HOMEWORKING - 16.11.2012

Can I work from home (on Fridays) please?

A subscriber’s query

One of our subscribers has an employee who wants to work from home every Friday. Apparently, this arrangement would help to reduce her travelling costs; it’s not connected to any care responsibilities. On the face of it, our subscriber has no objection. However, in light of the fact that this day falls right before the weekend, they don’t want their employee sub-consciously thinking that she’s gone down to a four-day week but kept the same pay. So what’s our advice here?

Don’t say “yes” just yet

First things first: our subscriber shouldn’t simply wave through the employee’s request on the assumption that any problems can be dealt with later. Not only is it much harder to put things right than it is to set clear boundaries from the outset, they could unwittingly alter the employee’s employment contract on a permanent basis. Furthermore, a workplace custom and practice may arise by default, thus allowing other staff to make a similar request.

Start with a policy

Instead, our subscriber should start by introducing a robust homeworking policy. This should set out the scope of their scheme, the staff it applies to, eligibility criteria (which must be applied fairly and consistently to all staff) and performance management issues. It should also make it absolutely clear that any homeworking arrangement: (1) is temporary; (2) can be revoked at any time; and (3) does not form part of the employee’s contract of employment. Our own policy does exactly this (see The next step).

This is how it’s going to work

Our subscriber then needs to agree the terms of the individual homeworking arrangement (which can be different for each employee). To prevent Fridays morphing into three-day weekends, there are a number of things they should do.

Tip 1. The right to require the employee to attend the workplace on all designated homeworking days and/or to travel for work-related business, e.g. for meetings, appraisals and to cover other staff, must be retained. This can be on a “without notice” basis - after all, what’s the employee supposed to be doing except working for you!

Tip 2. With modern technology, it’s easy for employees to fool you as to their whereabouts. So also make it clear that whenever they’re working from home, the employee must be available: (1) via a landline telephone number; and (2) for meetings with management at their home address, during all of their normal working hours.

Tip 3. Having reserved these rights, be sure to test them regularly (at the very least, the first one if the second is impractical). Also, don’t assume that a trustworthy employee won’t fall into bad habits after a few weeks.

Tip 4. You can, if you wish, make it a condition of the arrangement that the employee e-mails their manager shortly before the end of each homeworking day explaining exactly what they’ve done. This will prevent attempts to shift their work into the following week.

For a free sample homeworking policy, visit http://personnel.indicator.co.uk (PS 14.21.05).