Working from home

Earlier this year, employers were polled by Mercer, a global benefits consulting service, to give their preliminary thinking about flexible work arrangements in a post-pandemic environment. Their answers suggest that, in some cases, companies with employees working remotely have become more receptive to these arrangements.

Here are some quick survey highlights:

68% of companies are now updating or creating new work-from-home policies. As reasons to expand flexible working arrangements, they cite employee engagement and productivity; enhanced employee value proposition; a more diverse workforce; and greater access to a larger talent pool.
65% of employers anticipate that, post-Covid-19, between one-quarter and three-quarters of their employees will work remotely on a regular basis.
67% of employers have seen the productivity of employees working remotely during the pandemic remain level and 27% have seen it increase.

Employee Sentiments

What about employees? Their sentiments were captured in a recent survey by market research firm, Morning Consult. Questions were directed only to employees whose jobs make it possible for them to work remotely. Roughly four out of five agreed with the statement, “I enjoy working from home.”

When asked about how many days a week they’d like to work from home once the Covid-19 pandemic is “under control,” one-third expressed a desire to work from home every day. Nearly one-quarter prefer three to four days per week. One in five would like one to two days working remotely.

What appeals most to those who prefer working from home at least several days a week is that there’s no time-wasting commute. Working from home also gives them more time to focus on their health. Other pluses mentioned include a higher general comfort level with the home office environment, greater family connections, and a perception that their work quality has improved while working remotely.

Not All Roses

Still, employees also point to some downsides. For example, they list the risk of work and personal lives merging, feeling disconnected from coworkers, and feeling isolated. It’s important to remember that surveys capture averages and provide a helpful starting point for thinking about issues. But your own workforce may not have the same attitudes as those captured in these recent surveys. One way to find out is to conduct your own poll. If you do, don’t give employees the impression that every wish they express for their work settings will be granted or that any policy changes will last forever.

Criteria for Policy Assessment

Before committing to a work-form-home policy establish clear criteria that will enable you to assess its efficacy. Criteria might include:

Employee productivity. It doesn’t necessarily need to increase, but you don’t want it to drop, either.
Employee satisfaction. If all or some employees eventually decide working from home isn’t as attractive as they thought it would be, you might want to amend your policy.
Supervision issues. In some cases,the job of front-line supervisors overseeing remote employees could become unduly challenging.
Esprit de corps. Team spirit and unit cohesion may not hold up with employees working remotely.
Liability concerns. You may be unable to manage risk, including cybersecurity concerns, with workers using less-secure home networks and connections. In-home work-related injuries could also become a problem.
Recruiting results. On the other hand, you may be able to attract hard-to-find skilled workers more easily if they can work from anywhere.
Cost. The shared cost of employee home office necessities such as ergonomic furniture and computer hardware could be higher than expected. But reduced office leasing and utilities expenses are likely to cut your costs significantly.

The good news is that you probably have gained enough experience during the pandemic to anticipate potential issues with a permanent work-from-home policy. Just keep in mind that there can be differences between pandemic-driven ad hoc solutions and formal policies.

\When employees don’t have to work from home, you enjoy more flexibility in structuring a remote-working policy. Matters to iron out include which employees are eligible, how many days they can work from home, what tech and other support you’ll provide, and scheduling procedures.

Word to the Wise

If your employees have been forced to work from home during the pandemic, you’ve enjoyed a unique opportunity to test a whole new approach to working. Permanent work-from-home potentially could save your business a lot of money and result in a happier, more productive workforce.

What’s Next

In preparing for rapid opportunities for growth, take the time to find the tools, resources, and HR experts to help create a solid plan for preparing your business to thrive on the other side of COVID-19. Our HR consulting team is here to help you. Contact Katie Hall to get started.

About Reynolds + Rowella

Reynolds + Rowella is a regional accounting and consulting firm known for a team approach to financial problem solving. As Certified Public Accountants, our partners foster a personal touch with our clients. As members of DFK International/USA, an association of accountants and advisors, our professional network is international, yet many of our clients have known us for years through the local communities we serve.

Our mission is to operate as a financial services firm of outstanding quality. Our efforts are directed at serving our clients in the most efficient and responsive manner possible, delivering services that exceed the expectations of those we serve. The firm has offices at 90 Grove St., Ridgefield, Conn., and 51 Locust Ave., New Canaan, Conn. For more information, please contact Elizabeth Bresnan at 203.438.0161 or email.

