Coworking spaces fight isolation and create community connections

Even if your employees aren’t huddling in a closet to escape distractions, coworking spaces can serve as a wellness benefit for fighting loneliness, alienation, and isolation — common ailments for remote employees worldwide. 

“Just saying that everyone should be working from their homes is wrong. You don’t know what personalities you’re dealing with, or what their practical situation is, or what will make them feel productive and motivated when working,” explains Cockburn. “Offering coworking benefits is an important benefit for remote companies.”

Even experienced remote employees often struggle with the loss of the office “water cooler” time — the ability to chat in person with their coworkers, establish bonds, and workshop through ideas while getting a cup of coffee together.

Coworking spaces offer more than just a place to do work. They allow employees to reap the psychological benefits of seeing and interacting with other people. These spaces can also provide a clearer division between their work space and their home space when needed.

“Employees value flexibility because they value their work-life balance, the time they spend with family and friends, and the sense of empowerment to do your best work when and where you feel most productive,” says Andrea Rajic, marketing manager at Gable, an innovative workspace-as-a-service platform.

Some digital nomads are even opting to live in hybrid coworking/coliving spaces. Sun and Co. in Javea, Spain, is a space where freelancers, solopreneurs, digital nomads, and remote workers can come together to benefit from a change of scenery, learn from like-minded people, and expand their professional networks. Co-living spaces are becoming more important to remote work life as people seek new ways to build their community.

Top talent is attracted to coworking perks

The world is becoming increasingly remote-work friendly, especially in the wake of COVID-19, when many employers went remote out of necessity. Although remote work allows companies access to a larger, more diverse talent pool, it also allows local talent to find remote jobs with non-local companies. Businesses now have to compete against thousands of other remote organizations for top talent.

Offering supplemental benefits like coworking stipends to these potential employees is a viable, cost-effective way for companies to stand out in this new era of competitive hiring. 

“In a time when the business climate is increasingly employee-centric, workers are looking for employers who will allow them to work flexibly and nurture the work-life balance,” explains Rajic. “So for employers, it’s really about designing the most attractive benefits plan to ensure the happiness and satisfaction of existing employees, as well as attracting top talent in The Great Resignation.”

Offering a coworking space positively impacts productivity

When it comes to coworking access, there are obvious benefits for remote employees, but this setup can benefit employers as well. Giving employees the flexibility to choose their environment means they can go where they’re most comfortable working — and therefore where they are most productive.

“I’ve seen the benefits of people working from wherever they feel most productive firsthand, especially from members who work for larger companies. There’s a level of trust between them and their employer that they’re eager to protect,” explains Diego Bejarano Gerke, founder of WiFi Tribe, which organizes co-living, coworking spaces for remote workers around the world. 

He notes that personal happiness and work satisfaction often go hand in hand, creating a “win” for the company’s bottom line. “On a personal side, these members are happier and more satisfied with their life outside of work and that enthusiasm bleeds into their professional life,” says Gerke. “The benefits of letting employees work from anywhere boils down to one key point: happier employees means more productivity and retention.”

Once you’ve decided to offer coworking as a benefit, the question becomes: how do we structure this benefit for our employees?

There are a few ways to approach this. One option is to buy subscriptions for each individual employee — allowing everyone to work at their local WeWork location, for example. However, this can become difficult to manage, especially with larger companies and when employees are based in numerous locations. It may prove difficult to find a WeWork location in every single city your workforce is located.

Another approach is to give employees a stipend per month or per annum. We recommend exploring this option first, as this gives employees the flexibility to choose the space that feels most right for them. Providing flexibility also reduces the amount of management needed to oversee this benefit. Employees can simply expense their coworking costs back to the company with a receipt.

Cockburn recommends moving away from limiting employees to one location per city. “Employers should give optionality rather than this old model of a single office in the center of the city. At the end of the day, you want to increase workplace flexibility — not constrain it,” he says.

Remote specializes in rolling out seamless global benefits

Using our EOR services, Remote can assist your organization in making coworking access part of your global benefits plan. Instead of having to create individual plans for each member of your team to suit their regional choices, you can instead rely on us to handle the details and rollout on your behalf.

