A brief introduction to remote work for transitioning businesses

Did your business go remote in response to the pandemic and never look back? Or maybe you’re interested in making a permanent shift to a virtual operation.

Whatever your reason for pursuing a remote work culture, there’s more to consider than where the work happens.

The best virtual teams operate with effective communication, transparency, and trust. Fortunately, a remote work policy provides a foundation for all of this to happen.

This guide discusses how to build a remote work policy to streamline operations while also boosting employee productivity and employee satisfaction.

What is a remote work policy?

A remote policy outlines a company’s remote working guidelines for its employees. Specifically, it clarifies the organization’s expectations and rules, such as who is eligible to work virtually, how remote work arrangements work, and various remote employee responsibilities (e.g., data security procedures).

A remote work agreement is essential to making sure everyone on a team is on the same page. This is crucial, regardless of whether the workforce is fully remote or hybrid.

With 22% of workers in the US working entirely remotely and 17% following a hybrid model, remote work policies are becoming increasingly important.

What to include in a remote work policy

The contents of a remote work policy can vary depending on the organization and the information its employees need to have. However, core aspects typically include:

• Eligibility. Eligibility rules cover who can work remotely, whether all employees have the same privileges, and any exclusions (such as brand-new hires, part-time employees, or contractors).

• Scope. The scope outlines whether the remote work arrangement is temporary or permanent.

• Salary adjustments. Sometimes, a company adjusts remote workers’ salaries depending on their respective locations.

• Remote work environment. Some policies limit where employees can work remotely, such as requiring them to stay within a certain state or country.

• Expectations. Employees may need to have regular check-ins with their manager, stick to specific response times, or use certain tools.

• Equipment and supplies. Who will provide the employee’s computer or other equipment? Does the company offer a remote work stipend?

• Working hours. Is there any flexibility when it comes to worker schedules, how overtime is handled, meal and rest breaks, or clocking in and out?

• Consequences of violating the policy. Will remote employees lose the privilege to work remotely — or lose their jobs altogether — if they don’t follow the policy?

• Processes to follow. These outline instructions when it comes to contacting support due to technical difficulties and other data security protocols.

An organization may also want to include a home office safety checklist in its policy, such as instructions for setting up an ergonomic workstation. Although the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) says it doesn’t hold employers responsible for remote workers' home offices, it’s still a good idea to include this.

Remote work policy examples

Different companies follow different remote work models, which result in distinct policies. Here are some of the more common policy types:

Flexible hybrid policy

Of all approaches to hybrid working, a flexible hybrid policy gives employees the most flexible work arrangements possible. It allows workers to choose how often they work at the office or at home instead of imposing restrictions. This can help them foster a healthy work-life balance.

Rigid hybrid model policy

A rigid hybrid model policy requires employees to work at the office for a fixed number of hours or days per week. For instance, it might require an employee to go into the office twice a week and even specify which days these must be.

Allowance-based policy

An allowance-based policy lies somewhere between the two options above. Employees must come into the office a fixed number of days per month or quarter, but they can choose when.

Salary adjustments

Generally, working remotely means employees are free to work from wherever they want, with no changes made to their employment agreement. But some fully remote organizations adjust their workers’ salaries according to their location.

For instance, a remote employee in California might earn more than one in Wisconsin due to the higher cost of living.

A remote work policy should outline the method the company uses to calculate workers’ salaries.

Equipment provision

Here at Remote, we offer our team members a stipend to get a desk and a chair. We also provide them with the basics, like a laptop and webcam. It’s much easier to work together when everyone has the right tools.

Setting aside enough budget for these items helps your employees work at home without using cobbled-together solutions and workarounds. It may cost some money upfront, but you’ll realize those savings immediately when your employees have fewer obstacles between them and their work.

With your remote team members legally hired and outfitted with the necessary gear, you can begin the process of working together.

Standard remote work policy template

While remote work policies can vary significantly between organizations, the same themes tend to come up time and time again.

Below is a template for a remote work policy, along with the typical clauses. You can use this as a starting point for your own policy and make amendments where necessary.

Template

This remote work policy outlines the guidelines for employees who work outside of [OFFICE] for some or all of their working hours. It will remain in place for the duration of the employment contract, unless agreed upon otherwise.

It applies to all full-time employees and eligible part-time employees working at [COMPANY]. However, it excludes those on temporary contracts.

Our employees can work from anywhere within [COUNTRY OR STATE]. If they wish to work outside the agreed-upon area, they must notify [COMPANY] and ask for approval.

Regardless of an employee’s location, they must:

• Work between [WORKING HOURS]

• Respond to messages on [COMMUNICATION CHANNELS]

• Attend meetings

• Follow our code of ethics, attendance policy, professional code of conduct, and sexual harassment policy

• Comply with security and confidentiality policies

We reserve the right to use performance metrics to assess remote work and ensure these requirements are met. We use [TIME-TRACKING SOFTWARE OR KPIS) for this purpose.

Employees are granted a rest and lunch break, as outlined in the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA).

[COMPANY] provides all employees with laptops to perform their job roles, which they should use for business purposes only. Employees will also receive a quarterly stipend of $250 to cover additional remote working costs.

