Considerations before you create a work from home policy

A work-from-home policy helps both you and your employees to understand what’s required of them while working from home. It can provide a set of criteria which helps both employers and employees alike to decide whether working from home is feasible or right for that employee. 

Before you lay out your working-from-home policy, it’s worth considering how many days a week your employees will be working remotely for. It also may be important to note that your employees might be looking for a certain degree of flexibility alongside their remote work option. Therefore, each work-from-home offer might be tailored specifically to an individual employee (such as specifying in a contract which hours should be worked, or whether their hours are flexible).

How to lay out your working-from-home policy

It’s important to consider WFH policies as an informative guide for employees about their expectations and responsibilities. Therefore, you might want to carefully word your policy so that all the information you need is clear and easy to understand. In such a policy, you usually include an outline of how many hours you are expecting the employee to work a week, as well as if and when you are expecting them to come into the office at all. This means you are less likely to have disagreements and if you do, you will be able to resolve them more efficiently.

What you decide to include in your work-from-home policy will depend on your own business requirements, as well as the current responsibilities of your employee. It’s worth thinking about whether their role will change at all if they start working remotely, and how to communicate this. With the above in mind, we will now look at what to write into a working-from-home policy.

What equipment does your employee need?

It’s likely that your employee will have to be given some equipment in order to do their job properly from home. This might simply include providing a company laptop, phone and printer. It might include specific applications or access to your company’s files and folders via cloud storage. 

You might also offer employees a desk or chair with back support if they do not already have these. They could also benefit from storage or shelving if they are responsible for managing paperwork. 

Some companies might have an expenses pot specifically for employees working from home, meaning that they can use this themselves to buy the supplies that they need. 

Health and safety

Another point to consider is how you plan to conduct any risk assessments for employees doing their job from home. This will depend on the kind of work that they’re doing. Some jobs will have more potential risks than others, especially without the supervision of a manager physically present.

The UK government’s Health and Safety Executive (HSE) says in their guide that home workers should be included in any business risk assessment. However, they advise that employers only need to visit an employee in their home if:

• they are using hazardous chemicals or potentially dangerous tools
• the employee has a disability and requires accommodations to perform their job

They also advise that it is important to keep an open line of communication with your employees while managing any risks. This involves talking to them about any potential risks via a video or telephone call. It also can include:

• giving them guidance as to how to safely set up their home working environment
• providing them with the right self-assessment tools or questionnaires

Even employees who have to use a computer screen may need to undergo a Display Screen Equipment assessment. According to the HSE, this might involve checking to make sure that:

• your employee can achieve a comfortable posture while using the screen
• any equipment is safe and suitable for use

You might not have to supply your employee with any additional equipment if you find that their current setup is safe and suitable. For more information on how to provide assessments, please visit the Health and Safety Executive website.

Employee cybersecurity training

As part of your work-from-home policy, you might deem it necessary to provide security training. This is so that you can ensure employees are able to safely handle company data outside of the office. Some of this training might include how to set passwords, how to protect against phishing attacks and reporting any potential issues. The UK government provides some training for businesses looking to provide their staff with the right advice. For more information about this training, please visit the National Security Cyber Centre website.

You might also want to ensure that during the offboarding process, any access to company documentation is properly revoked. Offboarding could also include an employee giving back equipment to the company, which is especially important when that employee is working on a fully remote basis.

Additional training

Some employees will be more comfortable than others about working from home, as they already know how to use video conferencing and digital communication tools. However, not all employees will be familiar with this technology, so having a training session before they start working remotely could help prevent any issues in the future.

After all, an employee who isn’t comfortable using remote working tools is less likely to be able to do their job effectively or may decide against remote working entirely. Some forms of training you might offer include:

• digital soft skills for online communication
• video conferencing tool training
• analytics
• project management systems
• time management skills

Getting your employees used to remote training and microlearning might also be useful for you. Microlearning involves providing new information in bite-sized chunks to employees so it’s easier for them to process. They can also fit in this learning around their other responsibilities. You might decide to mention any training and learning opportunities in your policy so your employees know what to expect from them.

Employee engagement and performance monitoring

If you plan to monitor employee performance, it’s useful to lay this out in your working-from-home policy so that employees know what to expect. You might find that employee monitoring may just amount to asking for updates from employees on projects. Or, this monitoring could be more extensive, such as checking to make sure that they are online. At the end of the day, it’s worth considering what your employees will be happy with, as well as what you need to make sure that employees still remain productive even while they are working outside of the office. 

Flexible working and other responsibilities

As each employee will have their own reasons for considering working from home, it’s useful to be clear in your policy how you expect employees to behave while WFH. Some employees will want to fit in their home responsibilities around their work. If this will not work for you, it can be good to be clear about this from the start in order to avoid confusion. If you can allow time for this, or are planning on providing flexible hours around other duties, then this can also be included in the policy.

Working from home can be made simpler by a clear, straightforward work-from-home policy. It can also help your employees to understand how they are protected against risks. It can also include any additional training that they need to take, as well as how you expect them to behave while working from home or remotely. Making your policy clear from the start means that if there are any disagreements or conflicts over what is expected from an employee, you will be able to refer to it for clarification. Providing your employee with this policy before they start working remotely can, therefore, be useful.