The remote work model is constantly evolving to meet and anticipate the needs of companies and employees alike. Allowing remote employees more flexibility with their workplace is a proactive approach that helps ensure greater productivity and retention — and, most importantly, employee happiness. 

After the rise of remote work, the workplace now looks and feels different for millions of people around the globe. For some people, the office has always been at home — but with the world reopened, remote work can be so much more than a desk in the corner.

While benefits like health insurance and pension/retirement plans are typically necessary to compete for and retain great talent, additional perks that enhance the work-from-home experience are often underutilized. 

“Benefits are an essential part of the hiring equation. If some employees don’t get the same benefits as their peers because of where they live, the disparity can make them feel like they don’t belong in your organization,” explains Nadia Vatalidis, VP of People at Remote. “Benefits challenges can also make you lose out on great talent in the hiring process.”

Wellness and lifestyle benefits, like continued learning budgets and mental health support, show employees you care and can help your organization practice fair equity among your employees. 

“Teams like Remote have been leading the way in practicing ‘fair equity,’ which means making sure employees in every country have not only the statutory but also the supplemental benefits and perks they need to thrive personally and professionally,” says Vatalidis.

For some organizations, this can mean practicing asynchronous work. For others, it can look like granting parental leave in one country to match parental leave required in another country. Simply meeting the minimum requirements in each country creates a less unified work culture and leads to resentment when some employees receive more benefits than others.

Benefits like home office stipends and stipends for coworking spaces help to bridge the gap between the home office and the types of amenities an employee would normally get to enjoy in an in-person office environment. 

Not all home offices are optimized for success

A coworking space is essentially an office space that offers many of the amenities of a typical office — desks, coffee, collaborative spaces, and a distraction-free environment, among others. Examples of well-known and widespread coworking organizations include Desana, Gable, and WeWork. Both individuals and organizations can sign up for monthly or annual memberships. Importantly, these spaces allow employees to connect with other professionals and maintain a sense of community and structure in their daily life.

At Remote, we offer our entire global workforce of 1,000+ a monthly stipend to help cover the cost of a coworking space. We believe that doing so helps our employees live better, more productive lives and gives them the flexibility they need to do their best work.

It’s easy to assume that an employee who opts to go remote already has a viable workspace in their home. However, this is often not the case. Employees based in large cities often report working out of bedrooms, kitchens, or other already-utilized spaces rather than an actual office. 

“If you’re over the age of 35, you’re likely to have good work from home setup, which makes a big difference. But if you’re younger than that, it’s less likely. You might have a small apartment or be sharing accomodation with other people,” notes Michael Cockburn, CEO of the flexible workspace app Desana.

In fact, according to research from CraftJack, 51% of American teleworkers have worked at the kitchen counter — and an incredible 35% report having worked in a closet.

Providing benefits like home office stipends and coworking stipends can help employees set up a space that maximizes productivity while minimizing distractions.

Coworking as a modern benefit

Offering benefits to attract and retain great people is tricky. Managing a global benefits plan that is equitable and compliant all over the world? That’s even harder.

Fortunately, a trio of Remote’s international employment experts are here to help. In this one-hour webinar, you’ll get a crash course on all things global benefits, as well as a lively Q&A with real questions from business owners hiring around the world.

Join Nadia Vatalidis, VP of People; Bruce Gilbert, Director of Global Benefits; and Rhiannon Payne, Senior Product Marketing Manager and remote work evangelist, as they share practical tips on how to bring great benefits to your global team.

What does it mean to manage a global benefits plan?

Offering benefits to team members in multiple countries is less about managing the benefits than it is about adopting a global strategy. With 66% of employers planning to expand their remote work options, according to the Global Workforce Revolution Report, now is the time to start thinking internationally.

Remote understands the importance of benefits better than anyone. With hundreds of our own employees in dozens of countries all over the world, we have experienced every benefits challenge firsthand. Our locally owned entities, attention to detail, and rigorous compliance processes ensure that we not only know all there is to know about benefits — we also put that knowledge into practice to help thousands of workers around the world.

Have more questions about global benefits?

The world is a big place. Maybe you need to know more about healthcare in Helsinki, maternity leave in Mexico City, or paid time off in Prague. Whatever your global benefits questions may be, Remote is here to help.

