Sample Work From Home Policy – Is It Okay To Be Inconsistent?

First, let's define the question more precisely. It isn't whether someone is working from home. Instead, it's whether they work someplace where you or other directly-interested parties don't see or observe them regularly.

My experience, after 40 years, is that success or failure depends partly on the employee and partly on the manager, as well as overall managerial support for remote work arrangements. Whichever route you choose, it's important to be consistent, uniform and clear about when and why exceptions are made. Otherwise, you will eventually be viewed as showing favoritism.

The keys to success are no different from managing an employee face-to-face: set clear expectations and priorities, confirm there is mutual agreement and understanding, make sure the employee has adequate tools and information to do the work, and have frequent and regular assessment and discussion (not just at the annual review) about both "good" and "needs improvement" performance. In other words, communication is paramount.

Steve, you acknowledge that you're "old school." More on that in a minute. I'm not sure your example of missed IT deadlines is a good one though. In my experience (please, no flaming from the IT people) IT deadlines are often missed, regardless of whether the work is done down the hall, in a home office, or outsourced. Let me use an alternate example: granting corporate customers credit and collecting the resulting receivables. People doing this work need clear guidlelines and objectives, system access, a telephone and periodic assistance/direction. In my company, people in our PA HQ did this work. But, we also had people located in several other states doing identical work. Sometimes, the remote people worked alone. Frequently, remote employees worked from home or in a shared office where they were the only ones doing this job (e.g., available space at an unrelated subsidiary of our large parent company).

We used these remote arrangements because they made business sense at many levels (what's more old school than that?). We aimed to hire employees best suited to our needs but couldn't always find them locally. We also benefited from the remote worker's superior business knowledge of a more local geographic market, we avoided the family disruption and costs of relocating people to HQ, and we scored consistently well on employee satisfaction measures. Performance measurement for remote workers was the same as for HQ employees. One example: either numeric collection targets and past due targets are met or they are not. Potential downsides, though, include limits on employee professional growth, getting promoted when management doesn't "see" you daily, and a higher chance of problems if the manager doesn't pay attention.

We've had remote employees for at least 20 years. Perhaps it's positive adverse selection but they have generally been among our best performers and turnover is very low. Interestingly, we have done several acquisitions in recent years. The expansion of our customer base required an expansion of the credit and collections team by integrating employees from the acquired firms. The unit manager of the most recently acquired group is old school. He wants to know what time people arrive and leave, if they spend too long at lunch, gossip too frequently at the water cooler, etc., etc. He didn't see how he could possibly manage someone without that level of daily interaction and insight. In my view, that is a negative reflection on his managerial skills and his confidence about those skills. As your comment hints, the world is changing and the population of virtual workers is growing. As managers, we can either adapt, embrace and lead this change to give our business the maximum chance of succeess or we can wish for the good old days. I'd rather look forward.

Due to the nature of our work, in both the finance and client service area, we are limited with what can be done offsite. That said we have a very clear telecommuting policy that starts with treatment as an approved exception when needed. In advance of someone needing to telecommute, each party knows exactly what they can/not do from outside the office. As an example, the accounting department cannot process any credit cards externally as the only secure area is within our walls and through our secure fax line. As they might be restricted from getting all of their normal daily work done, they have to know how their working remotely will impact their colleagues who have to shuffle work to allow them to be productive. Additionally, clear guidelines about what constitutes a telecommuting day are communicated in advance and these include both what is accomplished and how communication to the home office works.

I know that Kmart corporation, whose HQ used to be in my hometown, still has a few hundred people working locally from home. They have clear expectations and are required to report to the local office on a regular basis (once a week/month/quarter).

The unmentioned problem with telecommuting can be a company's straying into the 24/7 worker. I have had to remind my current employer that those of us who 'leave on time' and then log-on from home are doing so to assist in getting work done and should not be assumed to do this all the time. That has been my biggest hurdle as I don't see my bosses understanding how this is counterproductive to improving employee morale. I have been lucky that the high turnover has not been in my department and am hopeful that my repeating this mantra will eventually help them discover one of the reasons they suffer this turnover regularly. If someone is allowed/expected to work from home or some other offsite area, clearly defined hours expectations that allow for the reasonable accomplishment of work need to be communicated and neither should cross the line.

