Work at Home Parent

bgreene

We are considering the possibility of letting parents of newborn babies work at home one day a week. Does anyone else do this? Any suggestions or comments would be appreciated.

deniseE

[font size="1" color="#FF0000"]LAST EDITED ON 07-13-04 AT 09:16AM (CST)[/font][br][br]We've had a few of these over the years. Overall, I would say that depending on the ee...it works well. Most are appreciative of the opportunity and don't take advantage of the situation.

I would make sure you have a written policy outlining which positions are eligible for work from home and what requirements the ee must meet. We required that the ee had no serious discipline in the file and had been an ee for 3 years.

Some job functions will just not be able to be done from home...it's better to set that out right away.

You may also have to consider offering this option to men as well, so as not to appear discriminatory.

edit: You may also want to include time limits or re-evaluation requirements in the policy...so that you have some control over how long this lasts and when you can require the ee to return to the office "or else"

bgreene

Great suggestions Denise - thanks for the info.

marc

We have seriously evaluated work-at-home options and have been unable to get past issues associated with workplace safety, workplace insurance, equipment compatibility and maintenance concerns and confidentiality of company and client information.

I agree that the EE must be in good standing and have shown the ability to be a self-starter. You also need a way to measure productivity and when an EE is to be "available" to other staff. Finally, if you have an hourly worker, how are you going to monitor time on the clock vs off the clock?

In the end, we discarded the idea.

HR in CA

I come at this from another angle.

I asked and was given the opportunity to work at home 3 hours everyday, after the birth of my daughter. I was so greatful for the opportunity, and I was going to show my company this arrangement can and does work. The person they allowed to do this before me took full advantage because she was not managed properly.

I had this arrangement for 4 years. In fact I am the one who decided to be in the office full time once by daughter began pre school.

I recommend whenever possible to accommodate this type of arrangement. With proper supervision in place, it can work with some positions.

deniseE

We solved the "how do we know they are working" issue by providing laptops and requiring that the ee dial into our mainframe to work. We can not only tell how long the ee has been in the system, but what has been accessed/done if necessary.

This eliminated the concern about involving personal pc's. Everything was linked through the agency, not through an individual internet connection.