A recent study conducted by Upwork has indicated that nearly two-thirds of companies in today’s workforce rely on remote workers, yet a majority of these companies lack established policies for their remote workers. The study’s findings also revealed the importance of establishing a policy for remote workers in today’s workforce.
Here’s why you need an established policy for your remote workers.
It Increases the Effectiveness of Your Cybersecurity
Employees themselves are the weakest link in any company’s cybersecurity if they aren’t well-informed and their devices aren’t monitored or regulated for security concerns. When you have more remote employees, you have more employees accessing your company’s network and sensitive information from a remote location on a multitude of different types of mobile devices.
With an established policy, however, you can better dictate what networks your employees are using on what devices, and you can enforce password policies and monitor app usage and access, etc., increasing the overall effectiveness of your company’s cybersecurity policies and protocols.
Employees Need Clear Expectations Set for Work Hours
When you have remote employees scattered across time zones, it’s important to set a policy that includes guidelines for appropriate working hours. For instance, you’ll want to mention when it’s appropriate to expect coworkers from halfway across the globe to join important meetings and what the appropriate amount of time is to wait for a response from someone who is in a different time zone.
But if your employees are in the same time zone, you might want to mention that it’s still important for them to keep regular business hours when appropriate. And you’ll want to have a set policy for logging hours and for tracking project expectations so that employees are putting in the necessary time without missing deadlines or working too much and burning out.
Streamlined and Effective Communications
You’ll want a policy that determines what communication platforms your employees should use to communicate with one another and their managers while they’re working from remote locations.
For instance, you might want an instant messaging app or a project management platform that lets employees communicate about the projects they’re working on in a central online location. That way, important project details don’t become scattered or lost in different e-mail in-boxes and important communications are more streamlined and centralized.
Allows You to Better Identify Who Will Benefit from Remote Work
Remote work isn’t for everyone. While most employees will be more productive while working remotely, others will not be. Some employees will still be more productive and happier when they’re at the office. So, you’ll want a policy that outlines performance metrics or other requirements employees will need to meet before and after they’re allowed to work remotely on a consistent basis. You’ll want them to exhibit a certain work ethic and level of professionalism to be eligible to work remotely on a consistent basis.
Ensures that Managers Manage Their Teams Better
Most importantly, with an established policy in place, managers will be able to manage their remote teams better. They’ll have guidelines for what they should expect from their employees and will be able to hold their employees accountable.
Keep the above information in mind as you establish your own policy for your remote workers.