Willis Towers Watson surveyed 344 North American organizations in October about their current remote work practices and future remote work plans (1).\u00a0 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.<\/p>\n
Only 37% of the companies had a Remote Work policy in place, and most of those were written this year.\u00a0 The remaining 60% planned to create a policy within the next year.<\/p>\n
One of the tough policy questions is whether to adjust compensation of employees working remotely.\u00a0 Some multi-location companies pay employees, who work in a high-cost areas, a higher salary than employees working in a low-cost area.\u00a0 The higher salary could be built into the salary ranges or added as a premium.<\/p>\n
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?\u00a0 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.<\/p>\n
Other information from the survey included:<\/p>\n
If your organization is planning to create a policy, below are links to existing policies. \u00a0Writing a policy based on existing models may be easier than writing a policy from scratch.<\/p>\n
The sample \u201cTelecommuting Policy and Procedure\u201d policy provided by SHRM was written before COVID-19, so it will need to be adjusted.\u00a0 However, it does touch on several areas that warrant consideration.<\/p>\n
https:\/\/www.shrm.org\/resourcesandtools\/tools-and-samples\/policies\/pages\/telecommuting_policy.aspx<\/a><\/p>\n Likewise, the California Employers Association provides a sample, \u201cEmployee Remote Work Policy and Agreement\u201d, which can provide ideas for creating a remote work policy.<\/p>\n https:\/\/www.employers.org\/clientuploads\/hr_forms\/RemoteWorkPolicy.pdf<\/a><\/p>\n