Seven steps to build a culture of “Work From Home” Policy
There are many benefits of getting a work from home system for both employers and workers alike. For many, the benefits comes from a healthier work/life balance, but other benefit include improved efficiency and encouragement to worker, as well as ‘climate’ benefits.
Next, when you have workers working from home, even if it is just one day a week, it’s imperative that you have specific instructions in your policies on “work from home”. Not paying attention to detail can have significant consequences, particularly if your employee is not adequately supervised of if the safety of their home is not up to par. Here are some of the things to remember.
1)Who gets to work from home?
Every employee is different and you need to able to recognise which of your workers will be more productive and would be successful by working from home. People who need a strict routine to produce results may not be best suited to home working .
2)Equipment requirements
You may have to provide your employee with extra technology for their home depending on the nature of your company. You’ll ask them to use their own computer for example or do you supply a laptop for them. So that, they will be easy for employee to continue for doing work with more productivity.
3)Safety and health
Employers have different levels of commitment for workers working from home. You might need to include language in your policy that requires you to access their home for hazard risk assessment.
4)Company security
Information and documentation from your organisation will be trusted to the employee outside of the company. It is not just the employee that you need to worry about, what about other people entering their home? How do you regain documents if the work relationship ends? So that, the company security are so important among the employee and employers to keep maintain of the relationship between of them.
5)Monitoring performance
Most of companies are using software that records feedback from workers, but if that is not appropriate for your line of work, how can you ensure that your workers operate at the optimum level? You should think about how much you need to have contact with workers that working at home, even if it is by email only
6)What are your employee’s motivations?
You should make it clear in your policy if you expect employees to treat their work day at home as though they were at the office. For example, they should not think of working from home as an alternative to hiring child care.
7)Wording your policy
The more detailed your policy is, the easier it will be to sort out any disagreements regarding and employee’s rights.
The policy should also outline the working hours you expect from anyone working from home, which is why it’s so important to be able to monitor performance. If you require regular updates you should state whether the employee will be required to come into the office and how often.
you should discuss the language of your policy and any risk assessment procedures with you legal department. For more information read the government legislation: Health and Safety work etc. Act 1974