If employees encounter any difficulties while working remotely, they should contact [TEAM MEMBER] through [COMMUNICATION CHANNEL] between the hours of [RELEVANT HOURS].

Failure to comply with any of the above may result in the termination of the remote work agreement.

7 tips for transitioning to remote work

Once you’ve established your organization’s remote work policy, you’re almost ready to make the transition to a fully remote business. Here are seven tips to make this process as simple as possible:

1. Hire employees legally

The first step to working with remote employees is making sure you can hire and pay them legally. That’s what we do at Remote: help businesses of all sizes employ and pay their global teams in compliance with local labor laws. If you can’t legally employ someone, you can’t very well work together.

Whether you can legally employ a remote worker depends largely on whether you have a legal entity in the country where the worker lives. Without an entity, you need some help.

Using an employer of record (EOR) is one of the easiest ways to make international hires. Instead of a company directly hiring employees in other countries, the EOR employs workers on the firm’s behalf. They also take care of legal, administrative, and compliance issues.

2. Set a remote-first intention

Remote-friendly companies are not actually all that friendly to remote workers. Instead of creating a remote-friendly company, set your goal to become a remote-first company.

You do not have to make everyone work remotely to become a remote-first company. That is not the point of the phrase. Becoming a remote-first company means coaching your virtual teams and managers to communicate in a way that allows everyone to do their best work, whether they’re co-located or remote employees.

3. Adopt remote-first communication methods

To create a remote-first organization, hold conversations in ways that allow remote employees to participate at the same level as co-located employees.

Hosting a meeting? Don’t force the one remote employee to squint at a webcam feed while everyone else sits in the same room. Hold the meetings virtually for everyone, giving all workers an equal opportunity to contribute.

Remote workers often miss a lot of the conversations that happen between scheduled meetings. Practice using virtual communications tools like Slack, Notion, Loom, and other digital tools to share updates and shoot the breeze.

This prevents remote workers from missing out on small conversations that can lead to big decisions.

4. Make async work the default

In offices, people often wait until they meet with someone to take the next step on a project. Remote workers regularly work in different time zones, so they can’t rely on synchronous processes to get things done.

Solve the productivity issue by adopting asynchronous remote work practices for your organization. We have a great guide to async work to help you get started.

At its core, working async simply means assuming that people will not be online at the same time and prioritizing (and communicating!) accordingly. Finish projects in chunks, record videos to share progress in public spaces, and keep documentation updated. It takes a bit of time to adjust, but once you begin working asynchronously, you’ll wonder how you ever did it any other way.

5. Actively invest in your remote culture

At Remote, we don’t have any offices. Our team members work all over the world. If we did not actively invest in building a collaborative and engaging culture, our team members might feel like a motley group of contractors. Instead, we are a cohesive and collaborative team.

There are many ways to develop culture remotely. For example, we schedule weekly bonding calls in various time zones to help people get to know one another in agenda-free, no-work-allowed meetings. We also have areas for people to hang out in voice chat together.

We’re always looking for new ways to connect, so we buy every Remote employee a virtual reality headset. How you help your team connect is up to you, and you can find plenty of inspiration online and through the stories of other businesses.

Whatever you do, though, don’t leave culture and connection to chance.

6. Practice the values you preach

People who work remotely need a mission to feel connected to the company they work for. At Remote, our values are simple: kindness, ownership, excellence, transparency, and ambition.

This year, we named excellence as the theme of the year. When we gather for our all-hands meeting we ask ourselves whether we’re doing excellent work. Oh, and this meeting changes time slots every other week to make sure everyone can attend at least half the time.

We also encourage one another to speak up with new ideas.

Throughout the week, we publish Loom videos and updates to Notion documents in Slack so that everyone can see what everyone else is doing. That’s transparency — another one of our biggest values.

7. Periodically review the remote work policy

If you’re introducing a remote working policy for the first time, there may be some hiccups. Employees may ignore the guidelines and continue to work as if the policy was never introduced. Or managers may fail to implement the necessary processes.

Make sure to hold these individuals accountable for their actions. They need to know that the policy is not to be taken lightly.

On the other hand, if nobody is following the policy but everything is running smoothly, this may be a sign that you need to give the policy a do-over. A remote policy shouldn’t be static — you should review and update it regularly to make sure it reflects current remote work arrangements.

To help you figure out whether to amend the policy, you may want to give employees a survey. In addition to letting you learn from their remote working experiences, this gauges employee well-being, which is a key metric for any company.

Remote-first companies are people-first companies

Ultimately, no company can be a remote-first company until it becomes a people-first company.

Remote work empowers workers to do their best work by removing the unnecessary struggles that come with office life. That empowerment does come with challenges, though. Obstacles in communication, culture, and alignment can prevent companies from realizing the true benefits of remote work.

However, a good remote work policy streamlines operations and ensures that expectations are consistent.

Now is the perfect time to get intentional about how your virtual teams work together. Remote makes this process easy with a dedicated HR management system to help you onboard employees, manage your remote work policy, and more.

Get started with Remote HR Management for free today.