Medical testing labs are among the “essential businesses” exempt from the mandatory workplace shutdown rules in effect across many parts of the country. Even so, telecommuting may be a desirable, if not necessary measure for at least some lab employees. And, of course, it also offers tremendous business advantages during times of normalcy. But it can also backfire if you don’t make the right kind of arrangements. Here are eight telecommuting pitfalls to avoid.
- Failing to Keep a Tight Rein on Working from Home
Pitfall: There’s a dangerous tendency on the part of employees to confuse telecommuting for a license to work from home when they don’t feel like coming to work. “If you’re not careful, employees will begin making unilateral decisions about whether to come to work each day,” warns a veteran HR director. “The moment you start getting those ‘my dog is sick so I’m just going to work from home today’ calls, you’re in trouble,” she adds.
Solution: Lay down clear and total control over when working from home is allowed. Your Policy should make it clear that what you’re talking about is “telecommuting,” i.e., a formal arrangement in which the employee gets permission to work from home a certain number of days or hours each week, not simply “working from home.”
- Lack of an Approval Process
Pitfall: Employees may seek to cut individual telecommuting arrangements with their supervisors. Letting supervisors approve such requests will create a tangle of separate and inconsistent telecommuting arrangements.
Solution: Establish and implement a single process for submitting and approving requests to telecommute. Best Practices: Require employees to fill out a written application form to request permission to telecommute. Designate the HR director or another individual as telework coordinator in charge of approving requests.
- Lack of Clear Approval Criteria
Pitfall: Telecommuting is a feasible option only for certain positions and individuals. The problem is that the criteria need to be made clear. Otherwise, denying permission to telecommute could lead to grievances, discrimination suits (if the employee turned down is a minority protected by EEO law) or other legal complaint.
Example: A call center employee’s application for a telecommuting position is denied based on a single incident where he was disciplined for leaving work early without permission. The arbitrator finds the employer’s decision that the employee can’t be trusted to work at home is unfair and arbitrary.
Solution: Establish criteria for determining who can telecommute. Criteria should be based on position. Accordingly, telecommuting won’t work for technicians and testing personnel that use lab supplies and fixed equipment to carry out their jobs but may be appropriate for accounting personnel or marketers whose jobs involve extensive phone contact.
- Lack of Clear Productivity Standards
Pitfall: Employees who work from home can’t be closely monitored like other employees and are also subject to distractions, such as kids, the fridge and TV. So, it’s not surprising that according to a recent CareerBuilder.com survey, only a small fraction of employees who work from home actually put in a full day’s work. Unfortunately, it can be tricky to fire a telecommuter for lack of productivity.
Example: Software company doesn’t have just cause to fire telecommuter for lack of productivity when “there’s no evidence that the employer set any standards for employees working at home.”
Solution: You can minimize productivity losses by setting out clear standards for telecommuters. Best Practice: Rather than including productivity standards in your Policy, include a provision in the Policy that requires employees to sign a written telecommute contract establishing productivity standards and other specific terms of their employment while working from home, including:
- Indication of how long the telecommuting arrangement will last;
- Reservation of lab management’s right to monitor telecommuters’ effectiveness and periodically evaluate their performance; and
- Reservation of the right to cancel the arrangement at any time and for any reason.
- Failure to Control Work Hours
Pitfall: Control over work hours and schedule becomes a major challenge when employees work from home. In addition to record keeping problems, it exposes you to risk of overtime claims, especially in states where employees accrue overtime for hours employers “require or permit” them to work.
Example: Computer services technician equipped with computer lines so he can remain on-call at all time gets paid overtime for hours he was “permitted to” work from home.
Solution: Set ground rules on hours worked. Require the telecommuter to reach an agreement on hours of work. Spell out the agreed-to hours in the telecommuter agreement. Set a maximum number of hours, (e.g., no more than eight hours per day) or an exact work schedule, (e.g., from 9:00 am to 5:00 pm, Monday through Friday). Another possibility is to establish a weekly maximum that employees can’t exceed without first getting their supervisor’s written authorization Also require telecommuters to keep and submit a weekly log of their work time so you can ensure that they’re following the agreed-to schedule.
- Failure to Provide for Telecommuter’s Health and Safety
Pitfall: OSHA has issued guidance suggesting that the duty to protect workers’ health and safety applies not just to the company facility or site but to any location in which workers perform their employment duties, including at home. Moreover, illnesses and injuries that telecommuters suffer in the course of their work might be deemed work-related and thus covered by workers’ compensation. “Work-relatedness is determined by what employee were doing when the injury occurred rather than where they were doing it,” notes one expert.
Solution: Include language in the telecommuter agreement addressing the health and safety hazards, including:
- A statement that the lab’s OSHA policies and procedures, including with regard to HazCom and musculoskeletal injuries, apply to work done from home;
- A description of the physical area that makes up the work space;
- The requirement of an assessment of the hazards found in that space;
- The lab’s right to access the work space to inspect or respond to hazards; and
- The employee’s duty to report illnesses, injuries and safety incidents that occur at home.
- Lack of Clear Restrictions on Personal Use of Work Equipment
Pitfall: Controlling employee misuse of lab computers, instruments and other equipment is tough enough when employees work on site. It’s an even greater challenge when the employee telecommutes.
Solution: Stress in your Policy that all work equipment must be used for work purposes only. Make it clear that the telecommuter is subject to the same lab policies as site employees, including those on bullying, cyberbullying and personal use of lab equipment.
- Lack of Clear Privacy and Information Security Rules
Pitfall: The risk of privacy and security breaches is much greater in telecommuting arrangements. Once people plug their own equipment and thumb drives into the lab’s information systems, problems are bound to crop up. These problems can include computer viruses, violations of privacy laws and breaches of confidentiality.
Solution: Make sure that your policies and procedures dealing with computer usage and internet access, e.g., requirements that employees follow certain password protection and encryption procedures, apply to telecommuters. Require telecommuters to keep all files and other paperwork in a secure place. Instruct the telecommuter that these files are the lab’s property and must be returned immediately when their employment ends.
