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A. Working from home is here to stay, it may not work in every organisation or job type, but it has its place.
Monitoring a worker’s productivity is commonplace but for managers looking after team members who are fully remote, the responsibility does not end with the workers productivity, but it’s a good place to start.
If you have employees working from home, you need to have a home working policy. Ideally in this policy employees should list how they are monitoring their employees. The ways employers monitor home workers should not be dissimilar to how they monitor office-based workers.
Employees have a legal right to privacy and if they chose, they could ask for their data back to review, so employers should be cautious of how invasive their monitoring is.
Employees are obliged to give their full time and attention to their job during working hours, you wouldn’t expect an office worker to bring their children into work for the day, nor is this acceptable for home workers.
Employees working from home will usually have a set start and finish time and monitoring compliance in this area is easy. Software exists that can do this for you, or you could simply ask everyone to say hello via teams when they start and say goodbye when they finish. This may seem like an oversimplification but for most employers, this works fine.
Employers should encourage communication within the team itself so ideas can be shared, questions answered/asked e.g. instant messaging software and a daily catch up for all team members, whether they are remote, or office based is a good way to stay connected, share information and discuss the day ahead.
Where possible, having regular one to ones to discuss current work and deadlines is important, even if the time is taken up by idol chit chat, its time that is well spent in terms of employee engagement.
Regularity and consistency are important, mark a catch up in the diary and stick to it, make it predictable. Agree the method for communication that suits everyone (think about time zones etc).
Home workers have the exact same rights as office-based workers, a risk assessment that includes health and safety consideration is necessary. Consideration of their mental health is also necessary. It’s important that employees feel like they are part of the business.
Look out for indirect signs that someone is working too much and getting overwhelmed, such as social withdrawal. Make a point of checking in with them and address instances of excessive working hours e.g. emails being sent late at night and consider why it’s happening. Are workloads too heavy?
Employers should set clear achievable goals for employees, whether that be in terms of quantity or quality and be sure to monitor whether these are being met.
If an employee’s line manager is doing their job attentively, the need for inbuilt monitoring software may not be necessary. An employees’ overall output is a key indicator of their productiveness as is their ability to meet deadlines.
will vary from employer to employer and it will depend on various factors like the employer’s size, the sector it operates in, and the risks present in that workplace.
Examples of steps you and your clients could take include:
- Have a sexual harassment policy.
- Train all staff on sexual harassment and what is considered to be unacceptable behaviour in the workplace, and how to keep themselves safe.
- Assess the risk of it happening in the workplace.
- Create a culture of transparency where workers feel able to speak up and raise concerns without fear that they will not be taken seriously.
- Have a clear procedure in place so that workers know how they can report concerns and what steps will then be taken.
- Communicate that the business has a zero-tolerance approach to harassment.
This is not an exhaustive list, and any measures should be tailored to the specific organisation and regularly reviewed.
What happens if there is a breach of the new preventative duty?
Once in force, a complaint can be made to the EHRC which has the power to take enforcement action against your business and that of your clients. No allegations of sexual harassment are needed in order to raise this complaint.
If a claim of sexual harassment is brought in the employment tribunal, then the tribunal must consider if and to what extent the employer has complied with the preventative duty. If the employment tribunal finds that the preventative duty has been breached, it may increase the compensation awarded by up to 25%.
