Setting Up a Work-From-Home Policy

Remote work has seen an exponential rise in popularity among employees in part due to the pandemic. With office spaces shuttered for months, work moved out of cubicles and communal spaces and into the home. And with major companies adopting work-from-home (WFH) policies, this trend is not likely to change any time soon.

If you run your own business, offering work-from-home opportunities is a great way to get a competitive edge with talent hungry for flexibility and better work-life balance. But to offer that privilege and still succeed, you need to take the proper steps to ensure that you’ve set up a sustainable WFH policy that works for all involved.

Start with the nuts and bolts

When you’re exploring creating a work-from-home policy, you need to consider the extent to which the policy will work. Rhiân Davies, a contributor at Motley Fool’s The Blueprint, suggests starting by figuring out who will be eligible to work remotely. She recommends not leveraging it as a tool to reward longer-tenured employees; instead, you should create a pathway for newer employees to take advantage of the policy.

You can do this by creating a guideline to earn WFH privileges. This might include being employed for a set number of months and/or demonstrating effectiveness at hitting target goals.

Another consideration is frequency. You have to decide if you want to commit to offering employees the ability to work entirely from home or if you prefer a hybrid model — where an employee spends a certain number of days in-office and days out. This will also require determining if you want employees to have set days or allow them to create their schedules.

Successful WFH policies also need infrastructure. Davies notes that you will need to make sure that employees have the right technology and equipment to perform their duties or that you can provide that equipment for them. It’s also critical to establish shared channels for communication — and messaging apps like Slack and video conferencing services like Zoom play a pivotal role in unifying employees across different locations.

Set clear expectations for your team

Jeff Haden, a contributing editor for Inc., says that you should manage remote employees by three standards: availability, communication, and results. These attributes, he suggests, determine the effectiveness and success of a work-from-home policy.

If your business maintains strict operating hours, you’ll want to establish ground rules about availability even with employees who work flexible hours. You should have clearly stated requirements for the time it takes to respond to emails, messages, and calls. Davies also notes that you need to be reasonable — don’t expect employees to respond to customer inquiries late at night, but be appreciative if they take the initiative to do so.  

For those times where an employee won’t be available, communication is key. WFH employees should understand the importance of sharing their schedules with peers, customers, and leadership so that all bases are always covered.

Above all else, Haden says that deliverables are the true measure of an employee’s value. If an employee gets work done and drives results, they are delivering what you ask of them no matter how unconventional their hours may seem.

Successful WFH comes down to trust and leadership

The concept at the core of a work-from-home policy, Haden notes, is trust. Before you even consider implementing WFH as a permanent fixture of your business, you have to be confident that you can trust your employees to do their jobs. That’s as much an introspective hurdle as it is external.

For a work-from-home policy to function, you will need to be comfortable leading in unique situations. Barbara Z. Larson, Susan R. Vroman, and Erin E. Makarius — writing for Harvard Business Review — recommend providing structure with daily check-ins. Whether it’s a quick email, a message on Slack, or an old-fashioned phone call, take the time to let your employees know that you are there to support them even if you’re not sharing a space.

You also have to trust yourself not to let one bad apple spoil the bunch, proverbially speaking. If an employee is not meeting your expectations or failing to deliver, you need to recognize that it’s more likely an issue with one individual and not an indictment of work-from-home as a concept.

Establishing a work-from-home policy is a great way to stand out with prospective talent and keep your current employees satisfied. By building a policy that works for your business and ensures its success, you could put yourself in a better position to grow and succeed for years to come.