I agree that the key to success is setting annual goals and having frequent status meetings. I report to the Treasurer of the company we meet at the start of each year and agree on objectives for the new year and have established weekly 1/2 hr status meetings. The weekly meetings gives him a chance to measure my progress and communicate any change in priorities.

I have a global position that requires frequent international conference calls early in the morning or very late at night, working from home and having a flexible work day makes these easier on me and my family which makes everyone happy.

I worked at two organizations that had very inflexible work from home policies. All they did was create resentement among myself and my colleagues. I often drove to work in the midst of a "blizzard" or a family illness/crisis/issue and it just made me wonder whether it was worth it to work for an organization that did not value me enough to be flexible.

In today's world an inflexible policy does not work. You are asking your workers to "do more with less" and any consideration that you afford them will "go miles" with them. I would advise a more flexible policy no matter how hard it will be "to sell" internally.

I've been working from my home office since 2006. My first remote position lasted 3.5 years and my current position is almost a year now. (And, yes, monitoring industry discussion boards like Proformative is part of my job.) My first remote post was for an outsource accounting firm where the majority of the staff and some of the execs were remote. My current employer, a non-profit focused on employee ownership and equity compensation, has the majority of the staff in the office and only my department (the equity comp folks) working remotely. Here are my observations after 4.5 years:

1. Seasoned professionals. Keith Perry's comment above is right on point. Remote staff must be professionals in every sense of the word and must have demonstrated that they are capable of managing their own time, meeting deliverables, and working cooperatively before leaving the cube.

2. Engaged managers. Jim Schwartz is on the money, too, when he allocates responsibility equally to the managers. Even the most seasoned professionals will feel abandoned if their managers are the "set it and forget it" type. Managers that know how to create relationships and that like mentoring will be much more successful in keeping remote workers engaged and on target.

3. Face time and recognition. When I first started working remotely I went into the office only for our annual all hands week, when we would do training and team building. My job was relatively independent of the rest of the team and time in office didn't really seem necessary. But about 1 year in, I had a family reason to be in town for a week, and arranged to spend working hours in the office. I took the time to get to know the office-based team, take meetings with my boss and the other executives, and after that week was over I found that communication with everyone had improved and my ideas were being solicited. During my last 2.5 years at the company I visited the office every 3-4 months, on my own dime, and built relationships with my colleagues that have outlasted the company. I also got some amazing work assignments, a great promotion and raise, and some challenging and enriching projects to manage during that period. During my last 1.5 years at the company I had an engaged manager that mentored me and supported me in stretch goals. I can honestly say that those 1.5 years have been the peak of my 20+ year career - I had my independence and great working relationships and I was recognized and well rewarded.

4. Productivity and hours. During my first year of relative isolation mentioned above, I pretty much worked "to the clock." I was an exempt employee and there was no mechanism like comp time for any overtime that I worked. Once I became an engaged employee, I stopped looking at the clock and would work to my projects. Sometimes I worked 60 hrs a week, sometimes I worked 35. In most states, the definition of an exempt employee often says something to the effect that if the work gets done then the hours don't matter, and that was how I worked. I more often worked 50-60 hr weeks than 40 hr weeks and, for me, the real danger was burn out. Fortunately my manager recognized that and worked with me to ensure that I got sufficient down time to stay healthy. By comparison, during the times that I would visit the office, my production usually plummeted because I could hear other staff having distracting personal calls, or standing in the cubeways visiting, or stopping by my cube for a visit, and to keep my projects on schedule I would go back to my lodging and work in the evenings, too. In the end, it was much less of a distraction and much more productive for me to be working at my home office and occasionally changing a load of laundry during the week than to be at the office with unscheduled interruptions and regular break times.

5. Resources. Having a real home office setup is important for me. Here are my essentials: an ample desk with a laptop connected to a large screen and wireless keyboard and mouse; Skype or VOIP phone; a printer (infrequently used); a PDF program (use it constantly - PDF995 has a nominal cost and great functionality); and, of course, high-speed internet. My first company provided all of those things to me, my current organization does not and I pay for everything. The biggest resource I miss from my first company is having remote IT assistance - we used Centerbeam and I loved it, we had about 40 people in the company and I believe it only cost about $15/laptop.

6. Policy. Keith is also right on about the "fairness" issue. At the accounting firm we had a specific telecommuting policy that allowed any staff member to apply to work remotely and the decision would be made by the manager with the staff person based on the appropriateness of the person's job function and professional development. The managerial review process took care of the fairness issue.

