10 Things Every Remote Work Policy Should Have

Remote and hybrid work are now a key part of many organizations. However, as more and more companies embrace remote work as a new norm, it’s necessary to establish a sustainable remote work policy. Remote work policies help sustain a smooth transition from the traditional office setup to a remote working environment. This article delves into how to create a work policy that will support your team and prepare both managers and team members to work remotely or in a hybrid setting. 

Businesses are seeing the benefits of allowing employees to work remotely and are gearing towards introducing more flexible work arrangements. But while remote work isn’t a new concept, many businesses struggle to transition from the traditional office setup to a remote working environment. 

Transitioning to remote work can be overwhelming but it isn’t impossible to achieve. A remote work policy will help leaders to transition their business and prepare their employees to work remotely. 

If you’re new to remote work and have been cracking your brains on what your remote work policy should have, don’t fret. In this article, we share the 10 must-haves every remote work policy should contain. 

Why You Need a Sustainable Remote Work Policy?

People often confuse remote work with a simple WFH (work-from-home) model. Today, remote work extends beyond the simplicity of having a laptop and internet connection. Although you still need a powerful laptop and stable internet connection to work remotely, creating a thriving remote work ecosystem is much more than that. 

Remote work today is all about nurturing an environment and collaboration with your other coworkers that breaks the communication barriers. Remote work also requires you to think outside the box and showcase your creativity and innovation. 

Your employees and you need to establish clear expectations and develop a framework that will encourage your remote work strategy. 

A remote work policy outlines the company’s expectations, requirements, and responsibilities for employees who work remotely. 

It also outlines the company’s responsibilities in ensuring employees have what they need to be productive and successful in their jobs while working remotely. 

Having a remote work policy removes the guesswork and prevents possible confusion between employees and employers. 

This will also help prevent your remote work setup from failing. When crafting a remote work policy for the first time, it will also serve as a way for business leaders to review their current infrastructure and assess whether it adequately supports remote work. 

Remote work policies provide the structure needed for employees to effectively work wherever they are. Without a remote work policy, things can get messy and may affect the productivity and job satisfaction of your employees.

10 Things Every Remote Work Policy Should Have

Whether you’re looking to provide more employee flexibility or ensure business continuity in a remote or hybrid work setting, having a remote work policy is essential. 

These tips will help you develop a policy that will minimize overhead costs, improve your remote workplace, and foster continuous improvement and collaboration. A good remote work policy should have the following 10 things. 

1. Purpose

When defining your work policy, its purpose serves as a foundational piece, which defines why and when your remote work policy should be activated. A remote work policy is also helpful to have in a hybrid work setting.

This will help your employees understand why the business is pursuing remote work and what business goals it aims to support. Here’s what the purpose section should cover:

• Business Continuity: In scenarios like natural disasters, public health emergencies, or other unforeseen circumstances, a remote work policy ensures business operations can continue with minimal disruption.
• Talent Acquisition and Retention: Highlighting the commitment to flexibility can aid in attracting and retaining top talent who seek work-life balance and prefer the flexibility that remote work offers.
• Productivity and Efficiency: Emphasize how remote work can lead to increased productivity and efficiency, as employees can work in environments that suit their personal productivity styles.

2. Eligibility

Clearly specify who is eligible to work remotely. While most jobs can be done outside an office, there might be some functions or operations that would still require employees to conduct their business in the office. Take the time to assess if working remotely will hinder job success or if there are ways to augment the current setup to fully transition to remote work. 

Examples:

• Job Role and Responsibilities: Certain roles that require physical presence, like lab technicians or manufacturing staff, may not be eligible.
• Performance Metrics: Employees who consistently meet or exceed performance expectations may be considered eligible for remote work.
• Technological Requirements: Positions that rely on specialized hardware or secure networks only available in the office might not be suitable for remote work.
• Supervisory Roles: Managers who need to provide in-person supervision might have limited remote work eligibility.
• Training and Onboarding: New employees or those in need of extensive training might be required to work onsite initially.

3. Request and Approval

If you’re aiming to preserve the hybrid work model, rather than fully remote model, it’s important to outline a request and approval process for when certain employees want to shift to a remote work. This is extremely important in certain circumstances like when an employee gets injured but wants to continue working remotely. 

