Getting Started – Home and Remote Based Smarter
Working
Smarter working is an alternative to the traditional approach of working from the same office base and
same dedicated desk from Monday to Friday, from 9 to 5. It can include options to work at:
Flexible Offices - local offices, smarter working centres and wireless enabled drop-in-centres
ranging from coffee shops to libraries.
Flexible Locations - your office, on the move, client or remote site or from home.
Flexible Times – agreed working times e.g. core hours, flexi-time, part-time, compressed hours.
Why work smarter?
Many reasons, including improved customer service and efficient ways of utilising and working in
existing and new office spaces. Also to achieve a better work-life balance, reduce business and staff
travel, increase staff loyalty, staff productivity, save money (naturally) as well as supporting the
sustainability agenda.
Can everyone benefit from smarter working?
Service led businesses, the professions, consultancies and training organisations perhaps head the
list of sectors most suited to smarter remote, home and flexible working. Contrary to popular belief,
the benefits are not confined to management. Support, administrative and clerical tasks can all
benefit being completed more accurately and quicker in monitored trials like the 2006 MATiSSE Pilot
study.
Whilst „smart‟ changes in shift patterns, even by five minutes, have helped a number of organisations
in the retail, assembly and production arenas in terms of recruitment, retention or a less stressful
commute. These are examples of sectors likely to be less suited to remote or home based working for
other than office, managerial or support staff.
In all cases, managerial staff and their teams will need to decide which roles are suited, which options
are realistic, beneficial and affordable. Discussion will need to factor in:
A balance to meet customer, work, team and individual needs.
Being effective and efficient for the business.
Being adaptable to changing priorities.
Where can you work?
In principle, anywhere that your manager agrees you can meet the needs of your business using
facilities and tools to enable you to work effectively e.g. by phone, e-mail and conference meetings,
updating your Outlook calendar to let people know where you are and when you can be contacted.
Your line manager will need to develop an approach for your team, to include what you would like to
do, how you would like to do it, the impact it would have on your work and the implications for your
team and customers.
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Homeworking
The following paragraphs and questions aim to help you determine whether your personal working
style and arrangements would suit working at home. There may be some measures that your
manager can help with to enable home working.
It’s a very different Working Style!
Even working away occasionally from the office once or twice per week, working in your own home is
quite different to working in an office surrounded by work colleagues and support staff. This style of
work is quite different and may not suit everyone.
You will need to ask yourself:
1. Does your work require a high degree of contact with co-workers in your office which would
be difficult to replicate in a home-working environment?
2. Are you good at self-motivation and time management?
3. Can you plan and prepare ahead suitable activities and resources needed to work at home?
4. Does spending the day working at home broadly appeal to you?
5. Can you keep the appropriate degree of separation between your professional work and
private life?
6. Can you deal with interruptions from other residents or visitors or callers to your home or
alternatively, the lack of interruptions and social contact?
7. Would you be able to “switch off” and leave your work behind at the end of the day when you
don‟t have the clear break that travelling back home gives you?
8. Are you technically competent, e.g. in the use of a personal computer? (90% of roles now
need access to ICT in some form in order to perform the work).
9. Are you happy communicating by telephone?
10. Do you need or prefer to work and/or be contactable between specified times only, or can
you be flexible?
11. Can you access guidance, supervision or support if needed e.g. from your manager or a
buddy? (Without a support network and easy access to colleagues you are more likely to
miss the direct feedback on your work from your colleagues which office-based workers often
take for granted)
12. Would you be willing, able, or needed to attend the office or site at short notice, e.g. do you
have transport available?
The Home Working Environment
Working in the office you have an environment which is designed for the purpose. Working at home
you will need to provide (or have provided for you) equivalent facilities so that you can still work
effectively and ideally in the same way you would in the office:
1. Do you have a separate room or area at your disposal which you can dedicate as an office
while working at home?
2. Is there enough working space and storage space available?
3. Do the desk, chair, lighting and other equipment meet the health and safety standards
applicable at work?
4. Is this a pleasant place to be working, in terms of lighting, room temperature, noise, air quality
etc.
5. Are there adequate storage facilities for documents, files and manuals?
6. Can you keep work information confidential?
7. Can you shut the door on your office or clear your work area at the end of the working day?
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Enabling Equipment
Most people have a desktop or laptop computer at home that could be used to support home working.
Alternatively, equipment may be provided to you by your employer. If you normally work with a
computer at work then there are a number of pieces of equipment and software that you may need to
have access to in order to work effectively at home:
1. Do you have a personal computer which is capable of linking to the Office system? (a
business broadband link may be needed where mission critical work is involved. Such
services are more expensive, £25-£50 per month, but do come with service level
agreements, less band-width contention, unlike most domestic level Broadband services)
2. Is your screen and keyboard suitable for prolonged use at home, which may not be the case
with a laptop having a small keyboard, small screen and possibly no mouse?
3. Do you have the Microsoft Office environment, or equivalent, available on your own personal
computer so that you can still work at home even if there is a temporary failure in the link to
the Office network making on-line working impossible?
4. If required is there a connected printer which you can use for producing hardcopy of work,
with adequate supplies of consumables e.g. paper and ink cartridges?