Contact our global employment experts today to see how easy it can be to grow your global team.

In this one-hour webinar, you’ll get a crash course on all things global benefits, as well as a lively Q&A with real questions from business owners hiring around the world.

How to Manage a Global Benefits Plan [Webinar] | Remote

[Webinar Recording] Managing a global benefits plan

Once you’ve conducted some internal and external research to understand the needs of your employees, you can start constructing better benefits packages. 

But a modern benefits stack should also include supplemental benefits like:

Paid leave policies, including parental leave

Let’s drill down into some of these supplemental benefits and how they can work for your global organization.

In the new age of work, flexibility is one of the most important benefits you can offer your employees. Flexibility goes beyond simply allowing people to work from home, which is now more of a norm than going to the office each day. Instead, flexibility means that employees don’t necessarily have to work specific hours that suit their organization. They can work at the times that suit their own needs and lifestyles. 

Modern organizations should lean into asynchronous, flexible work and away from rigid Monday through Friday, 9-to-5 schedules for all workers. This is not only an incredible benefit but a necessity when you’re working with colleagues across many time zones.

Offering unlimited PTO has become a major point of conversation globally. Many tech companies offer this perk as a way to attract the best. However, simply offering unlimited PTO is not enough. You have to go a step further and be intentional about the way you structure and communicate your leave policies.

The first step is in understanding what’s required and what the cultural norms are around paid time off in the countries where you’re hiring. While the United States has no federal law requiring that employers give paid time off to their employees, 77% of employers in the US still offer some paid leave. In the European Union, employers are required to offer employees at least four weeks of paid leave, and many EU countries require more than the basic four weeks.

Due to these variances, offering a blanket PTO policy may seem like the best option for your global workforce. You still must be intentional with that policy, though, especially when you consider that employees in certain countries may feel uncomfortable asking for time off.

At Remote, we offer employees unlimited PTO with a 20 day minimum each year. Yes, employees must take at least 20 days off, no matter where they live! This time can be used to travel, spend with family, tend to obligations, or simply rest and recharge. We still encourage people to take more than the minimum, and we make sure employees in countries with higher minimums follow the law.

Policies like these are not just good for employees, but good for businesses. Vacations can increase performance by up to 80% in addition to showing employees they are valued and supported.

In addition to PTO, it’s also important to create locally compliant (in all the countries where you’re hiring) and comprehensive parental leave policies. That way, no one in your organization has to stress about managing work and personal finances when deciding to grow their family. 

Also consider paid leave policies for employees who are experiencing traumatic experiences. Policies with mental health in mind are more important than ever, especially as we continue to live through a global pandemic. Bumble is a great example of this, having offered all employees a week off to deal with stress, grief, and burnout during COVID-19. 

While the need for mental health and wellness benefits is more apparent than ever, the need has always existed. The pandemic simply brought it to light and helped us start these conversations in the workforce.

Showing your employees that you care about their wellness starts with flexible work and paid leave policies. But more than that, you must consider what tangible resources you can offer to your team, like local therapy or coaching services. 

At Remote, we’ve partnered with Modern Health to offer therapy, coaching, and self-guided mental health resources to our employees in dozens of countries. We also help our customers find the right mental health vendors for their international teams!

If your employees were working alongside you in the office, you’d equip them with a comfortable desk, chair, monitors, and other equipment to optimize their work experience. The need for these supplies doesn’t change just because an employee works from home.

Don’t assume your employees already have everything they need. Our interviews with employees who started working remotely due to Covid-19 showed us that one of the biggest challenges was not having a proper desk, chair, or other equipment.

Consider offering a home office stipend to help employees get the things they need to thrive in their work lives. At Remote, we offer equipment stipends for desks and chairs in addition to equipment like laptops, external monitors, keyboards, mice, and webcams. If an employee requires additional accommodations to work from home due to a disability or health issue, we help them with those needs.

The biggest challenges we see companies encounter when trying to offer modern benefits packages are knowledge of local regulations, internal resources to figure out what people want and need, cultural fluency, and of course, budget.