Examples:

• Online Application Form: Submitting request through an online platform, with reasons for wanting to work remotely.
• Medical Documentation Requirement: In cases of injury, employees may be required to provide medical documentation supporting the need for remote work.
• Approval by Direct Supervisor: The direct supervisor reviews the request, possibly in consultation with HR, to ensure the employee’s role is suitable for remote work.
• Temporary Approval for Special Circumstances: Employees with temporary health issues or caregiving responsibilities can request short-term remote work arrangements.
• Review Meeting: A meeting between the employee and management to discuss the feasibility of remote work and set clear expectations.

4. Attendance and Availability

Your remote work policy should ensure that your employee won’t abuse and take advantage of this flexible work model. There are some responsible roles where flexible work may not always be possible. That said, letting employees work at their own convenience may not be ideal for all job functions. 

Having an availability and schedule clause in your remote work policy will allow predictability for when your employees are expected to work. This will also help support schedules of interaction between their teams and managers. Your remote work policy should also indicate how employees are going to clock in and out of work. 

Examples:

• Set Core Hours: Employees are expected to be available during specific core hours, e.g., 10 AM to 3 PM, to ensure team collaboration and availability for meetings.
• Time Tracking Software: Utilization of time tracking software where employees log in at the start and end of their workday, ensuring transparency and accountability.
• Scheduled Check-ins: Mandatory daily or weekly check-ins via video call or team chat apps, providing regular updates on work progress and maintaining team cohesion.

5. Communication and Responsiveness

One of the challenges managers may experience when managing a remote team is communication and responsiveness. Your remote work policy must clearly indicate how responsive an employee should be during your set work hours. It should also specify what main mode of communication will be used. 

With one of the teams I handle, we use Slack as our main communication tool. In our remote work policy, we require each team member to indicate their schedules on their Slack status and whether they are at work. 

We expect that when they are available on Slack and have their status as Working that they can answer queries immediately. If they’re out on a break, they need to reflect that in their Slack status.

Examples

• Designated Communication Platforms: Tools like Slack or Microsoft Teams should be the primary tool for team communication, where team members can seek information.
• Status Updates: Update Slack status to reflect the current availability.
• Response Time Expectations: There should be clear expectations for response times during work hours.

6. Remote Work Tools and Support

Your remote work policy should clearly state the communication and collaboration tools you’ll use and why. That way, everyone can access these tools for the kind of work they are doing and knows how to use them properly. 

It’s also important to include training for the new tools you’ll be introducing to your workplace. If you’re wondering what tools you need, here’s a list of remote tools that you must have in place before you even think of implementing a remote work policy. 

Lastly, make sure to list a support person. The person who’ll take care of potential shortcomings and errors that may arise during the use of those apps. That person will help the team address those issues and resolve technical problems. 

Examples

• Tool List & Purpose: Make sure to mention all the remote work tools used like Slack for communication, Zoom for meetings, Kanban Zone for collaboration and more. 
• Training: Offer short and practical training sessions to make sure each employee can use them effectively. 
• Tech Support Contact: Choose someone experienced to act as a support person for technical assistance.

7. Data Security

Another challenge when dealing with remote work is data security and integrity. If you are dealing with confidential or proprietary data, you might need to install and provide your employees with additional security tools, like a VPN, to ensure that company data they’re accessing remotely is safe. 

Additionally, using tools with two-factor authentication and end-to-end encryption can help you sleep better at night, knowing that your company data is secure. 

This will also mean that your employees can only conduct work on company-approved or issued devices. It’s also recommended to require your employees to only join encrypted hotspots or private Wi-Fi networks to connect to the Internet. The same level of data security you have on your office should be translated to wherever your employees might be working.

Making sure that your employees are using encrypted and secure tools can be difficult when your employees work remotely. Some of them could be using computers with pirated operating systems, or third-party apps, while they may also utilize some third-party tools that are less regulated to conduct work. 

Make sure to equip your employees with the necessary hardware and software that will ensure the highest level of confidentiality, and make sure to outline the importance of using only secure tools in their work. 

