Over the past few years in particular, working from home has become more and more of a reality for so many people. Therefore, if you are an employer or manager, you certainly need to do more to ensure that the working from home policy you put in place is successful. There are plenty of different ways available to make sure that your working from home policy ticks all the right boxes – helping your staff members do their jobs effectively while not negatively impacting your bottom line profits. So, here are a few of the main elements that you need to bear in mind.
Define the Parameters of the Policy
First of all, you need to get down in writing any specific parameters or restrictions on working from home. For example, you need to say exactly which staff members are able to work from home. Is it a company-wide policy or will it only be restricted to certain members of staff? At the same time, you also need to look closer at the specific hours that you need people to keep. Are you happy for people to work all hours or do you need them to keep certain core office hours? You also need to think about the potential to work abroad and whether people are allowed to take on this option.
Decide and Provide Tech
You then need to think about the tech that people are going to be using when working from home. Are you going to provide them with their own laptop or are you happy with them using their own personal computer? You also need to consider anything extra that they may well need to work from home successfully. For example, a headset, monitor, keyboard etc. You also need to ensure that the tech they are using forms a central part of the policy document you are creating. For example, they may not be permitted to use their own tech and only the office laptops are allowed.
Make Sure Safety is Made Paramount
There is no doubt that safety online needs to be a central component in your working from home policy. For example, there is always the need to stay safe when WFH, and you may need to provide training on the best ways to ensure that this is the case. At the same time, you also need to consider the different programs and software that can help to make this a reality. For example, ensuring that everyone always logs in using a VPN and does not use an unprotected network should form a central part of what you are doing here.
Set Your Expectations
There are bound to be certain expectations that you have when members of staff are working from home. For example, it could be that you need them to keep within certain working hours. For some job roles, it may well be appropriate that you provide them with targets that they have to hit. Perhaps checking in with the manager regularly is another important expectation you have of your employees. Ultimately, there needs to be a degree of trust here, but it is also important that there are monitoring systems in place. While many employees are going to work from home highly effectively, there are also some that are not going to do it in the most effective way.
Onboard New Staff Members with the Same Guidance
It can prove difficult to ensure that new staff members are given the onboarding process that they need. If you fail to do this, it can easily result in a situation where your organization starts to suffer as the team is not properly trained, knowledgeable in your organization or working together efficiently. You need to ensure that they are fully introduced to the whole team around them, as well as doing more to make them feel like they are a central part of your company. You also need to ensure that expectations are laid out clearly for them to follow – in a way that allows them to go back and check if they are not sure for whatever reason.
All of these are amongst the different main policies you can put in place to ensure that working from home is as successful as possible. Ultimately, the more defined it is, the more likely it is that the whole endeavor will be a successful one that you can look at with a great sense of pride and achieve results.
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