If you are a growing business with a tight HR and people budget, you may not be able to go above or beyond statutory benefits for now. However, there’s a huge business case to be made for increasing your budget when possible.

Global hiring can present many challenges, but when every employee feels supported, equal, and welcome, that’s when magic can happen. Remote is an example of this. Our global team helped us achieve a $1B+ valuation in under two years, and our people team works hard to give back and demonstrate that we’re all in this together.

If you’d like to learn more about working with Remote for your global hiring needs, our people and hiring experts are here to help your business offer the best in modern benefits.

If you’re like most business or people leaders, you’ve had to make changes in the way your business operates since March of 2020. Some of these changes may have been challenging, but others will have improved the way your teams work together, and helped your business to grow!

One of the most significant changes we’ve seen is the shift toward distributed teams and global hiring. Companies have realized there are huge advantages to hiring from a borderless talent pool. 

Unfortunately, the knowledge and resources necessary to craft benefits packages for international talent haven’t kept up with the speed of hiring in most organizations. 

Benefits are an essential part of the hiring equation. A well-planned benefits package shows your team members that you value and respect them. If some employees don’t get the same benefits as their peers because of where they live, the disparity can make them feel like they don’t belong in your organization, leading to issues with happiness and retention. Benefits challenges can also make you lose out on great talent in the hiring process. 

With your company expanding across the world, you need a modern benefits stack fit for a global team. At Remote, we’re obsessed with crafting the best possible employee experience for our team, which spans hundreds of employees across dozens of countries. 

I want to explain how we’ve built our modern benefits stack and how you can implement the right benefits framework to create a culture of empowerment, trust, and belonging.

For companies hiring only in local markets, the conversation around benefits hasn’t changed much in recent years. But for many modern companies, which are increasingly distributed, the need for better benefits to attract and retain top talent has grown. 

Until recently, many organizations have offered basic statutory and supplemental benefits for their local team members and the minimum statutory benefits required for compliance in other countries. Often, this is because they don’t have the right knowledge or resources to do more. However, that strategy creates two classes of employees, harming cohesion in the process.

Teams like Remote have been leading the way in practicing “fair equity,” which means making sure employees in every country have not only the statutory but also the supplemental benefits they need to thrive personally and professionally. 

To practice fair equity in your organization, start by understanding what benefits are important in the countries where you’re hiring. Your employees in Brazil or Germany may have different needs than your employees in the United States, depending on what social services may or may not be available.

Then, ask your individual employees what their needs are. This could be through ongoing surveys (not just once a year) or one-on-one conversations. The goal should be to discover which benefits you can offer to support everyone within your company, not just those who live in certain countries. When every team member feels heard and supported, your organization will be able to grow to new heights!

A guide to the modern benefits stack and how you can implement the right benefits framework to create a culture of empowerment, trust, and belonging.

What is the Modern Benefits Stack for 2022?

How to tailor a remote-first benefits package

Work-life balance is a trickier proposition with a home office. The lack of separation between work and home can lead to higher levels of stress. Often, the best benefit you can provide to your employees is the time and freedom to recharge.

Consider how best to deliver this result within a formal benefits plan. Flexible working hours, extended leave without pay provisions, or more generous annual leave entitlements can have a significant positive impact on the mental health of your employees.

Startups and small businesses can offer great benefits as a simple and cost-effective way to compete for the best candidates in the market.

"Employers offer many types of benefits, but I think the most important by far is time,” says Bruce Gilbert, benefits and compensation manager at Remote. “Time to be away, time to recharge, time to connect with family and friends, time to enjoy life. Internally, Remote’s quarterly self-care days and unlimited paid time off program help ensure work-life balance and demonstrate our unwavering commitment to always put our people first."

This is especially true for workers with babies, toddlers, and young children at home during school holidays (or lockdown periods!). Childcare provisions can be an incredibly helpful benefit to offer parents working from home.

Remote working environments also tend to lead to more prolonged periods of physical inactivity. Offering gym memberships and covering subscriptions to fitness apps can encourage employees to stay physically active. Some companies go one step further and build exercise breaks into their day-to-day schedules. Consider helping employees schedule breaks in their calendar for exercise and nudging managers to lead by example to demonstrate the importance of self care.

