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okay good afternoon everyone I want to thank you all for joining us for our webinar the business of telework key workplace issues and considerations this is a second in a series of four webinars on telework enduring kovat 19 if you missed our first webinar you can view it on our website at CTU is comm via the telework section these webinars were designed to build upon one another and address some of the questions and concerns we've been hearing from organizations like yours my name is Russell McDermott and I'm the program director for CT rides I'll also serve as one of today's presenters and moderator I'm joined today by album shirazi who is the principal of a planning and is a nationally recognized telework expert who has worked around the world with organizations of all sizes to develop implement and consult on their remote work in practices alum has worked with me on the CT rights program to provide these and other services to businesses throughout Connecticut before we get started I want to go over a few housekeeping rules all participants will be muted for the webinar if you have any questions please type them in the Q&A tab and we will do our very best to answer them during the Q&A section at the end I want to emphasize no matter how small the question may be we encourage you to to ask it we're all going through the same challenges so odds are we all have similar questions we're going to have a copy of this and all of our webinars available on our website Ct rides comm lastly your feedback is extremely valuable to us we try to customize all of our presentations and services based on the needs of her partners so we would greatly appreciate it if you took the time to let us know how we did you'll receive a copy of this survey both in your browser at the end of the webinar and via email so to get started just a little bit about us at CT rides we are a program of the Connecticut Department of Transportation and we offer services that helps employees find better commutes than driving alone to work this helps to reduce traffic congestion and improves air quality in the state which in turns helps businesses in Connecticut to be more productive and competitive thus making the state a better place to live and work CT rides also provides expert advice and assistance to help companies develop on-site transportation demand management programs which also include telework solutions one of the best things about us is that there is no cost to companies in Connecticut to utilize our services for today's webinar we're going to be focusing specifically on our telework and service which include among other things HR technology and training consultant services the question that I most frequently get is what are some of our qualifications to provide such services normally when you hear for a state do tea and telework and most people normally don't make the the the connection between the two and one of the best-kept secrets in the state of Connecticut that I think is that the state do tea was one of the first organizations in the country to not only offer telework and support services but also one of the first places to do it on a statewide level the d-o-t through its nationally recognized transportation demand management program has been supporting telework for businesses in Connecticut since the mid nineties and one of her specialties is actually the rapid deployment of business continuity solutions and we of course have our famous winter weather to thank for honing those skills for today's agenda we will be focusing on the importance of structure and develop in a sustainable scalable framework for your remote work programs no two programs are the same there are certain mechanisms that organizations can and should put in place to better position themselves for success and while we're not lawyers and do not provide any legal or regulatory advice we are going to point out some regulatory and legal considerations that companies should be aware of and with that I'm happy to introduce alum Sherazi to discuss some of those best practices and strategies alum thank you and good afternoon everybody thank you for joining us for this webinar which allows you to bring some order to a lot of people teleworking based on some of the latest data I saw yesterday over I think 80 percent of Americans right now are under a stay-at-home type of the rule so it's no surprise that many organizations have had to ask people to work at home however we do want to bring it to your attention that this is not the wild wild west as far as teleworking is concerned and in fact programs have been in place for over 30 years and these programs have certain milestones and guidelines that have allowed employers to facilitate this type of an arrangement so a lot of you may be in a position where you've had nothing written down before about what this arrangement is about you might have tried it on an ad-hoc basis meaning if something came up for you know for an employee you allowed them to telework just you know a day here or a day there may be because the plumber was coming or you know they had to be home for a specific delivery or maybe you were allowing it part-time however with a lot of organizations it's not uncommon to find that although they've allowed one or two or three people to telework that they still do not know that there is legality and there is actually a route there are certain rules that need to be observed when teleworking is implemented believe me there is a method to the madness so the right direction to have as employers is to develop programs that allow for you as an employer to have business continuity during this pandemic crisis and yet make sure that teleworking is implemented in a thoughtful way and in a in a well-planned manner our contracts policies or guidelines are necessary the answer is yes you do need to have some guiding principles for the type of program that you have some organizations just have a small employee handbook with a page describing you know every aspect of what arrangement is available and some organizations have longer the more comprehensive handbooks that include a few pages of policy regarding every program that is available to employees we are definitely in a good position to help you develop a simple as language as is dictated by the type of employee handbook that you have or a more comprehensive one why are these policies or guidelines necessary one of them is to be safe and to make sure that we're protecting both sides of this meaning that both employees and employers are protected in this type of an arrangement the other reason that it would be necessary to have something in writing is to be able to accommodate large numbers of people to telework as opposed to one here and one there where decision-making has been very subjective and to be able to describe what are some eligibility criteria you know what are some ideally ideal attributes of a job being right and employee being right the technology working and yes to avoid legal pitfalls and I will concept very quickly again whatever program guideline policy you come up with you do need to consult your attorneys and we want these you know these guidelines to be shared quite extensively so everybody knows the rules of the engagement and we also want to make