Whether you have decided to go for a part time or full time WFH setup, moving to remote work – and doing remote workforce management along with it – is a big change for an organisation. While there are significant benefits of such a setup, it is important to get the foundations right.
You will certainly be wondering where you should start? and how to make this new work environment successful for my business? How to maintain and grow the dynamic that has made my business successful? What are the implications for my business and employees?
As part of any WFH roll out organisations should consider the initial onboarding of their employees with care, as it will set the conditions and the environment for all your future roll out. So what should I do ?
While we can’t summarise success to a couple of good ideas, there are two key elements to get right in your first steps.
The new agreement
The first thing to consider is the impact this change will have on your employees and employment contracts. As a matter of fact, when you initially engaged your employees the original agreement between you and them was to work in an office from 9 to 5 (hypothetically). This has now changed and therefore it is important to clarify what the new arrangements are.
The best practice will be to set a working from home agreement between your organisation and your precious talented staff. So that you leave no or minimum room for interpretation of what is expected in those new circumstances.
Start by defining the general rules, such as the duration and frequency of this new setup. Is it every day ? only for a short period of time? Under certain circumstances only ? etc… As any good agreement, it is also probably a great idea to define how it will be terminated, for which reasons and under which notice? Defining all this at the start puts you in the right position if a problem comes or if you decided to bring everyone back in the office. It prepares your and protects you against future issues and that what running a good business is about?
Then don’t forget to cover the basics, such as start and end time, place of work, dress code for meeting etc … if you don’t want to bump into your staff on Melbourne Beach at 11 AM. Look forward and remember that you will not be next to your employees while they are working remotely and therefore you will have limited control and leverage.
Get all this in writing, signed and archived. So that you can come back to it when / if the time comes… hopefully it won’t but again managing business is about preparing for the worst and hoping for the best.
The working environment
Secondly, you need to make sure you also are in a position to deliver on your obligations. Remember that you are responsible for your staff actions during their working hours, for their safety and even if you were not, you will still want to ensure that they work in a productive and suitable environment.
So make sure you do a minimum due diligence, request a picture of their home office and make sure their setup is in line with your local legislation. By doing so you will be ensuring the safety of your employees and you will also make sure they operate in a suitable and productive environment ensuring your customers are also delivered a quality service.
How HomeSquad.io can help you ?
At HomeSquad.io, we do remote workforce management right, and we do it better. We have organised and automated the onboarding process of your staff into a WFM arrangement. Unpacking HomeSquad.io license, you will find a policy template, a set of guidelines to verify the home office setup security. You will also be able to request employees to capture pictures of their setup using their mobile and you will record approval or not of all those elements. So there that your staff is happy, your business runs efficiently , you stay in control and protected from the risks.
