A new report from Upwork, a freelancing website, found that while nearly two-thirds of companies have remote workers, less than half have a telecommuting policy.
This actually makes sense, because a lot of the time telecommuting start informally. Someone asks if they can work from home for a period of time, a manager says yes, and nothing is ever formalized. Then everybody sees the first person working from home and other people start asking and getting approvals.
This is all fine and good until a problem happens and you don’t have a policy in place. Sure, the best thing is if you have only responsible employees who are completely trustworthy, but that doesn’t always happen. You’ll end up with someone who says, “You didn’t say I couldn’t homeschool my children during the workday!”
So, you need a policy. There isn’t a perfect policy for every business, of course. You have different needs and different clients, but here are five things you need to consider.
To keep reading, click here: Survey: Most Companies Lack a Telecommuting Policy. Here’s How to Get Yours Started.
Very good article,with suggestions for creating a telecommunications policy for at home position. Without a policy in place, a gap occurs in what is going on during the work hours. The biggest problem that I see is when the company needs an effective method of monitoring hours of actual performing work. Even though the key reason most people work at home is because of the flexibility of hours to family needs, there has to be a designated time schedule that company needs for the employee to work not just any time period of the day unless the time period is okayed by company. Work at home jobs can be great for both the company and employee if a suitable program is in place.