5. Do you have high speed access to the Internet capable of supporting prolonged access to or
occasional access to email using such as Outlook Web Access?
6. If you are using a home wireless network to get access to the Internet is this suitably
protected against unauthorised access?
7. Do you have a fixed line or mobile phone that can be used by members of staff to contact you
while working at home?
8. Do you have a lockable cabinet where sensitive documents can be locked away to prevent
accidental unauthorised disclosure to non authorised personnel including family?
9. Do you have an Uninterruptible Power Supply (UPS) and surge protection for your personal
computer – to prevent sudden shutdown of your system and data loss.
10. Is your system suitably protected (Virus software/firewall) and backed up so that you can
recover rapidly in the event of a serious hardware failure temporarily incapacitating your
personal computer?
11. If needed, do you have a suitable and secure case or trolley for safely carrying any work
papers home and back?
Data and File Security
There have been several recent high-profile cases where confidential documents or personal
information has been accidentally released through lost or stolen equipment. You will need to ask
yourself:
1. Are there suitable controls to prevent family or friends from deliberately or accidentally
accessing your work related sensitive information?
2. Is adequate virus protection installed on your computer?
3. If you are using a home wireless network to get access to the Internet is this suitably
protected against unauthorised access?
4. Is your house protected with mortise deadlocks on all external doors?
5. Do you have suitable locks or other devices to prevent access to your home office through
the window?
6. Is your personal computer screen or desk visible to people outside looking through your
window?
7. Do you have a shredder for disposing of sensitive documents that you might print out and
need to destroy while working at home?
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Health and Safety
Health and Safety regulations at work are there to keep you safe, so you need to be happy that your
home office arrangements do not introduce unnecessary risks when you are working at home. For
example:
1. Is your employer happy that your intended home workplace is in line with the Health and
Safety at Work Act 1974?
2. Does you display screen equipment comply with The Health & Safety Display Screen
Equipment Regulations 1992?
3. Do you need a risk assessment to be undertaken in accordance with directions given by the
Council for Workplace Assessment, to ensure that the home working environment meets
safety standards?
4. Are smoke alarms fitted covering the area of the house where you will be home working?
5. Does the electrical equipment in your home meet expected safety standards?
6. If you will be working on your own, have the risks of lone working been assessed and
controls put in place?
Legal
You will need to establish that using part of your home as an office does not conflict with any
agreements or arrangements that cover your home or the equipment in it. For example:
1. Have you established that working at home does not have any impact on your household
insurance?
2. Does your mortgage agreement or tenancy agreement stipulate any conditions which may be
compromised by home working?
3. Are there any other aspects of your environment e.g. Internet Service Providers terms of use
or software licences that could be infringed by working at home?
4. Is all the software that you use on your personal computer for work purpose fully licensed and
legal?
5. Are you aware of the tax rules and policies for home to work travel costs where staff are
working at or from home? (see HMRC website for guidance)
The Management Viewpoint
The normal change management principles apply, and your manager should:
1. Clarify the opportunities for you and understand what you want to get out of home, remote or
flexible working.
2. Clarify the constraints and givens such as budgets, timescales and accommodation.
3. Communicate a vision for how it will work; the benefits for individuals, the team and the
company.
4. Involve staff in planning and preparing.
5. Ensure that the physical essentials are in place, such as guidelines and enabling IT kit.
6. Ensure the impacts on team functioning are identified, planned for and actioned.
7. Agree protocols for the new ways of working.
8. Discuss individual positions with each team member.
9. Consider individual flexibility/remote working agreements.
10. Consider a team smarter working agreement.
11. Ensure a training and familiarisation programme takes place for the new ways of working.
12. Plan regular reviews of the arrangements and update in order to keep them effective.
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Your manager will specifically need to ensure that you know:
1. When you need to attend the office/ other locations for team or customer meetings and
if/when you have a choice about work location.
2. Days/ times you need to be working and/or be contactable and when you have choices about
working times.
3. Work targets, reporting and review arrangements such as daily check in, weekly work plan
and supervision sessions.
4. Obligations re data security out of the office.
5. Support arrangements e.g. for help on work matters; buddy system, IT support.
6. How to use any flexible office space.
7. How to use the IT and communications tools.
8. Business journey planning and claiming.
Working Routine
Managers of flexible workers may wish to agree a working routine with you which might specify:
1. The duration to be spent working at home and/or working from another remote location.
2. The hours of work, including the core hours when an employee must be contactable by
phone or email, e.g. 1000-1200 and 1400-1600 on each full working day. These details
should be visible to all those that need to know them.
3. Meetings to be attended including supervision, team briefings and informal meetings with
other staff members.
4. That, in the event of an emergency, the employee may be asked to attend the office.
5. Arrangements for consumables.
Protocols for Objectives and Goals setting
Like any other employees, as a smarter remote/Home/Mobile worker, you should have your
performance judged in terms of output or service delivery rather than the number of hours worked.
This can be achieved by your manager applying the following good practice techniques:
1. Setting clear objectives.
2. Detailed planning of the work to be done and setting targets.
3. Regular feedback and appraisal of work produced.
4. Applying known standards and procedures to maintain quality.
5. Staff agreement and accountability for targets set.
6. A system of review at appropriate intervals.
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