HR Daily Advisor has posted an article by Jay Schleifer (Telecommuters: Why They’re Suing Their Employers) reporting that as telecommuting is becoming more popular (up 40% in a single year), instances of remote workers suing their employers are becoming more common.

The crux of the issue is control. Without direct on-site supervision, employers simply don’t have it over how many hours employees work, whether they’re following company policy, and even whether home offices are properly set up so that workers don’t lose client information or injure themselves using ergonomically unsound equipment.

The solution appears to be in thinking through and implementing a set of solid policies to resolve the issues above, at the start of any telecommuting relationship.

According to Schleifer, some of the different issues that should be fleshed out include:

• Wage and Hours - determine exactly when the employee should be working. How is this reported, how is overtime to be handled?
• Enforce work schedules - make sure that agreements about overtime (or the non-approval of overtime) are followed
• Travel Expenses and Equipment - who buys it, who is responsible for its maintenance, what will happen to it if the employee leaves the company, how much will be the company’s responsibility, how much the employee’s (ie: the company may by the computer, but what about headphones? desk? surge protector? phone bill?)
• Proprietary Information - how should this be controlled and safeguarded when stored primarily in the employees home
• ADA Compliance - If applicable, how will the company work with disabled employees who are working from home

Although the $65 million dollar lawsuits will tend to happen more with extremely large companies like IBM (who have much more ingrained bureaucracy), many of these issues are still extremely relevant for smaller companies who employee remote workers. While any good employer-employee relationship must be based on trust (and even more so for telecommuters), potentially disruptive issues like the ones described above are best handled at the outset rather than after the fact.

This entry was posted on Monday, May 28th, 2007 by Yaakov Ellis and is filed under Policy, Articles, Opinion. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
Tags: equipment, lawsuits, money, reimbursement, suing, travel expenses, wages
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