Willis Towers Watson surveyed 344 North American organizations in October about their current remote work practices and future remote work plans (1). Most of those organizations (59%) currently had employees working from home and most (52%) expected that to continue at least through the first quarter of 2021.
Only 37% of the companies had a Remote Work policy in place, and most of those were written this year. The remaining 60% planned to create a policy within the next year.
One of the tough policy questions is whether to adjust compensation of employees working remotely. Some multi-location companies pay employees, who work in a high-cost areas, a higher salary than employees working in a low-cost area. The higher salary could be built into the salary ranges or added as a premium.
So, what should a company do for an employee who reports into a high-cost location but lives in a low- cost area and works remotely? Most of survey respondents (61%) said that they will pay remote workers the same regardless of where they work, while the others either set pay based on the location of the employee or apply a geographic pay differential.
Other information from the survey included:
- Employers anticipate that the percent of employees working from home will be reduced to 30% after COVID-19, which is still 6 times higher than pre-COVID.
- Employers expect a slight net savings due to remote work over the next three years, primarily due to lower real estate expenses.
If your organization is planning to create a policy, below are links to existing policies. Writing a policy based on existing models may be easier than writing a policy from scratch.
The sample “Telecommuting Policy and Procedure” policy provided by SHRM was written before COVID-19, so it will need to be adjusted. However, it does touch on several areas that warrant consideration.
https://www.shrm.org/resourcesandtools/tools-and-samples/policies/pages/telecommuting_policy.aspx
Likewise, the California Employers Association provides a sample, “Employee Remote Work Policy and Agreement”, which can provide ideas for creating a remote work policy.
https://www.employers.org/clientuploads/hr_forms/RemoteWorkPolicy.pdf
(1) https://www.cfo.com/workplace-issues/2020/11/remote-work-policies-still-in-development-survey/