SIDEBAR: Get It in Writing

Get the right people involved and revise regularly

Responsibility for managing teleworkers is not only the job of the remote workers' immediate bosses but also involves IT, human resources, finance and other corporate staff. That's why it's important to get all those people in the same room when drafting a company's formal telework strategy.

One of Forrester Research's key recommendations: Create and maintain a formal, written telecommuting policy.

To be effective, Forrester analyst Brownlee Thomas says a telecommuting policy should cover employee eligibility; lay out employer and employee responsibilities; determine who's to pay for remote office gear, including equipment and services; establish the level of support IT will provide to teleworkers; and address how enterprise data and customer information will be stored and handled.

Even if a company has just 25 permanent remote workers, a formal policy document is a must-have, Thomas says. IT, HR and business managers should get together to create and revise the policy, as well as encourage input from remote workers for improving the telework program.

Thomas addresses all these topics in a research report, "How To Write A Telecommuting Policy". Here are some of the tips:

• Determine acceptable use. Part of remote employees' responsibilities include not misusing corporate systems. A telecommuting policy should be clear about what constitutes appropriate e-mail, Internet and intranet usage. For example, what's considered harassment or offensive use? What are the company's file-downloading and forwarding practices? How is company-confidential material to be handled? Are chat rooms and bulletin boards off limits? Will the employer be monitoring employee usage?

• Address safety and insurance. Forrester recommends companies try to ensure that their remote employees are set up in a safe working environment and can protect any employer-owned equipment from theft and damage, for example. Insurance coverage is usually split between parties, according to Thomas. "Typically the employer's insurance policy would cover enterprise-owned equipment, while the employee's home insurance policy would cover civil liability for deliveries and at-home meetings with colleagues, customers or suppliers," Thomas writes.

• Keep on top of tech advances. Companies should regularly revise their telecommuting policies, especially with respect to IT gear and services. New remote access technologies will crop up, enterprise applications will be added or dropped, and security practices will mature - the policy needs to reflect these changes.

• Spell out what kind of home-office equipment IT will provide, recommend and support. IT should put together a list of approved home-office equipment, including brands and model options, specific to teleworkers' job functions. But it doesn't end there: Teleworkers will likely look for IT support for related tech add-ons. "IT should also specify other types of remote-office equipment the internal help desk will support on a best-effort basis," Thomas writes. It's reasonable for home users to expect some level of support from IT for other PC- and network-connected equipment, such as personal firewall equipment, home LAN-routers, printers and fax machines, according to Thomas.

• Cooperation? Get it in writing. A telecommuting agreement is a document that summarizes employees' telework responsibilities and can help ensure compliance with IT and other corporate policies, according to Thomas. She suggests companies require their teleworking employees sign such an agreement - sometimes annually - to confirm that they've read the company's telecommuting policies and understand who's responsible for what.