How to Help Your Employees Who Want to Work From Home?
Now that we have learned to live with Covid 19 virus, work conditions are getting back to normal. Companies have opened their offices again and resumed working the usual way.
But, working the way before the pandemic is not possible today. Your employees have already tasted the benefit of working from home.
They now know that it is possible to work in their pajamas without any traveling hassle. Thus, almost 82% of employees now prefer to work from home.
So, if some of your employees also want to work from home, have you thought of a plan to deal with them?
Or, you are going to follow the classic corporate policy – ignore your employees' needs.
Well, we will suggest that you not do that. As you already know, great resignation and freelance culture have already taken many great performers away from companies.
So, if you don’t want to lose your good employees, you should create a plan to support your employees who still want to work from home.
But, you don’t have the resources to support a hybrid work environment in your organization?
Well, there is no need to worry. If you have a proper strategy and passion for helping your employees, it is possible to assist your employees to work from anywhere around the globe.
This guide will walk you through the entire process of dealing with employees who want to work from home. So, let’s scroll down and understand how you can support your employees.
Ways to Help Your Employees Work From Home
Does your employee have young children at home? Is your employee physically incapable of visiting the office daily?
No matter what the reason your employees give to work from home, you should listen to their concerns and come up with a proper plan to help them work remotely.
Here is the simple go-through plan that you can follow to support your employees who don’t want to come to the office every day:
Ensure WFH Is Possible
Before moving ahead, make sure that the job your employee is doing is possible to work remotely. Thanks to technology, today it is possible to perform most jobs from home.
But, still, there are some jobs that need a physical presence on the site. So, you should decide whether the job can be performed remotely or not.
For example, a field sales agent's job is something that needs a physical presence on the site. In this case, work can not be done remotely.
Thus, ensuring that jobs can be done remotely.
Evaluate Your Employee's On-site Performance
Working from home comes with great responsibility. Using the remote working system , you can provide assignments to your employees and monitor their performance to some extent.
But, most remote operations require flexibility and schedule planning. If your employees lack the ability to work without proper guidance, it will not be a good idea to let them work from home.
This will lead to employees slacking. All this will eventually impact your company’s performance and productivity.
So, when employees apply for work from home, you should evaluate their on-site performance. You can use employee time tracking software to analyze different performance angles, such as:
● Attendance. Keep a close eye on your employees' attendance records and check how many times they have reported being late for work.
● Leaves. After that, check how many leaves your employees have taken in the last few days. This will help you understand how serious and productive your employees are.
● Scheduling abilities. You should track your employees' time spent on individual tasks. This will show whether your employees are capable of creating their own schedules and sticking to them.
● Productivity level. This is an important factor that you should monitor in your employees' performance. If your employee has good productivity while working from the office, this indicates that they can work remotely as well.
● Accountable. Using the application and software tracking feature, you can check which software or website your employees have spent most of their time. If you find them wasting time on gaming or shopping websites, this shows their lack of accountability.
Analysis Performance Record
Once you have collected your employees' different performance records, you should combine them in a graphical report. This way, you can better understand whether an employee deserves work-from-home privilege or not.
Working from home might save your company’s resources. But, it is a privilege for your employees. They can work while taking care of their family, and they don’t have to commute daily.
So, you should present a work-from-home opportunity as a reward in your organization. And only top performers should be given the reward.
So, give a thorough look at your employees' performance records and check their attendance, productivity, and other work abilities. If an employee has a stellar performance record, only then should you consider them giving a work-from-home opportunity?
Look for a Valid Reason
A reason matters greatly when allowing your employees to work remotely. If your employees have no valid reason to work from home, there is no reason for you to go through all the trouble to set up a remote working system in your organization.
So, request your employees to submit a valid reason with supporting documents while applying for the remote work position.
For instance, if your employee wants to work from home because their parents are sick and they have to look after them. In that case, you can request medical documents supporting their reasons.
However, if employees just want to work from home because they want to save money or are just too lazy to visit the office every day. In that case, it should not be considered a valid reason.
If money is the problem, you can provide a travel allowance to your employee. But, if an employee simply wants to work remotely because they think it will be fun, it is not a valid reason.
Gather the Right Tools
After checking employees' performance and reasoning, if you find that they are suitable candidates for work-from-home rewards. In that case, you should first equip them with the right tools to work remotely.
There are several tools that employees need to work from home. For example, they need task management software to receive feedback and assignments from their seniors.
They also need a seamless communication portal to interact with other team members in real-time. Employees also required tools to access important documents and plan their schedules.
Wondering where you can find the perfect remote management software?
Then look nowhere else. At TrackOlap , we have a complete toolkit to support remote work. We have project time tracking software , a communication portal, invoice management, and many other tools.
Moreover, our software is 100% cloud-based and scalable. So, if your employees want to work from home today, but tomorrow they change their minds, you can easily add or remove them from our portal.
Besides this, TrackOlap can also help you track your field employees and office workers. So, we have the perfect solution to provide a hybrid work environment for your employees.
Formulate a WFH Policy
Okay, once you have the remote working system in order. The next step is to create a proper work-from-home policy in your organization.
The policy will work as a document to guide your employees to work in a remote environment. It will tell them how you are going to monitor their performance and what their responsibilities are.
It will remove all the confusion between you and your employees. Moreover, employees can independently work when they have a clear work structure in their hands.
Policy creation is not a difficult task today. We have a policy management system that allows you to draft a policy and share it with your team members in real time. You can also get feedback and digital signatures on your policies within the platform.
However, we suggest you consult your employees before creating work-from-home policies. You should get suggestions from all your departments and employees to come up with a comprehensive policy that can help your organization grow.
Parting Note
There you go, people! As you can see, letting your employees work remotely is not a difficult task. If you have the right tools and policies in your hands, you can easily help your employees work from home.
In today’s competitive environment, it is important to consider your employees' needs. Therefore, if your employees want to work from home, you should consider their request and create an environment to support it.
For remote work tools, you can consult our team anytime and book a free demo . We will help you help your employees work from anywhere around the world.