Supplemental benefits cover more than just healthcare.

Healthcare is table stakes to attract and retain top notch talent. Market-leading organizations construct customized benefits programs that extend well beyond healthcare to demonstrate their understanding of each employee’s value to the organization. Just the simple extension of company policy to allow for remote work is a huge step in the eyes of most employees.

"There are obvious ones like health, dental, vision benefits, and programs that support their retirement plans, but those are more obvious ones.” says Andrea Valeria, remote work specialist and founder of It’s a Travel O.D. “I've seen that perks that allow for more work-life balance and that somehow incorporate travel make employees really happy.”

See also: What soft benefits do remote workers expect?

Generous paid time off policies appeal to everyone. Plans for specialized types of PTO can make your benefits strategy even more effective. Attractive maternity and paid parental leave policies, for instance, are often a decisive factor for many employees, especially in countries without guaranteed leave.

Many workers have begun to ask for assistance with relocation to move closer to family support networks. Others want the option to travel while working as a digital nomad.

“If I were looking for a remote job, I would be happy to be part of a team with unlimited PTO, flexible vacation policies, and the freedom to make your own schedule,” says Valeria.

The right benefits may depend on company size

You also need to consider the specifics of your industry, maturity stage, and business model. Candidates looking for opportunities in a corporate environment within the services sector may expect a company-issued laptop and mobile device, whereas construction managers or civil engineers may consider a company car a more valuable proposition.

The startup sector provides a very clear example of how certain benefits can be so highly prized in certain types of industries. We see that stock options are still the number-one attraction and desired benefit in early-stage startups. Startup employees also place high value on flexible working hours, so they can pick up the kids from school, take an hour during the day to work out, or schedule appointments. Workers at larger companies are increasingly looking for flexibility, but for smaller companies, flexibility is often non-negotiable.

Customizing benefits packages for multiple countries

As you employ workers across multiple countries, you need to be aware of the nuances in local laws. Many nations provide high-quality subsidized healthcare services and mandate employers to contribute to an employee retirement fund. As a result, employees in these nations won’t place as much value on related supplemental benefits.

Consider customizing the extra benefits and perks you offer according to the specific expectation of employees in each country. Factor in the impact of the home country’s employment legislation and tailor your benefits packages accordingly.

Depending on the laws of the country, you may consider offering perks such as:

Celebratory gift cards for work anniversaries or birthdays

For more information on which benefits are required in different countries, check out Remote’s Country Explorer pages.

Use your benefits as a competitive advantage

As you develop a stronger benefits plan, use that advantage as a competitive differentiator in the talent market. Make your benefits policy public and be transparent about what you offer.

Try a few of these tips to bolster your reputation as a desirable employer: 

Add an overview of your benefits plan to your job ads.

Create an explanatory blog article to share across your social media channels to engage a more diverse pool of talent.

Develop a PDF one-pager to arm your recruiters with a quick and easy way to communicate your benefits package to potential employees.

Prove that you care about your team and demonstrate how your benefits package goes beyond minimum requirements and standard expectations.

Beyond the construction and promotion of your benefits offering, you must also make sure you don’t fall at the final hurdle in the hiring process. Provide full details about your benefits policy to candidates in all of your offer letters to make sure they understand the extent of the incentives you have created.

Normalize using benefits to the fullest extent

One common mistake of managers of remote teams is an unconscious impulse not to use benefits. Fortunately, this problem has an easy solution: managers must lead by example.

Show your team members that the culture of your business rewards and encourages self-care. Prove you care about your team by taking time off for yourself and proactively reminding them to do the same. 

Schedule in the maximum amount of vacation time each year, and when you take time off, disconnect as much as possible. Don’t check in while you’re on vacation. Plan for your own absence in advance so that you don’t have to send emails or answer calls.

Your team members will not use their benefits if they feel like doing so conflicts with the norms displayed by leadership. This could lead to burnout, resentment, and even a sustained drop in morale.

Remote work comes with its own unique challenges, but don’t use that as an excuse to shy away from more flexible work options. Lean into the positives and embrace the unique elements that a remote-first business model offers.

