The following article was sent to me by a PR agent. It has some great information about setting up Telecommuting in your business.
Establishing a Telecommuting Policy for Your Employees
If you’re a business unit manager or small business owner you may have considered the idea of allowing staff to telecommute. You’ve come to that notion through many possible routes of inspiration. Perhaps you would like to occasionally work from home yourself to better focus on a project; perhaps someone you manage needed an extended leave for medical or personal reasons, and had your organization supported it, they could have been at least partially productive while out of the office. Maybe the example of a mobile sales force that is rarely seen, but somehow effectively managed, has you thinking that the same model could apply for other job roles.
Telecommuting as a concept has been around for decades[1], but certainly is a more viable option now than ever before. The arguments to support telecommuting for cost savings are stronger than ever given increases in energy costs impacting everything from transportation to office expenses. So let’s assume you’re at the last step, have decided that telecommuting is right for your business, but you’re not sure where to begin.
Like every business decision, step one of implementation is policy, policy, policy. If you are a small business that ordinarily does not write policy or document decisions, this is one decision you should communicate via a written policy to impacted employees. Telecommuting is an obvious double edged sword. It empowers employees to be productive at times they otherwise might not be, but also provides a mechanism to shirk job duties if expectations and policy are not clearly understood. Writing a clear policy that is relevant for your organization will help you organize the reasons why you want to support telecommuting, and clarify the benefits for employees, risks for the employer, and develop a checklist of practical (and technical) items to be considered. Policy areas to cover include:
- A general rationale for the policy. Is it employee flexibility (reward) related? Cost savings related, productivity related, or even part of an incentive of “flex work” plan.
- Hours per week (month, quarter year) employees are permitted or expected to telecommute.
- Expectation of when a telecommuting day will commence and how it will proceed. Will employees be expected to be online and available for specific time intervals, or is the time spent discretionary and the productivity value of the day measured by work output or assignment completion?
- Telecommuting location. Must an employee work from a designated location at home, or will any location that supports the overall communications need suffice?
- Communications requirements. Must employees be “live” and on-line? If so, who bears the costs associated with communications?
- Technical requirements:
- How will information be shared and work distributed? Do you use a VPN, cloud storage or cloud desktops, simple email or move work back and forth on USB thumb drives?
- How will you manage privacy and information security concerns? You must address the issue of maintaining corporate information on personal computers, or in hardcopy documents maintained at home.
- Pay adjustments. Is there incentive pay for telecommuting? Is there a reduction in wage for the privilege of telecommuting? Are there tax implications for the business or the employees?
- Meeting scheduling and telecommuting conflicts. What are the requirements when multiple employees need to meet face to face, who has to “give up” a telecommuting day? Can employees meet off site to conduct a meeting during a telecommuting day?
- Policy exceptions and revocations. Consider including an “out” clause providing for management to cancel telecommuting whenever it sees fit for any reason. For most organizations, or job roles telecommuting is a privilege not a right.
What should you expect once you implement a telecommuting policy? Anecdotal reports indicate that acceptance of telecommuting follows a predictable path. When the policy is first introduced some employees and many managers may be skeptical. As staff work out the technical issues, and realize the personal cost savings (commuting expense reduction alone is often equivalent to a significant raise) the skepticism yields to appreciation.
“Appreciation and enthusiasm give way to a sense that telecommuting is ordinary or mundane. This is the critical point for any organization. When the “new” policy is accepted corporate culture, even taken for granted, managers need to be extra vigilant about maintaining expectations of assignment output and work quality, and strictly enforce policy guidelines,” explained Dr. Gilda Carle, management consultant and lifestyle expert.
This is also a point to review and refine the initial policy adjusting for the real experiences the company has encountered. “Telecommuting employees will also begin to respond differently after the initial ‘break-in’ period. Some will seek to return to more in-office time since the personal interaction with other employees is either psychologically supportive, or important to their job roles,” commented Dr. Gilda Carle.
Some will thrive in an independent working environment and may be even more productive given more flexibility of schedule and hands off, outcomes based management. If the transition to telecommuting is thoughtfully prepared and proactively managed, many companies will reap the rewards of a more satisfied and productive work-force, and the potential cost savings on physical resources at the home office. Some organizations may transition completely into virtual or near virtual enterprises where the need for a central office becomes superfluous. Advances in network (cloud) computing, voice over IP, and video conferencing truly render the technical issues easily manageable for many organizations. Parallel advancements in software systems such as CRM, business intelligence, ERP, private portals, document management, project management and work flow management, provide excellent tools for remote and/or asynchronous assignment and monitoring of employee projects.
So, if you’ve been thinking about telecommuting, there is no time like the present. Recessions are the perfect time to restructure your business, re-think your management approach, and increase competitive advantage.
About the author:
Charles (Chip) Buck has more than 20 years of experience in management and with PC-based business applications, and is COO and co-founder of independence IT (www.independenceit.com/whitepaper1). Mr. Buck earned his B.S. in computer science from Muhlenberg College and his master’s in information assurance from Norwich University. He is also a member of the Information Systems Audit and Control Association (ISACA) and Armed Forces
For more than a decade, independenceIT (www.independenceit.com/whitepaper1) has been giving small businesses a way to leverage technology without the burden of owning and maintaining it. The company offers its customers a path to freedom from “technology tyranny” by giving employees the ability to work where and when they will be most productive – whether they’re in the office, at home, or on the road.
[1] http://www.examiner.com/x-8570-Phoenix-Telecommuting-Examiner~y2009m6d17-Telecommuting-101-Series-3
