How Can We Prevent Work From Home Privileges from Being Misused by Employees?

I manage the HR requirements for a small but global IT company that facilitates other IT giants in marketing their products - Channel marketing. Our Account Managers and Program Managers need to stay in constant contact with their clients, customers, and colleagues. Most of them have permission to work or provide support from home. As we work across different time zones, they sometimes need to attend meetings from home.

A couple of them are abusing this privilege by applying to work from home whenever they face a personal challenge. They are allowed to do so because their reporting Head is located in the states where most employees work from home by design and save on commuting time.

Request for Work From Home Policy Suggestions

Can anyone help me by suggesting a proper work from home policy that can curtail such abuses?

Thank you in advance,

Regards,
Ashok

Dear Ashok,

You have written, "A couple of them are abusing this privilege by applying to work from home whenever they have some personal challenge."

We need clarification here. What do you mean by "abusing"?

Understanding Work from Home Policies

"Work from home" is a facility provided to employees whose targets are well defined. The amount of work they need to complete in a specific time frame is determined. Certain tasks do not require personal interaction with other departments. Many things can be managed through telephone, email, etc., and this work-from-home facility is only given to those employees. So, where does the issue of "abusing the facility" arise?

Benefits of Work from Home

Organizations are implementing "work from home" to save on electricity, water consumption, and more. Some organizations even encourage employees to work from home exclusively, as stated in their appointment letters.

Every situation has its downside. For instance, a female employee working from home may be supervising her child's homework after school. Another person might be taking a quick nap. However, considering the cost savings, it's acceptable to give them this flexibility and overlook these minor issues.

Productivity Concerns in Office Work

Regarding productivity in office work—employees often take extended tea or lunch breaks, engage in long conversations in person or over the phone, have smoke breaks, or spend time on social media.

By the way, what is the productivity of those working in the office? There are extended tea or lunch breaks, long chats either in person or on the telephone, etc. Secondly, what about smoke breaks or engagement with "social media"?

Best regards,

Dinesh V Divekar

We understand it's the people who are close to power centers whom you are trying to bring to book. There are numerous measures for working from home; however, none of them may work for you. Please observe and discuss with the reporting managers of these people on what measures should be taken.

There are tons of tracking software, but that may not provide you with any solution as the job content can be beyond the scope of those software programs. Accountability to their jobs can be best explained by their reporting leaders. Call for a KRA review and identify the changes in the deliverables. Find measures and attach rankings or scores to them.

At the end of the day, keep it human, as it remains a benefit more than a work arrangement. Telecommuting offers a lower salary as the freedom to perform is higher. Build a new scorecard for these employees. Trust, that should help.

While concurring with both Dinesh and (Cite Contribution), there's another aspect of the whole HR perspective that you may need to consider. The concept/practice of 'work from home' essentially came into being to make HR policies more flexible, while ensuring that the work gets done and both the employee and the organization benefit—a sort of win-win situation.

Evaluating Work from Home Practices

Now, you wish to, in a way, 'take the clock backwards'. Rather than focusing on whether the person is 'abusing' the facility or not (whose definition, as Dinesh pointed out, could vary from person to person), suggest if the work/target/deadline is being affected. If not, just forget it.

Having said this, if at all you wish to tweak the practice a bit in your company, suggest speaking to the Reporting Managers and tightening the targets a bit.

Regards,
TS

Understanding Work Policies and Employee Performance

There are basic premises behind any work policy. You have used the term "abusing." I don't know what you mean by that. Gone are the days when the supervisor looks over the shoulder of the subordinate every 5 minutes and decides (judges) whether the employee is performing or not. Today, the whole concept of employee performance has shifted from tracking inputs using terms such as obedient, hardworking, and sincere worker, dedicated employee... (whatever it meant earlier) to tracking performance on clearly defined and transparent performance indicators.

In such a situation, there is nothing like abusing the facility, as it is irrelevant to the company what, when, and how the employee does their work, as long as the defined performance metrics are achieved and not rewarded based on a defined performance-based reward system.

Employee Rights and Job Seeking

Regarding the employee using emails to seek other jobs, I honestly, firmly, and sincerely believe that you shouldn't waste your time, energy, and peace of mind by getting into these irrelevant matters, as the employee has the absolute right to seek other jobs. Even if they were to sit in your office where you block access to employment sites, in this open world, they can do what they want from their internet connection or other means after office hours.

Focus on Employee Retention

So, I tend to agree with Dinesh (Cite Contribution) and others above. Get the idea of someone abusing positions, WFH facilities, etc., out of your head and try to understand if your employee has any real issues, why they are looking elsewhere. You will be better off. Today, we are in a situation where your objective is to attract and retain your team, not coerce them into your ways. It just won't work.