Just like in an on-premises model, your team will experience distractions. Instead of water cooler conversations, coffee chats, and impromptu meetings, remote work might incorporate the occasional screaming baby, barking dog, or needy child. 

Embrace these incidences and normalize them. Don’t heap more stress onto your employees or force them to pretend they don’t deal with challenges. Build a culture that allows your employees to enjoy the full benefits of remote work.

At Remote, we recognize that everyone is living a different life. Interruptions from kids, pets, significant others, and similar factors are normal and should be treated as such. One of our engineers, Tobi, owns pet bunnies who frequently make appearances during our all-hands meetings. Most of us have met a few of our coworkers’ young children during a Zoom call at some point.

Creating a culture where life’s little interruptions are welcomed and not punished starts at the top. Encourage everyone to take full ownership of their calendars to support their families, friends, kids, and partners during their workday. Remind managers to help employees block out the necessary family time they might require to maintain mental and physical health.

The resulting increase in productivity, motivation, and employee satisfaction will be the intangible fuel that powers your organization to sustained, scalable growth.

Remote’s white glove benefits management

As your company grows into more countries, it can be tricky to keep up with the legal requirements of multiple benefits plans, not to mention all the additional benefits that can make an offer stand out. With employees in dozens of countries across six continents, we have firsthand experience around the globe.

When we enroll your employees in their benefits, we don’t pass the responsibility along to someone else. We make sure every team member receives the full benefits they are entitled to, regardless of their home country, plus a host of other great perks.

Remote can help you customize your benefits package by country for mandatory and supplemental benefits like healthcare, insurance, retirement savings, paid leave, stock options, and so much more. Read what’s it’s like for your employees when you use Remote, and reach out if you have any questions about offering benefits to your global team.

Benefits and perks can be a dealmaker or a dealbreaker in the final stages of the hiring process. When a top candidate compares offers from different employers, a superior benefits package may give your business the edge. But all too often, businesses take benefits for granted, focusing instead on salary alone.

You can’t afford to offer the bare minimum if you want to attract and retain top talent across the globe. In this article, we examine some best practices related to global benefits policies and discuss which benefits to offer your team.

How do you develop an internationally competitive benefits package?

The first step is non-negotiable: local legal compliance.

You must meet the minimum statutory requirements stipulated by the relevant legislation in each employee’s country. Managing this is comparatively simple if you’re only employing workers in one country. However, limiting your search to a single country dramatically restricts the pool of talent you can pull from, limiting the potential diversity and effectiveness of your organization. 

If you’re looking to attract the best talent, though, you need a benefits plan that goes beyond the basics. Treat this as an opportunity to show top candidates why your company stands out. Long-term recruiting success depends on your ability to create a benefits plan that both complies with regulations and meets candidate expectations in every country where you hire.

Which benefits do employees want in post-pandemic life?

The expectations of employees have changed in the wake of Covid-19. After the global remote work experiment, employees have their own visions of what makes for a good work-life balance. Now that more people understand working remotely is usually possible, businesses can’t afford to let something as trivial as location disqualify great candidates.

"In this new age of work, the most valuable benefit a company can offer is flexibility,” says Rhiannon Payne, author of The Remote Work Era. “This means the ability to work asynchronously with one's team at times that work best for the individual, allowing employees to shape their work around their lives, not to try to shape their lives around their job. Having this kind of flexibility is life-changing for workers, and lots of top talent now expect this from the companies they join."

If you don’t have a plan to offer flexible working hours and remote work, you run the risk of your employees looking for more forward-thinking options. You’ll also find it more difficult to attract the best candidates in the market who will have plenty of flexible work options on the table.

What types of benefits do remote employees value most?

In our 2020 Global Workforce Revolution Report, we found that tech industry employees in the US and UK facing a post-pandemic switch to remote work consistently pointed to three preferred benefits:

Benefits preferences vary widely from one country to the next, but these trends point toward a preference for security and support. Employees aren’t just motivated by cash bonuses or generous annual leave provisions

See also: How to manage an unlimited PTO policy

The transition to remote and hybrid working environments means home office provisions are shooting up the list of preferred perks. Fortunately, these benefits help both employer and employee. Quality, ergonomic equipment and a high-quality internet connection help maximize the productivity of your employees (and reduce stress levels).