Paying your employees for hours that you know they’ve worked is straightforward enough. But what if they’re doing more work than you think they are — or more than you’ve asked them to do? As federal regulations state, “Work not requested but suffered or permitted is work time” and, thus, must be compensated.

As explained in a new Department of Labor (DOL) field assistance bulletin (FAB), “If the employer knows or has reason to believe that the work is being performed, he must count the time as hours worked.” The rub, the FAB explains, is this:

“While it may be easy to define what an employer actually knows, it may not always be clear when an employer ‘has reason to believe that work is being performed,’ particularly when employees telework or otherwise work remotely at locations that the employer does not control or monitor.”

CLICK BUTTON – FAB: Employers’ obligation to exercise reasonable diligence in tracking teleworking employees’ hours of work

You Should’ve Known

Generally, the onus is on you to keep employees from performing more work than you want them to and are paying them to perform — whether it’s to prevent you from having to pay overtime rates or more regular time hours than you’ve budgeted. According to the FAB, “employers bear the burden of preventing work when it’s not desired,” and “the mere promulgation of a rule against such work is not enough.”

“Management has the power to enforce the [work hours limit] rule and must make every effort to do so,” it states. And yet courts have been clear that there are limits to the meaning of “make every effort.” In one case, a federal court ruled that the key is whether an employer’s inquiry about employees’ work activities are reasonable “in light of the circumstances surrounding the employer’s business, including existing overtime policies and requirements.” The bottom line, though, is that you need to make a genuine effort to know how many hours your employees are working, whether they’re operating from their homes or at your regular worksite.

Recordkeeping

It’s important to have a good timekeeping system that requires hourly employees to use if they want to be paid for all of the time they work. Your system should make it obvious to you if employees start to log enough hours to qualify for overtime pay. That enables you to take steps to ensure that workers don’t, or don’t continue to, log hours that must be paid at time-and-a-half.

The DOL’s new guidance is particularly concerned with salaried non-exempt employees. The simplest approach to managing workers’ hours, the FAB suggests, is to provide “a reporting procedure for non-scheduled time” and paying employees accordingly, even if you didn’t ask them to work those extra hours. (You might also then have a discussion with the employees, laying out your expectations about how many hours they should spend on various elements of their jobs.)

With such a reporting system in place, if employees fail to report unscheduled hours through the established procedure, what is your responsibility? “The employer is not required to undergo impractical efforts to investigate further to uncover unreported hours of work and provide compensation for those hours,” states the FAB.

Practicality Standard

What’s impractical? While you might have access to data indicating when employees are accessing their work computers, you don’t have to sort through this information to determine whether employees worked longer hours than they’ve reported.

The FAB’s conclusion is supported by a federal appeals court ruling involving Chicago policemen who sued the city for overtime pay. The plaintiffs argued that the police department should have monitored officers’ cell phone logs to determine whether they were working overtime. The Court of Appeals ruled that the City of Chicago lacked either actual or constructive knowledge that members of the Chicago Police Department were performing after-hours work on their smartphones—affirming a trial court’s earlier ruling that the City was not liable for this work under the Fair Labor Standards Act.

However, if employees are in any way discouraged from reporting work they performed that was beyond what was scheduled, employers are on the hook for paying overtime. The most brazen form of discouragement would be explicit, such as threatening the worker’s job future for reporting overtime hours worked. But the FAB cites another form of discouragement that could be inadvertent: establishing a system for employees to report overtime hours but neglecting to properly instruct employees on how to use that system.

The Bottom Line

The practical implication of the guidance provided in the FAB is that if you don’t currently have a system in place for nonexempt salaried employees to report overtime work, you should establish one. Then train your employees — whether working remotely or not — on how to use it.

Reynolds + Rowella’s HR Consulting team is here to help you identify the right reporting system for your organization and develop training guides to ensure compliance with your team. Please reach out to Katie Hall for assistance.

REYNOLDS & ROWELLA | ACCOUNTING AND CONSULTING

Reynolds + Rowella is a regional accounting firm known for a team approach to financial problem solving. As Certified Public Accountants, our partners foster a personal touch with our clients. As members of DFK International/USA, an association of accountants and advisors, our professional network is international, yet many of our clients have known us for years through the local communities we serve.

The firm has offices at 90 Grove St., Ridgefield, CT and 51 Locust Ave., New Canaan, CT

For more information, give us a call at 203.438.0161 or email us.

WFH Policy Assessment