Neha t
1

Hi, Can anybody help me with work from home policy? Regards, Neha
From India, Pune
Cite Contribution
1858

Dear Neha,

Please do consider the suggestion while formulating the policy:
  1. The nature of the job- The performance assessment will depend on what is provided as an input and what level of output is delivered within the agreed parameters.
  2. Provide broadband, laptop and other support- Please do check what the organization would provide the employee as a support. Would the employee require using their own machines? How would the organization pay for the internet and telephone charges? Technical helpdesk support would be required by the employee, please mention whether your company would offer it or not.
  3. Interaction required in the role: Please set the parameters for minimum levels of interaction to be required in the role. If the employee is supposed to report weekly or monthly in the head quarters, please do clarify it.
  4. Standards for the workplace: You have little control over that, but do mention what are the minimum requirements for the home office space so that the employee is prepared for it, before they start the job.
  5. Orientation to the employee: It might sound good, but a sudden switch from a 8hr-10hr work schedule at office to the same duration at home might have behavioural limits. It may get isolated and reclusive for the employee. More importantly being able to match the routine and not stretch the work till every waking hour would need the discipline to set in.
  6. The upside of this benefit is, you get the employee a lot more productive as the time spent in commute is saved. The employee has lot more options to choose the most productive time zone to work.
  7. The downside is, it needs monitoring. The jobs allocated and the escalation faced by the employee should not slip through the gaps. The geographical distance can add as a barrier when subtle signs are missed. Please make sure conf call through skype are arranged by the reporting managers with all these employees to keep everyone posted about the progress in the project and provide them a platform to connect with each other. Skype and Gtalk offer seamless connectivity. Hence acts as an effective mode for communication.
Please do find a document and a link with a similar discussions attached for your perusal.
https://www.citehr.com/40420-policy-...#axzz17JTuB4K4
https://www.citehr.com/18063-work-ho...#axzz17JTdX47Q

Request you to consider these advices while orienting your employee for WFH.
https://www.citehr.com/298511-actual...#axzz17Jb1witT

In addition to this , a suggestion from my experience, no cell phone zone works for me. I keep my cell phone in slient and check them during the breaks. This allows me to choose which calls would I answer. It helps me to remain focussed at the task in hand.


Regards,
(Cite Contribution)

From India, Mumbai
Attached Files (Download Requires Membership)
File Type: doc working_from_home_826.doc (57.5 KB, 2378 views)

Raj Kumar Hansdah
1426

Dear (Cite Contribution)
I have gone through your post and the attachment. I find the 'working from Home' policy provided therewith, very apt and proper as it is a "speaking" policy in itself and covers all the aspects from the employer's as well as employee's side.
It is good enough to be adopted as a Model policy.
Warm regards.

From India, Delhi
Cite Contribution
1858

Thank you Raj,

Appreciate your review. I found the document in this community. This policy implementation would require a lot of due diligence by Neha. Hope we have discussed most of the points and she would be able to implement it.

At the end of the day, the success of this program would depend on the environment created for the employee and the result from the job delivered. It is one of the best benefit and works best as a retention strategy. It stands highly productive when dealt right.

Hope to read Neha's success story
Regards,
(Cite Contribution)

From India, Mumbai
nagaraj1946
1

dear nabomitha thanks for sharing. infact though i hv worked in an engineering industry, this subject was quite new to me. thanks for teaching a new subject dr nagaraj
From India, Bangalore
Neha t
1

Thank you so much (Cite Contribution) for sharing some really good points which I would never have thought about like orientation and helping me in putting the WFH policy in effect from today.
Regards,
Neha

From India, Pune
Anayaat
103

Hi there,

I have gone through the document and it’s a perfect basis for working at policy but it has not looked at the following

•what are the methods of calculating salary payment,

•does the normal annual leave, sick leave, overtime apply to this kind of jobs

•how do you subject this kind of jobs to training as you mentioned they should be given equal treatment as those who work at the office

•are they going to be allowed to travel outside the country for training and given equal amount of travel/ training allowance same as those who are working in the office.

•how do you evaluate their performance ( based on their deliverables only)

•will I be paid bonuses/ increment as per the HR manuals same as office working person.

•Am I entitled to only what is provided to me in the contract or all conditions mentioned in the HR manual applies to stay at home worker.

•Does the organization has the right to develop such policy or should the relevant government organization be involved like your local ministry of manpower ?!

Question: in the policy have you considered hindering situations that will not be in the working at home employee such as - Requiring inside documents / information from members of staff- will they deliver-

how to claim ownership of the project as a stay at home worker cause I am not in the office will my efforts be recognized

I think there is a lot involved and to be considered when developing such policy the stay at home worker will always be at dis-advantage.