Medical benefits like health insurance, dental care, and optical care will always be top of mind for employees. But the transition to remote-first environments should remind businesses to be more proactive about supporting the everyday physical and mental health of their teams. 

The Best Employee Benefits to Attract Top Global Talent

The best employee benefits to attract top global talent

What is the difference between workers’ compensation and liability insurance?

Workers’ compensation provides coverage for workers who are injured in the course of performing their duties for work regardless of where that work occurs. Liability insurance covers anyone who happens to be on company property, not just workers, and typically does not cover events that occur off the company’s physical property.

Consider a few separate scenarios. A person working from home who suffers a repetitive motion injury from too much typing could be covered under workers’ compensation. An employee traveling for work who falls down the hotel stairs and breaks her foot could also be covered by workers’ compensation. A customer who visits the company’s office and sustains an injury after slipping on a puddle would be covered by traditional liability insurance. 

The two types of coverage sometimes apply to the same scenario. A worker who falls down and sustains an injury on company property may in some cases be covered by both liability insurance and workers’ compensation. Which policy pays out depends on the nature of the injury and the terms of the coverage.

How can companies protect themselves and their remote employees?

If companies are responsible for taking care of workers who suffer injuries while working remotely, but those companies cannot control remote work environments, what should they do to protect themselves and their teams?

First, every company with remote workers needs workers’ compensation coverage with specific clauses addressing remote work. Although the employee bears the burden of proving any claimed injury occurred during the course of work, employers should not mistake that dynamic for protection against improper claims. Anything that could cause an injury in an employee’s home could be interpreted as a workplace hazard, depending on circumstances.

To protect workers, companies should help their teams identify and eliminate (or at least mitigate) risks in their remote workplaces. Something as simple as a budget for ergonomic home office equipment could protect workers from injuries that would necessitate workers’ compensation claims.

Companies should also clearly define what their workers’ duties entail. Not all home computer activity is work activity, for example. Some companies may attempt to do this by clarifying work hours, but as more employees work flexible hours, this may not be a sustainable solution. Space-related, equipment-related, and task-related definitions are easier to control than time-related ones. While workers may still successfully claim workers’ compensation for injuries that fall outside defined parameters, these definitions are still useful as guidelines.

Do workers’ compensation laws vary by country?

Yes. Workers’ compensation laws, insurance regulations, and their relationships to remote work vary from one country to another. Managing compliance can quickly become overwhelming, especially for companies with employees in multiple countries.

Remote makes it easy to stay compliant with labor laws no matter where your employees live and work. We take care of payroll, benefits, taxes, and local legal compliance so you can focus on growing your business. Contact us today to learn more about our global employment solutions.

Workers’ compensation programs protect workers who are injured on the job from financial hardship. Determining the validity of a workers’ compensation claim is easy when the worker suffers an injury in the office or on the factory floor, but what happens when the workplace moves beyond a traditional office environment?

Does workers’ compensation cover remote employees?

Yes, employees who work remotely still qualify for workers’ compensation. Any injury sustained during the course of working that would normally be covered is still covered when the employee does not work in an office.

This is true regardless of whether the employee works at home, as a “digital nomad,” or on assignment in a different location. When it comes to workers’ compensation claims, the nature of the injury is more important than the location at which the worker sustained it.

That said, workers cannot simply claim any injury sustained in their typical place of work qualifies for workers’ compensation. The worker owns the burden of proof and must submit sufficient evidence to prove that the injury happened in the line of work. Remote employees must prove their injuries happened while performing activities to further the interest of their employers, so injuries sustained while cooking dinner or mowing the lawn do not count.

Employees who work remotely still qualify for workers’ compensation. Determining the validity of a workers’ compensation claim is easy when the worker suffers an injury in the office or on the factory floor, but what happens when the workplace moves beyond a traditional environment?

How does workers’ compensation work for remote employees?

Set a minimum number of days that employees must take off, both for individual stretches and for the year in total. We mandate a minimum of 20 days off per employee per year. While we expect most team members to take more than that, we insist they take at least that much for their own well-being and for the sake of their productivity at work.