Examples

• Secure File Sharing: Use platforms that offer encrypted file sharing to protect sensitive information during transfer.
• Regular Security Audits: Conduct periodic reviews of security measures to identify and address potential vulnerabilities.
• Employee Training on Cybersecurity: Provide ongoing education on security best practices, including identifying phishing attempts and secure password creation.

8. Legal Rights

One of the most important things every remote work policy should have are legal rights. These matters are usually discussed with the HR, finance, as well as legal teams. These roles work together to transparently define labor rights and policy issues that need to be addressed when adopting a remote work arrangement. 

This is especially important if you are a highly distributed company. There can be labor regulations in specific countries that you need to be subjected to because that’s where your remote workers are. 

This ensures your business is compliant and won’t have to deal with legal issues down the line. Your policy should also clearly state that employees won’t be terminated just because they are working remotely. 

Remote workers should be entitled to the same benefits, employment laws, processes, practices, and rights as their in-office counterparts. 

Examples

• Compliance with Local Laws: Ensure policies are compliant with labor laws in the regions where remote employees reside.
• Equal Treatment: Guarantee remote workers have the same rights and benefits as in-office staff.
• Clear Termination Policies: State that remote work status does not affect employment security.

9. Benefits

Your remote work policy should state if remote workers are entitled to any additional benefits. Can they reimburse any expenses incurred due to working remotely, such as their monthly broadband subscription fees? Will you be offering health plan funds or gym membership perks to support the overall health and well-being of your employees including remote workers? 

These are just some examples of remote work benefits that companies can offer their employees. While nothing is mandatory, consider how you can best support your employees and how much you can spend on these programs. 

• Expense Reimbursement: Define which expenses, like internet costs, are reimbursable.
• Health and Wellness: Offer health plans that include remote workers, including fitness passes, mental health apps and other health-focused benefits. 
• Equipment Allowance: Provide a budget for home office setup.-*

10. Measures of Success

Measuring the success of your remote work policy may vary from job to job or from team to team. It depends on the metrics that would make sense for the job or team in consideration. 

Determine what metrics would make sense for the job at hand. I recommend you focus more on results-focused metrics over superficial ones such as hours worked. 

Working longer hours doesn’t necessarily mean higher levels of productivity. It can even mean the opposite. Instead, focus on the desired outcomes of the business and assess whether your teams can achieve those outcomes using the remote work policies you have in place. 

• Outcome-Based Evaluation: Focus on the achievement of specific business goals rather than tracking hours. Measure outcomes over outputs. 
• Productivity Metrics: Use project completion rates, quality of work, and achievement of targets to assess productivity.
• Employee Satisfaction: Conduct surveys to gauge employee happiness and work-life balance, considering these as indicators of a successful remote work environment.

Review Your Remote Work Policy Regularly

Don’t expect your remote work policy to stay the same all throughout. Engage with your employees and ask for their feedback as well. There might be policies that need to change with specific teams or jobs. There might be policies that are too restricting or lenient. 

There might be policies that are lacking. You need to find the balance in providing the best remote work experience for your employees where they can remain engaged and satisfied with their jobs while meeting business expectations and goals. 

You can get feedback from your employees through one-on-one meetings, surveys, or anonymous feedback forms. This will provide multiple channels for your employees to talk as freely as they can.

Your remote work policy also needs to change with the times. Take into account market changes, technology advancements, and changes in legal compliance protocols when reviewing your remote work policy at least yearly. When implementing changes to your remote work policy, make sure to have it documented and communicated to everyone concerned.

Communicating Your Policies and Guidelines for Remote Workers

What’s most important in making remote work policies successful is proper communication. Making sure that everyone properly understands the policies and is on board the program will help your remote work policy be as successful as it can be. 

Remote and hybrid work are here to stay. Work is becoming more borderless and companies will continue to see and reap the rewards of operating remotely. 

Consider making long-term remote work policies and cultivating a culture that adequately supports hybrid or fully-remote teams. 

And as you scale your business to new heights, review these 10 must-have points and consider how your remote work policy needs to adapt to your new business goals and objectives. Need help defining a remote work policy? At Kanban Zone, we’re a remote team that knows no boundaries. Try us free or book a complimentary coaching session.