Our 5 tips for setting up teleworking in your company

According to the latest annual Teleworking Barometer by Malakoff Humanis, carried out in December 2020, 67% of managers would be in favour of implementing teleworking in their company in the long term. Indeed, this mode of organization is becoming more and more attractive, both on the employer and employee side. But how do you set up working from home for your employees? What are the key steps to make this change successfully ?

 

 

Talking to your employees

Above all, it is essential to communicate with your employees, to find out their opinion on the implementation of teleworking. Indeed, if the Home office has many advantages, but it also has a number of disadvantages (social isolation, unsuitable home workspace, imbalance between professional and personal life, reduced motivation, etc.).

To find out the teams’ point of view, it is possible, for example, to carry out surveys, send questionnaires, organise group meetings or individual interviews with reluctant employees, etc. Everyone will be able to share their fears, doubts, concerns and expectations about this new work organization.

 

Defining the conditions for remote work

This initial inventory will thus make it possible to precisely define the conditions for the implementation of teleworking. With the help of several players in the company (human resources, managers, legal department, IT department, etc.), it will be necessary to Clarify the following :

• Will teleworking be implemented full-time or part-time?
• Will it concern everyone or only some of the employees? In the latter case, who and under what conditions? Are some professional activities more conducive to Home office ?
• What tools and resources will be available to teleworkers?
• What means will be deployed to facilitate communication (intranet tools, collaborative platforms, shared agendas, videoconferencing tools, etc.) and remote management?
• What will be the hours to be respected when teleworking?
• What will be the rhythm? Will a system of rotation between each workstation be set up on the company’s premises?
• Will the workload be the same?
• Where will teleworking take place? (home, coworking space, etc.)
• What will be the rights and duties of employees working from home?
• What will be the nature of the tasks to be carried out while teleworking and what will be the missions to be carried out exclusively on site?
• What control tools will be put in place? (daily exchanges by email and telephone, regular face-to-face meetings, weekly reports, etc.)
• How will remote work be secured and how will data be protected?

 

Find out about the legal terms and conditions of teleworking

Article L.1222-9 of the French Labor Code specifies that telework can be implemented by ” a collective agreement” or “ within the framework of a charter drawn up by the employer after consulting the social and economic committee, if it exists ». Otherwise, a simple agreement between the employer and the employee concerned, whether written or oral, will be sufficient.

While this is not mandatory, it is strongly recommended to conclude a collective agreement or to draw up a teleworking charter. This document will bring together all the rules and conditions relating to the implementation of telework. This will make it possible to define a clear framework for this new organization of work, to inform everyone of their rights and duties, and thus to protect themselves from possible conflicts or disputes.

 

Carry out a teleworking test phase

It is also advisable to carry out a preliminary test phase for a period of time determined beforehand, for example a few weeks or months, in order to allow employees, managers and managers to experiment with remote work.

At the end of this period, it will be necessary to carry out an exhaustive inventory to determine the points of improvement, the dysfunctions, as well as the benefits on the human, financial and operational levels.

It will therefore be important to ask each teleworker for feedback regarding the quality of life in teleworking, the effectiveness of management, communication, productivity, etc.

 

Implementing teleworking in the long term

If this first trial is conclusive, teleworking can then be established in the long term. However, care must be taken to carry out regular monitoring in order to evaluate the effectiveness of this mode of organization, to identify flaws and to optimize.

It may also be interesting to define performance indicators in advance in order to clearly visualize the results of this mode of organization (rate of achievement of objectives; absenteeism rate before/after; financial performance; savings made; indicators related to well-being at work, etc.).

It is also important to know that one of the biggest challenges related to the implementation of teleworking is very often related to the motivation and commitment of employees. At a distance, it can be more complicated to motivate teams, and it is not uncommon for some employees to feel a certain loss of meaning in their work.

If this is the case, it may therefore be useful to adjust the management style, to change the pace of teleworking, to provide specific training to learn how to manage remotely, to carry out more frequent interviews and exchanges, to organize teambuilding activities, or face-to-face events.