Encourage employees to take at least one long stretch away from work each year and make special policies for significant life events. Our parental leave policy, for example, mandates a minimum 14 weeks off for new parents.

If employees don’t take enough time off, don’t try to make it up to them by offering a cash bonus or other compensation. Some people within the organization may take as little time off as possible in the hopes of scoring a big check at the end of the year. Instead, work with managers to ensure team members take regular breaks from their work. At Remote, we follow a general rule that every person should always have some upcoming time off on our unavailability calendar.

Nothing highlights a problem with your business like having everything grind to a halt because one person takes a week off. If your company can’t handle someone’s absence, that’s not the responsibility of the person who took a vacation — it’s yours to ensure that no single person holds the keys to your company’s growth.

Early-stage businesses can’t afford to keep many people with duplicate responsibilities. Such companies may only have one designer, one marketer, one IT manager, or one salesperson. In these cases, the people taking time off should communicate early and often to keep others updated on upcoming projects and events.

We strongly advocate for asynchronous work and vigilant documentation for the same reasons. When everything is public to others within the company (we use Notion for this) and no one feels required to work during specific time slots, anyone can read the documentation and pick up where others left off without the need for catch-up meetings, which are time-wasters anyway.

Respect personal and cultural differences.

People should communicate if they expect to take off for a holiday, but cultural differences are not limited to days on and off. Some people may feel comfortable doing a little work on their days off, even when their leaders assure them it’s not necessary. Others may delete Slack from their phones, shut down all email notifications, and head up into the mountains to get away from the world for a while.

Both approaches are fine. If one person feels comfortable answering emails in the evening and doesn’t feel pressured to work through every vacation, respect that choice. If someone else goes off the grid, though, don’t hold that person to the same standard as their more connected colleagues.

People view their vacation time differently. This is especially true across international borders. Respect the differences in the way your team members treat their PTO. Just make sure they take enough of it.

Make unlimited PTO a perk, not an excuse.

With traditional PTO, employees accrue time off in a bank and are entitled to a payout of that bank’s value when they leave the company. Unlimited PTO is an ongoing perk, which means employees do not bank hours and therefore do not receive payouts if they leave the company, no matter how much (or how little) time off they took during their employment. 

Rather than view unlimited PTO as a cost-cutting measure during exit interviews, work proactively to ensure both sides benefit from the perk while the relationship is ongoing. Regularly bring up your unlimited PTO policy in team meetings and remind employees who do not have any time off on the calendar to schedule some. At the end of the employment relationship, employees should feel like they got a great deal during their time with the company, not like they missed out on a parting payday.

Your employees need time off to function well on the clock and to live their best lives as humans off the clock. The most successful companies are full of happy, productive people who are engaged with their work and don’t feel burned out. Unlimited PTO can help create that positive reality, but to make it work, you must proactively build a culture that champions a healthy work-life balance.

Unlimited paid time off sounds like a great benefit. Combined with the flexible hours and freedom of location for remote teams, unlimited PTO should theoretically allow workers to live their lives on their own terms. 

In truth, even well-meaning companies don’t always implement unlimited PTO policies correctly. Research indicates employees often take fewer days off with unlimited PTO than they do with more structured policies.

Done right, unlimited PTO offers employees an incredible opportunity to maintain the perfect work-life balance while ensuring your company thrives through an engaged, effective workforce every day of the year. Make sure your unlimited PTO policy falls on the right side of the line by following some basic, often overlooked rules.

Only track employee time off for official reporting purposes, which some countries require. Track performance metrics based on real productivity without respect for hours spent in the office. Not only do studies show that employees who work long hours are more likely to suffer from health problems, like heart attacks and strokes, but working more than 55 hours doesn’t correlate to gains in productivity anyway.

Remote’s unlimited PTO policy does not keep score regarding which employees take the most time off. Our “tell, don’t ask,” policy gives our team members the benefit of the doubt. We only ask that anyone who decides to take time off let others know in advance by using our unavailability calendar.

Your employees need time off to function well on the clock and to live their best lives as humans off the clock. Unlimited PTO can help create that reality, but to make it work, you must proactively build a culture that champions a healthy work-life balance.

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Written by • Preston Wickersham

How to manage an unlimited PTO policy