In the age of post-COVID employees and employers, remote and hybrid workforce circumstances are becoming quickly commonplace. This doesn’t have to be a bad thing, but it has to be something for which you are prepared as an employer. Even if your business only has one remote employee, your operation will need to adjust accordingly to be in compliance with the law that governs hybrid and remote work. Since this whole transition has been so abrupt, many businesses and companies have yet to adjust their compliance procedures accordingly, which puts them in a difficult situation should something problematic arise. Your procedures and processes are there to protect you and the employees, and if you don’t have protocols in place for hybrid and remote situations, you’re leaving yourself liable for issues that are sure to come. Even in the Human Resources professional sector, there’s significant questions about accommodation for remote work employees. When can you agree to a remote request? And when should you refuse to allow your employee to ask for a request that wouldn’t be acceptable in an in-person environment?
It’s important to remember that remote work, though now a form of everyday life, isn’t a right that your employees are entitled to. You as the employer are allowing remote work to happen, and because of that, you don’t owe it to them to offer remote work. You also don’t always show them the request to work remotely for medical or mental health circumstances. If your employees are hybrid workers and you’re not sure if they’re taking advantage of you, familiarizing yourself with protocols and establishing protocols for your business in particular can help protect you. And multi-state workers pose an even more complex problem for employers. Different states have different accommodation requirements in their laws, and choosing to work with someone in a separate state couldn’t mean accommodating them in a way that you were not prepared to offer.
As if governing your employees was not difficult enough, telework has seen an increase in harassment, whether based on sex, age, or ethnic differences, for employees. To protect your employees from harassment and yourself from the repercussions of a harassment situation, you need to have protocols in place as soon as possible to handle these frustrating situations.
Telework managers now have to understand how to handle offsite employees in a way that will be beneficial for both them and for you. Training your managers, handling telework expenses, and processing timekeeping and pay for remote workers are all pieces of the puzzle that you need to put together in order to have a comprehensive and beneficial guidebook for this new normal.
Additionally, the wide variety of remote work that occurs leads to common misclassification when it comes to the federal understanding of what an employee actually is. Whether they are exempt, non-exempt, an employee or an independent contractor, you need to know how to classify your employee to protect yourself from tax issues and payroll complications.
[/et_pb_text][et_pb_text _builder_version=”4.4.4″]Thank you,
Your VertiSource HR Team
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