home then normal place of work will be the employee’s home, although make sure you also include a provision in the contract that the employee can be required to attend the office as necessary. There should also be a provision for what happens if the employee moves home – particularly if the move is further away from the office which may have financial implications on your business if you are paying travel costs to and from the office.
Consider any changes to employment contracts
Tailor the employment contract to reflect any homeworking arrangements, making sure you put in place specific policies covering off the more practical arrangements.
And finally … help those working from home to switch off
One of the downsides to homeworking is that around a third of employees finds it difficult to switch off. So why not follow in France’s footsteps? At the start of 2017, law was passed in France that gave employees a legal right to ignore work related emails outside of their normal working hours. The legislation affects business of over 50 employees and is designed to help employees escape the ‘always on’ culture – so consider whether this would work in your organisation.
Trial period
If you’re enabling your employees to work from home for the first time, it can feel a bit daunting. Consider allowing homeworking initially for a trial period, and include this in the contract, so you can assess whether or not the arrangement will work in the longer term. It is also worth including the right to require the employee to revert to office-based working.