From Oman, Muscat
sap2010
Dear All,
Really feel motivated the way you all people share your knowledge here and inspire others to do their best. Help them to think in broadly. Though I am from Accounts background but really gained through your expertise here on various issue especially on human behavior.
And also I really wish there would be some expert moderator in the forum(Citefin.com) as I have seen there are very few queries are discussed and most of time not answered related to accounts and finance. Hope that site too will be a huge success like citehr.
This topic too touches my sense a lot and really appreciate your sharing here.
I have been learning here a lot since my joining this forum and again thanks for all your sharing whatever you have and hopefully I too may be able to share something little and new with you all people.
Thanks a lot and Keep Sharing & Motivating.
Regards,
Singh S

From India, Delhi
Cite Contribution
1858

Greetings,

Please do find my inputs accordingly :

what are the methods of calculating salary payment, does the normal annual leave, sick leave, overtime apply to this kind of jobs - The salary can be tasks based or role based. Here are few experiences for managing the WFH employees. This is how their work was measured and they received the benefits.
  • I have handled employees at 24/7 Maintenance and support for IT. There was a salary which was at par with the employees working in the office in the normal 8.5 hrs a day. The leaves declaration for them stood similar as the work was extremely grueling. They had VPN connectivity , hence their managers could keep a live-check on their work. It was similar to how e-lancing works , where the managers can see the monitors or screen and dashboard with task completion live on their screens. There were several spot checks. For a company who wish to implement this and not invest on VPN , they may consider Skype for 24/7 connectivity to the employees . It even offers the Screen Sharing option. A similar dashboard to vies task completion can be built even on MS Excel or MS Access. These sheets can be stored in Google docs with access to the reporting manager to view it live.
  • There was another role which I handled and it had sales employees. These were purely task based. The employees didnot have to report to office everyday . they could be in field or at home, they had to report twice a day with the number of sales made.
  • Fianlly was a work from home recruiter. It was another task based role. The recruiter had an access to the resumes to screen through the first few rounds and arrange the technical rounds. This was purely based on the numbers and stages covered.
  • I understand researchers and writers follow similar WFH polices. Request such a company in this community to share their practices.

how do you subject this kind of jobs to training as you mentioned they should be given equal treatment as those who work at the office All these employees had an access to the online training right from the Code of conduct to behavioral/ communication and technical skills training. The Classroom training was arranged in parallel with the office based employees. The ROI was calculated similarly through the difference measured at work.

are they going to be allowed to travel outside the country for training and given equal amount of travel/ training allowance same as those who are working in the office. Well this was different for the roles. Please find the accordingly:
  • The IT Maintenance and development team was offered an allowance only when they traveled to the client site. The TA & DA remained similar to the office based employees.
  • The sales team had the total budget for each employee out of which the TA & DA was provided
  • The recruiters received TA only when they had recruitment drives and traveled to hire in different cities or off location away from the office.

how do you evaluate their performance ( based on their deliverables only) This was the first description made clear to them right during the interview. There was a scorecard which was directly related to the dashboard they would be maintaining on a daily basis. Their reporting managers had a live access to these dashboards. This was clearly defined in their goal sheets and created a career progression.

will I be paid bonuses/ increment as per the HR manuals same as office working person. - The compensation, benefits , increments were all based on the tasks which was targeted and achieved. Now the employees at office were given their own goals all aligned to the project. Hence the parity was built ultimately with the focus on performance.

Am I entitled to only what is provided to me in the contract or all conditions mentioned in the HR manual applies to stay at home worker. Yes virtual office required the employee to follow the same rules applicable to the real office. Though there were differences, such as work timing, dress code and etc. The guidelines for Code of Conduct, IPR, Non-compete, legal discipline, Financial declaration, all remained the same.

Does the organization has the right to develop such policy or should the relevant government organization be involved like your local ministry of manpower ? In my experience , we did not have any litigation to what was practiced. I have requested the Legal experts in this community to comment on this.

Question: in the policy have you considered hindering situations that will not be in the working at home employee such as - Requiring inside documents / information from members of staff- will they deliver-how to claim ownership of the project as a stay at home worker cause I am not in the office will my efforts be recognized To answer these questions, here's my comment
  • The work arrangements offered live access to all the documents and data required to deliver the job through VPN. In case a company don't consider it, Google Docs is free and best, security to the information can always be designed.
  • We had Jabber which was an inhouse Chat server which allowed the cohorts to exchange notes at the earliest. Skype is the best option and its free, yet offer the same usability. It even offers the voice option with camera, so the manager can arrange for online meetings with the entire WFH team.
  • The dashboard covered the ownership and the employees had a turn-around-time on every task including answering emails and chat messages.

Please do revert if I answered all your queries. Will look forward to know more what you wish to learn in this.

Regards,
(Cite Contribution)


From India, Mumbai
ameya_is
Hi Guys, I would like to know how can a leave policy model be created for people who work from home. Please reply as this would be very interesting to understand. Regards, Ameya
From India, Thana
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