Working For An Employer From Home 101

A well thought out plan should include:

An understanding of the essential functions of your job. Identify and review all of the duties and tasks which are fundamental to performing your job. It will help you figure out which can be done at home. If your request to work at home is as an accommodation because of your health condition:

• An employer does not have to remove any essential job duties to permit an employee to work at home.
• An employer may need to reassign some minor job duties or marginal functions which aren't essential to the successful performance of a job if they can't be performed outside the workplace and they are the only obstacle to permitting you to work at home.
• If a marginal function needs to be reassigned, an employer may substitute another minor task that you could perform at home in order to keep employee workloads evenly distributed.
• Consider whether your job requires face-to-face interaction and coordination of work with other employees, outside colleagues, clients or customers. Also whether your job requires you to have immediate access to documents or other information located only in the workplace that you cannot access via your computer.

Why you want to work at home. If it is about your health condition, be prepared to explain:

• Your health condition
• Your limitations from that condition, and
• How working at home will help.

Keep in mind that your employer may request information about your medical condition, including reasonable documentation. The employer may wish to discuss other types of accommodations that would allow you to remain full-time in the workplace.

How you will be productive, and a means of evaluating productivity

• Explain how you can be at least as productive at home -- and maybe even more so.
• Suggest and/or come to a mutual agreement about how to gauge productivity. Examples include submitting sales/contact reports or turning in assignments on a regular basis. Think about all of the responsibilities of your particular position and how you will be able to indicate to your employer that you are not only taking care of business, but that you are doing so without a decrease in productivity unrelated to your illness.

How many hours you will work at home, and when.

Telecommuting does not mean that you can come and go as you please. People with whom you work will need to know the hours they can expect you to be available, just as they would if you were still at your employer's office. Alternately, telecommuting does not and should not mean that you are on call 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. Setting a schedule and sticking to it can be helpful if suddenly your employer seems to think that you should work around the clock. Of course if your co-workers are on the clock 24/7….

How will you maintain contact with the main office?

This can be via phone, e-mail, fax, etc. Be careful not to agree to a contact arrangement that you have no intention of following! For example, if your supervisor suggests phone contact on an hourly basis, don't simply agree to it, thinking they will back off. Consider instead offering an alternative and indicating that you think hourly phone contact could be unduly disruptive to your work if that could arguable be the case.  (If you do not want to spend the money for a fax machine while seeing if you will be able to contnue to work at home, you can send and receive faxes through www.eFax.com

The equipment and supplies you will need to work at home --and who will pay for them.

In addition to the equipment you need (such as a telephone) and supplies (such as paper and ink cartridges), think about who will maintain them, and who will pay for the equipment, supplies and maintenance. For example, will you have access to the IT person who keeps the computers running at the office to help when necessary?

If you're gong to ask your employer to pay for these items, it may be helpful to be able to justify the cost, even if you are requesting a telecommuting arrangement as an accommodation. Let your employer know why you think you can be more productive by telecommuting.

The problems you may encounter, at least initially.

Consider that at least initially, you may run into some problems telecommuting. Address them in your proposal -- keeping quiet about them doesn't mean that your employer isn't focusing on them. Addressing the potential problems can help you and your employer look at any problems realistically and perhaps come up with a solution together.

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