Published: 07 June 2019
Remote work programs benefit from having well-designed policies that clarify employee and manager responsibilities. Application leaders responsible for digital workplace initiatives can use this template to create policies for their organization.
Remote work is on the increase. Currently, 63% of employers have remote workers. A survey of hiring managers reported that they expect up to 38% of their full-time employees to be working remotely in the next decade. As more organizations adopt a “remote-first,” flexible work environment, the importance of having thoughtful policies to guide how people work increases.
A well-designed policy will benefit both employees and employers. It will achieve the desired impacts of improving the employee experience and reducing real estate costs. Seventy-three percent of employees said flexible work arrangements increased their satisfaction at work. In 2017, Gartner predicted that by 2021, an increase in the number of employees who prefer to work remotely will allow organizations to support 40% more workers in the same amount of space as they use today (see ).
Gartner developed this template for remote work policies for the following purposes:
To help clients navigate discussions about the wide range of policy and procedural issues related to employees working remotely.
To provide options for policies and procedures based on Gartner’s knowledge of remote work issues.
To provide language that can be adopted verbatim or easily modified for your organization’s policy documents.
Guidelines for policy development practices include the following:
Engage stakeholders from the HR, legal and/or compliance departments, as well as from the major business units. Include representatives from IT security, support and infrastructure groups during the process.
Focus on creating policies that your organization can enforce and ignore the ones it won’t be able to enforce.
Distribute the remote work policy and procedure document to both existing and incoming remote workers. Make the document available to any other employees who express an interest in becoming remote workers.
Periodically review the policy document to ensure that it is up-to-date with changes in organizational needs and related regulations.
Help employees comply with the policy by making it easy for them to understand. Use plain, clear language, and make the document as concise as possible.
381461_remote_work_toolkit.docx
This is a draft Toolkit for developing a remote work policy.
Directions for Use
This Toolkit’s Word attachment is an editable template for use when developing remote work policies. Use this template as a base from which to work; add to, modify or delete its content to create policies that define accepted practices, responsibilities and procedures for employees who work remotely and for the managers who manage them.
Areas in the template that usually require customization, such as specific requirements, numeric information and company information, are designated in this format:
Some documents may not be available as part of your current Gartner subscription.
“Future Workforce Report,” Upwork.
Unless otherwise marked for external use, the items in this Gartner Toolkit are for internal noncommercial use by the licensed Gartner client. The materials contained in this Toolkit may not be repackaged or resold. Gartner makes no representations or warranties as to the suitability of this Toolkit for any particular purpose, and disclaims all liabilities for any damages, whether direct, consequential, incidental or special, arising out of the use of or inability to use this material or the information provided herein.
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