Very well said, Dinesh. You hit the nail on the head. If the option itself says "Work from Home," why bother how they use it, as long as the work they are responsible for gets done on time? Otherwise, it gets questioned by default.

You should not worry about the employees applying to work from home as long as their performance does not affect your business. If it does, then you need to think of a solution. If the target is completed, then why worry? Ensure that you give them a target and ask them to report every evening at the closing time.

See if it works for you.

Regards,
Satish
[Phone Number Removed For Privacy Reasons]

Others have given you very good ideas; hence, let me ask a few questions before giving some examples.

Performance Concerns

Have the line managers of these employees complained about their performance? If not, how do you know that they are misusing the facility?

I have worked in academia in two types of institutions: a college where the teaching staff is expected to be on the premises five days a week from 9 till 5, whether they have classes to take or not, and a university where we had to be present when we had classes and attend meetings, counsel students, etc. In the latter, when I have informed the office that I would be working from home, they have been very apologetic when they have phoned me for advice. I, in my part, have corresponded with students by email and given guidance about their projects, even when on vacation in India.

Similarly, when people are dealing with individuals in different time zones, flexibility and honesty are key. If the managers are not complaining, then why bother?

Addressing Work-from-Home Challenges

When you don't have a process to set measurable goals and track the performance of individuals, and when HR perceives that people working from home tend to enjoy life, you may fail to understand concepts such as the 'virtual office.' If you are merely looking for ways to fix certain people, you might focus on employees permitted to work from home and occasionally label them as 'abusing a privilege.' It's important to realize that this privilege was forced upon them due to your own compulsions to provide workspaces and administrative support during odd hours. The financial overheads were probably unaffordable to make them work from an office.

Therefore, please establish processes to make them accountable for job performance parameters (e.g., targets/KPIs for each goal/task/KRA). If you can't do that due to the lack of maturity in your monitoring and control processes, think twice before doubting the integrity of people. Remember that people generally enjoy doing their work, provided their managers know how to extract work from them.

To my mind, therefore, it is your system's failure if someone is truly 'abusing a privilege'.

I agree with the majority of seniors who have given their views. It seems to be the typical notion of HRs, who feel if the employee is "having fun," it is time to bring them to book!

"A couple of them are abusing this privilege by applying to work from home whenever they have some personal challenge." If it's only a couple of employees, why have a "proper work from home policy that can curtail such abuses," which will affect ALL such employees who are not "abusing" it?

Moreover, "abuse" itself is subjective here.

Monitoring Employee Performance

Another pertinent question is: Are there not people who are responsible for monitoring their performance? Their reporting heads/superiors? What about their Performance Appraisals; Tasks/Targets?

HR's Role in Technical Assignments

Is it necessary for HR to initiate suo moto action in case of employees dealing in technical assignments, without any complaints from their reporting officers about their performance issues?

Should HR be involved in such matters which pertain to other functional areas and domains?

I think the responses from our esteemed members also answer these questions without them being asked.

Warm regards.

I am overwhelmed by your feedback and appreciate it. Thank you! As one of my colleagues mentioned, everything can be tracked, monitored, and deliverables measured. What I want to curb is that some employees close to power centers based abroad use this privilege to catch up on personal work or even go out to other job interviews. A classic example was when an employee 'working from home,' supposed to be handling clients in the APAC region, bumped into another employee who had taken the day off to attend the same interview. Officially, the first employee was working from home and attending to clients, and mobile technology today can allow WebEx meetings to be held from a coffee shop. We do not have a proper documented policy in place.

Thanks in advance,

Ashok

Dear Ashok, you have rightly identified the flaw in the system; hence, design the policy for it. A request, please don't make any individual a focus of this initiative. It might unnecessarily create obstacles for you. Stay focused on designing the HR Systems for the emerging Business Processes.

You will find tons of policies in this community to refer to and understand how they are structured. Here are a few points to consider while framing the policy: [Work from home](https://www.citehr.com/443023-work-home-policy-how-why-frame.html).

When you design the policy for your firm, please pre-wire all the current and future challenges. Right now, the bosses in the US are not raising any questions. God forbid, if these talents leave, creating a dent in the benefits offered to them, it will hurt the employees who are yet to avail of it.

Define the benefits to be offered and identify to what extent you will write off the outages. Identify the escalation standards and who would be managing them. Include not just under-performance but also standards for data security. Define what the employee would remain answerable for and to whom. Setting the guidelines will create fewer options for misuse, even if the leaders in the US choose not to intervene.

Please frame the points for KRA review each time an employee shifts into the telecommute mode. Identify the changes in terms of responsibilities that the employees have gone through and will go through within the role.

Here's a very old discussion, but one of the best, I consider, to gain clarity while defining the KRA/KPI for any role: [KRA-KPI Format](https://www.citehr.com/136390-kra-kpi-format.html).

Trust this would help! Wish you all the best!