I hope this summary of my experience helps you understand the requirements for having successful remote workers. Because of the projects I managed, I was pretty involved in many of the administrative details of the accounting firm, so I'd be happy to answer any questions you might have about how specific aspects of the situation were handled.

I love working remotely and, when appropriately managed, it really can boost a company's bottom line by reducing facilities costs and increasing staff productivity.

I have worked for organizations that has flexible & inflexible policy in this matter. I myself try to do everything in the office so I don't have to think about work on my personal time. However, this last winter of snowstorm in my home town made me realized the importance to keep such a policy open. When you allow the work from home option at work, you are going to make sure the infrastructure supports that policy. That infrastructure will help in the case of business continuity such as the traffic issue in the snowstorm we have experienced.

On a side note, my experience on why this doesn't work tend to be that companies haven't let it run it's course long enough. Just like any new product out in the market, there are going to be some wrinkles that need to be ironed out. A lot of times it really depends on how much the parties involved are willing to stand behind it.

My husband works from home full time gave up his 4 hour commute as his company offered a full time work from home option. Guess what he does with this time, work more and has out performed his goals consistently for the past 3 years. Initially their company started this to retain their women employees who had gone on maternity leave and requested for a flex arrangement, they found a spike in performance from all these employees that worked from home. Bottom line its the best thing ever to balance your life. My company allows work from home in extreme weather conditions and am very thankful for this. If you want a happy workforce this is the way to go.

We had line employees working from home. For HIPAA privacy concerns we brought everyone in-house and found that productivity soared, no more people were sighted at the mall etc.

we have run into the same issue. does anyone have a work from home policy (for the seldom occasion) that works?

Marina ... I am in the same boat, we are looking for a Policy/Incentive Plan/Program to allow people work from home occasionally (i.e. sick children, weather). Our company is the exact same scenario as the gentleman (Steve Belnap Feb 2011) that began this post. Our issues are similar; employees using the work from home scenario are key trusted management employees that also need to be at our office to direct staff. Since they began working from home it has become more frequent. As a result other less productive employees feel they have the right to do the same. One thought was banking work from home days, say 1 per quarter if they obtain perfect attendance for that previous quarter.
If anyone has other ideas ... please share .. thank you

One other issue that hasn't been raised here is the issue that surrounds worker's compensation issues. If the person working from home, trips and falls, and your policy says no work from home, you might run into an issue with your WC insurer. Please understand that insurance companies look for reasons to not honor your claims. You agree to a lot of things when you sign up for WC policy - one being that you enforce the policies in your employee handbook.

The risk of data security mentioned above also is a concern as well even if you have a solid VPN, as the computer being used could pick up a virus and if later brought into the office (laptop), you risk infection. Also my understanding is that depending on how the VPN is implemented, the wireless connection can still be sniffed unless it is encrtyped properly.

As will all policies, consistent enforcement and training of managers on what is allowed and not allowed will reduce the likelihood of being sued later for discriminatory behavior. You policy may allow for manager discretion, but unless you are monitoring this for consistency, you willl run into disgruntled employees claiming one manager is more lenient than others.

Obviously some of these are edge cases and may never come up in your business, however, you should be fully aware of what risk you are taking on when you allow people to work from home either formally or informally.

I have a related question- work from home restrictions as applies to non exempt employees. Our company has an "unwritten" policy that allows employees to work from home when needed which works well. While the majority of our employees are exempt, we've had inquiries from non exempt employees about working from home. In evaluating their job functions, we found that a small percentage of their work could be done at home. How do you draft a policy around non exempt employees?

That is a hard one since you cannot control the environment to meet the burden (at least in California) to have meal breaks and rest periods taken. There are no supervisors to vouch this and you have a hard time ensuring time keeping (unless you have a good PC based time sheet system).

Personally, I wouldn't bother with the potential headache it could cause, but if you can mitigate the risk of the meal breaks/rest period requirements and are comfortable with the time keeping / hour tracking issue, the policy wouldn't be much different other than allowing HR or managers to determine certain positions / job duties (not people) can work from a remote location.

Also remember that you also opening up the workers' comp issue (I fell at home while working). Make sure your WC insurance carrier knows you have remote based employees.