Remote working is not just a trend of the future but an integral part of the present-day professional environment. And though some employers may still be fearful of embracing remote work, it offers an excellent way to reduce business costs, boost employee productivity and make your staff happier.
Yet how to ensure remote work stays under control and brings all the promised benefits to your team? By creating an informative remote work policy that communicates all the rules and expectations to your team, you are bound to make that happen.
Read this post to learn how to create a perfect remote work policy for your company and find a free downloadable policy template at the bottom of the page.
What Is a Remote Work Policy?
A remote work policy is a detailed document that describes organizational work-from-home rules. It walks through everything that an employee needs in order to work from home effectively. It explains which procedures are to be followed and outlines major performance expectations and requirements.
Some topics that businesses usually cover in their remote work policies are:
- Eligibility criteria (who can work remotely, on which occasions and for how long)
- Applicable conditions of employment (remote employee rights and responsibilities, benefits and penalties)
- Team communication rules
- Working hours
- Required work equipment
- Data security
- Productivity guidelines, etc.
Remote Work Policy Benefits
Isolation from colleagues is one of the most prominent remote work challenges. And in the lack of opportunities to communicate with your team members face-to-face frequently, it’s hard to make certain everyone has similar ideas of how it’s appropriate to behave at work.
Thus, a remote work policy is your guarantee that everyone stays on the same page and clearly understands organizational work-from-home standards. Besides, a well-developed policy protects a business against many risks:
- It encourages employees to remain productive and perform at their best even without being constantly watched by managers.
- By explaining to staff members which benefits they are entitled to when working from home, it lets them develop more trust in their employers.
- A remote work policy assists in preventing costly security breaches and ensures that remote employees have all the technology and tools to work efficiently and safely.
- Besides, it allows maintaining team wellbeing by reducing the threat of burnout and poor health due to harmful work patterns.
So, how to create a remote work policy that boosts productivity, makes your employees happier and helps to minimize business risks? Let’s discuss essential policy contents step by step to find it out.
How to Write an Effective Remote Work Policy
1. Policy brief and purpose statement
Start your policy with a short introduction to its purposes and subject matter. Clarify who the document is intended for, provide a brief definition of remote work if needed and explain why adhering to the policy is essential.
Example:
This document describes the remote work rules adopted in [the Name of Your Company]. It is intended for all employees who plan to work from home or any other location outside of the formal workplace environment, either part-time or full-time. It aims to ensure that employees benefit from the remote work arrangement as much as the business as a whole.
2. Remote work agreement
The next policy section is all about the conditions that make remote work possible. Here you need to focus on employee eligibility criteria. For instance, you can indicate how long a person should be employed in your company prior to requesting work from home. You can also discuss the overall level of performance and the type of professional responsibilities that make one suitable or unsuitable for work from home.
Plus, this part of the policy is a good place to mention how many days a week / year one can work outside of the office. The procedure of requesting remote work and the possibility of ad hoc arrangements are worth describing too.
Example:
Team members may choose from temporary and permanent remote work arrangements. To be eligible for either of them, a worker must be employed with [the Name of Your Company] for at least six months in a row, show a good level of productivity and have no history of organizational policy violations.
Working from home is allowed merely with a supervisor’s approval. An employee has to notify the supervisor about their plans at least 48 hours in advance before the start of a preferable remote work period.
Essential employees (Head of Engineering, System Administrator, Head of Customer Service, etc.) may work from home merely two days a week. However, longer-term and permanent remote work arrangements are possible in case of an essential employee’s sickness, their family member’s sickness, relocation and other critical personal reasons.
All employees who want to work from home on a permanent basis are subject to a two-month trial period. By the end of these two months, their performance results are assessed by an HR department representative and a responsible supervisor.
3. Conditions of employment
Your employees will want to know if their compensation and other benefits will stay the same in case they decide to transition to remote work. So, you need to address their concerns and interests in the third section of the policy.
Note whether employee wages, rights and responsibilities will be changed by the remote work agreement. If yes, create a complete list of alterations that are to take place in the conditions of employment.
Example:
Monetary compensation, time off benefits, health insurance and other benefits that [the Name of Your Company] is liable to provide to its employees in accordance with the Contract of Employment are not altered by the Remote Work Policy.
Remote employees are additionally entitled to compensation for equipment-related costs. The amount of this compensation is decided individually, based on employee technology needs and the company’s ability to meet them.
4. Remote work specifications
To promote job accountability among your remote employees and help them achieve organizational performance standards with ease, you have to clearly indicate which steps and procedures everyone should undertake when working from home.
