Whether you are a remote business or planning to switch to work-from-anywhere when the situation calls for it, you need to have a clear and concise work from home policy. This ensures that employees follow all the guidelines and rules they followed while doing in-office work. Overall, the idea is to promote a culture of accountability and responsibility with flexibility.
What is a Work from Home Policy?
Obviously, a traditional work policy won’t accommodate WFH teams. According to an expert survey by Gallup, 8 out of 10 employees expect to work fully remote or hybrid. Moreover, a work from home policy here simply defines the guidelines your employees will follow while working from anywhere. This document also highlights all the schedule changes, new KPIs, and other important details your employees will need to remember for streamlined remote working.
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Why Do You Need to Create a Work from Home Policy?
Here’s why you need a work from home policy.
- No Risk: We were not prepared for the 2020 coronavirus pandemic. However, now we know that anything like that can happen at any time. That’s why if you have your remote work guidelines outlined, there is no risk of loss.
- Transparency: It’s obvious. Isn’t it? Nowadays, the work world is employee-centric. So, your employees and even new candidates will want to know your working at home policy and procedures. Overall, you can’t hide anything from your workers. Otherwise, they will quit, increasing your employee turnover rate.
- Flexibility Levels: Having a clear and concise WFH policy is also necessary to let your employees know the level of flexibility they are going to get. For example, can an employee who has a doctor’s appointment work from home till the meeting, then head on to the office for their remaining shift?
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What to Include in a Work from Home Policy for a Mid-Sized Company?
Here are a few things you need to include in the working at home policy and procedures document you make.
- Eligibility: It’s crucial to state the employees and jobs covered in your WFH policy. Also, it is a good practice to include the scope and circumstances of remote work as well.
- Request Process: The next thing to include in your work from home remote guidelines is the process it will take for employees to request fora remote office setting and their managers to approve it.
- Scheduling & Communication: This part of the work from home policy includes all about the communication channels and adaptive work schedules you will provide your employees with.
- Performance Evaluation: It is also essential to include how you will evaluate employee performance while they work from anywhere for complete transparency.
How to Plan a Work from Home Policy?
Planning an ideal work from home policy requires you to consider a few more things:
1. Multiple Communication Channels
Communicate your work from home rules to your workers via multiple communication channels. This is based on the availability and understanding of your employees. This is also a good idea to keep multiple channels for conversation to ensure flexibility and that everyone gets the message loud and clear.
2. Overcommunicate
The sudden shift to work from home remote employment can be startling for your employees. So be prepared to overcommunicate all the new schedules, guidelines, and other important details to your employees to help them adapt to the new normal. Plus, you can also switch to the hybrid work model if remote working doesn’t suit your organizational style. However, with proper planning.
3. Align Communication With Work Styles
Every employee works differently. Thus, the way you communicate with each human resource should also be different. This is again possible via multiple communication channels. Overall, when you align communication channels with working style, you maximize efficiency and productivity.
Read Also: Top 10 Best Employee Scheduling Software for Businesses in 2026
Top 11 HR Best Practices for Developing a Work from Home Policy
Here are a few proven expert tips for your HR professionals to develop an ideal work from home policy.
- Provide Training: Train your employees, managers, and HR to work efficiently from home. These training methods must be included in your work from home policy.
- Include Regular Check-Ins: Secondly, regularly make your employees clock in the office to maintain discipline, responsibility, accountability, and discuss next steps.
- Prioritize Cybersecurity: Ensure that your employees are using only company-approved anti-virus and firewall software on their work devices. These details must be there in your remote jobs work from home guidelines.
- Work-Life Balance Matters: Work from home from the employees’ perspective means work-life balance maxed out. So, flexible schedules are another thing to include in your policy.
- Keep Social Events: Keep organizing social events regularly to ensure that WFH employees don’t feel isolated.
- Transparent Communication Policies: The WFH policy you make must also include transparent communication policies to ensure high trust and reputation.
- Implement Project Management Software: a project management software solution with mobile access is a good aid for your work-from-anywhere workers to get in planning, management, execution, and progress tracking without any bustle and hassle.
- Transparent KPIs: Keep your key performance indicators clear and concise for everyone. Use SMART goal settings to ensure that the right teams with the right skills can get the work done on the right time.
- Provide a Good Home Office Setup: Either provide your employees with a good home office setup or help them make one. This ensures distraction-free work, which is the most productive.
- Trust & Autonomy Matters: Monitoring is also necessary. However, it should also have boundaries. It’s essential to trust your employees and provide them with authority over their work.
- Reimburse or Subsidize: Other than their salaries, reimbursing or subsidizing your employees for any devices they purchase or any personal costs they incur while working from home. This shows them that you care and inspires your employees to work harder.
Boost Work from Home Efficiency With DeskTrack
So, now that the work from home policy has been implemented and your employees have begun remote work, you need to ensure that your employees follow all the guidelines mentioned in the policy. Well, you can’t keep an eye on every employee. However, there’s a software solution that can do that for you. DeskTrack’s remote employee monitoring software monitors the online and offline work activities and hours of your remote teams, providing you with real-time information in charts and graphs, letting you know whether your employees are working or just pretending to. Try now and realize why the all-in-one workforce management tool is preferred by 8000+ businesses like yours.
Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ)
Q. Is Work from Home Legal in India?
Ans. Yes, work-from-home has been legal in India for a while. However, after the pandemic of 2020, there has been a huge emphasis on remote work in India since 2021.
Q. Will Work-from-Home Continue in 2026?
Ans. According to Forbes, employees are not willing to return to in-office work after a long period of remote working. Seeing that this trend is still going on, WFH will continue to remain in 2026.
Q. What is the Work-from-Home Policy?
Ans. Obviously, a traditional work policy won’t accommodate WFH teams. Moreover, a work from home policy here simply defines the guidelines your employees will follow while working from anywhere.
Q. Why Do You Need a Work from Home Policy?
Ans. Here’s why you need a work from home policy.
- No Risk
- Transparency
- Clear Flexibility Levels
Q. What are the Rules for Working from Home?
Ans. The specific rules for working from home depend on the employer. However, whatever these guidelines are, they must be included in their WFH policy.
Q. What to Include in a Work from Home Policy?
Ans. Here are a few things you need to include in the working at home policy and procedures document you make.
- Eligibility
- Request Process
- Scheduling & Communication
- Performance Evaluation