Specify which scheduling techniques your remote team members should implement, as well as for how many hours a day and when they must be available at their home offices. Also, inform your employees about the tools and technologies they must have in order to work and collaborate remotely. And don’t forget to describe the methods you are going to use to monitor their performance.
Example:
Remote employees are responsible for maintaining the same level of work productivity and efficiency as office workers. To fulfill this objective successfully, they are to comply with the following rules:
- Equipment | Every remote employee needs a work computer, a stable internet connection and the required software installations (Zoom, Slack, Microsoft Outlook and actiTIME). Additional hardware and software needs depend on one’s role and professional responsibilities. If necessary, [the Name of Your Company] will provide the mandatory work technology to remote employees and will be liable for maintaining it. Equipment owned by the employee is maintained by the employee. [The Name of Your Company] doesn’t take responsibility for any damages to employee-owned devices.
- Working hours | Every remote team member is obliged to work the standard 40 hours a week. Those exempt from overtime requirements under the Fair Labor Standards Act are free to have flexible schedules and work for more than eight hours a day. Non-exempt hourly employees are not allowed to exceed the eight-hour workday limit unless absolutely necessary. All remote team members should keep a precise daily record of hours worked in their actiTIME timesheets.
- Team communication | Remote employees should participate in daily Zoom meetings with colleagues at the agreed time. Throughout the workday, they must be available for team communication and collaboration via Slack, email and phone.
- Performance monitoring | Remote employees need to track their daily activities in actiTIME and change task statuses on the Kanban board in a way that reflects their current performance progress accurately. In case of any significant work challenges and task delays, employees need to contact their assigned managers through any convenient communication channel as soon as possible.
5. Data security
Employers have no control over technology and networks that their subordinates use at home or in public spaces. Hence, remote work is associated with greater data security risks for businesses than traditional work arrangements.
To cope with this problem, your remote work policy should provide guidance on what employees have to do to protect such critical data as customer information, unpublished financial reports, confidential business initiatives, etc. And in addition to specific practical recommendations, it is appropriate to write down a few words about the penalties a team member will be subject to in case they cause a data breach while working from home.
Example:
Remote employees are expected to maintain the same level of data security as those working in the office. To keep up with the security standards, all team members must:
- Lock confidential information whenever they’re away from their desks / home offices and undertake other appropriate measures to ensure no unauthorized person can see it,
- Avoid sharing their work devices with family members or friends,
- Apply reliable antivirus and internet security software,
- Use strong passwords and change them regularly.
Upon a failure to comply with corporate security regulations and a consequent data breach, the remote work agreement gets immediately terminated. Further penalties apply in line with the company’s effective Data Protection Policy.
6. Occupational safety
Usually, businesses are legally bound to cover the injuries that their employees sustain due to regular work activities (even when working from home). Therefore, it’s in your best interests to keep your team members safe and healthy wherever they want to do their jobs.
Give recommendations on how remote employees can arrange hazard-free and comfortable home offices. Be sure to mention what one has to do when an injury happens. State if your company will cover any damages to remote employees’ health and on which conditions.
Example:
Remote employees need to maintain an optimal safety level in their home offices and regularly evaluate the workspace for the presence of hazards by using a safety checklist. An employee must immediately notify their employer about any injury sustained in their home workspace. In case that injury is proved to be a direct consequence of an employee’s work activities and duties, [the Name of Your Company] will cover it as per the regular compensation agreement.
7. Productivity guidelines
If some of your team members never tried remote working before, there’s a high chance they may struggle to adapt and, in the end, can become less productive. To help them cope with work-from-home challenges better and reduce the risks to business performance as a whole, provide them with a few practical tips on how to make the transition to remote work as painless and fruitful as possible.
Example:
To improve remote work outcomes, employees are recommended to dedicate a separate area in their homes for work. Keeping a home office clean, well-lit and distraction-free will help increase work efficiency.
As a means to reduce stress and prevent burnout, employees are expected to always adhere to their schedules, take regular breaks and not work overtime.
Team members are advised to explore various productivity-boosting techniques and implement any preferred ones if needed.
Conclusion
Summing up the above points, we can see that in order to be complete and effective, a remote work policy has to contain merely seven sections:
- Policy brief and purpose statement
- Remote work agreement
- Conditions of employment
- Remote work specifications
- Data security
- Occupational safety
- Productivity guidelines
Feel free to expand your policy by including any additional information you believe will help you gain more control over remote work outcomes and improve employee performance. And don’t hesitate to download our free remote work policy template to speed up the writing process and make it more effortless.