sure that if this solution works after the emergency disappears that perhaps you can have a successful practice of teleworking it may not be full-time but something on a part-time basis a day a week you know two days a week or as needed there is a mixed experience and those employers in in terms of having you know a formalized versus an informal program and by formalized I mean you know program that actually has the reason that I'm going to share with you has been collected by zenefits and you know they're a software company that provides cloud-based services for HR now when we look at the universe of you know telework programs among the employers that they surveyed what we can see is that something like maybe forty percent of the employers have something in writing and when we look at the rest that means that actually a good 60 percent are unsure whether or not there's a policy they have no policy or there is no official policy or guideline and the manager is just approving it on an ad-hoc basis so we know that you've had to get you know a teleworking arrangement up and ready but keep in mind this program can grow and become better over time and and that's what we're hoping that will happen so you're not worried if you don't right away have a policy or a guideline we're here to help you beyond this webinar to make sure that you develop some materials that can be shared now what typically is involved in the program guidelines or policy by the way I use the term guidelines because sometimes organizations just shy away from calling something a policy and you know they prefer to go with something that is is called a guideline so first and foremost you do want to mention what are the goals of the program I think in this era obviously top of line is going to be top of the line is going to be to respond to business continuity in the era of kovat 19th that's probably your number one goal however if you're looking for a program that's sustainable beyond coded 19 we are gonna go over some business reasons why your organization may want to consider teleworking beyond this era obviously morale is going to be key after you know kovat 19 died some work-life balance is still going to be an issue for employees and you know for employers recruitment and retention will still be issues and we will go over these in in a few slides the other thing you want to include in your guideline is description of what are the selection criteria you know such as I mentioned is the job right is the employee right are their eligibility criteria such as meets or hits above productivity for an employee to be considered you know is this program just for people who have company-issued laptops and and phones or you know could people use their own equipment the guidelines are also very specific in terms of the arrangement saying sometimes this is only available you know once a week and or they may say it's up to the individual manager to determine how often people can be teleworking so frequency is mentioned as well as scheduling issues you know sometimes these guidelines have a line or two on you know a full department cannot telework on you know on just one day so that there's always coverage in in the organization as far as teleworking is concerned obviously the communication needs will be specified such as you know how often our employees you know expected to you know check their emails their voicemails and you know some of these communication rules will go back to what you have in existence today and obviously you know workers comp is also part of this and home is an extension of work so you know injuries that happen that are work-related in the dedicated space for teleworking which will be a topic of next week's webinar as to what is Allstate designated workspace could be considered workers comp okay the other you know issues that are typically included in the guidelines are what are the available resources to the employee you know are they going to be able to you know access the company's server through a VPN is a cloud-based or should they be working you know as just a standalone on a standalone computer and not be taking you know work necessarily back and forth you know into the office obviously insurance is also important in many cases if an employee uses their equipment then the employee is responsible for the upkeep and maintenance of the of the equipment and in cases where the employer is providing it obviously the employer will be responsible as I mentioned in the prior slide a designated workspace is important it really does lend itself to having good practices where the employees being ergonomic and you know they're sitting in a correct position so that they don't hurt themselves when they're you know working at home and they have a good chair and we also want to make sure that non teleworkers needs are not interrupted by an individual teleworking so you know making sure that emails of phone numbers are all available to everybody as well as making sure that schedules are being communicated so on you know your Outlook or any kind of electronic schedule that is used you know people can see okay you know so-and-so is not in the office but it says their teleworking which means that they are available so they can be called or they can be emailed a telework agreement usually accompanies a policy or a or a guideline the purpose of the agreement is to tailor this arrangement down to the individual employee we've got samples of these forms and we'll be very happy to again share them with you for the purposes of your program very importantly the teleworking location should be clear meaning you know there should be an address which says this is where the employee is going to be teleworking from another thing that's important especially these days is to indicate from what date - what date this agreement is going to be in place so for your agreements today it may say you know that this agreement is in place you know as a you know what March 23rd until further notice that kovat emergency is over or you know if you have a program that is more advanced you may want to you know have a date that is later then maybe it's beyond the emergency the hours of teleworking should be clear and to the degree possible you want to have an idea of what are the core hours that employees will be available for the purposes of teleworking during this crisis and it's good to establish those with the employees up front obviously situations are very fluid so people have younger children at home some people have to home-school in in this environment so it's good to just have an idea you know of when is a good time to do meetings when is in a when aren't sometimes that you can be checking with the employee obviously with the expectation that it's clear what kinds of assignments are being done on what equipment is being used is it the employees or is it employer sponsored and then have some conditions about half and as I mentioned before they should be checking in with voicemail with email etc so the following list is includes some of the legalities that you should be considering for the purposes of your telework program are any of these our showstopper absolutely not we have been implementing teleworking for a number of years and I wanted to point out that you know the federal government has one of the largest teleworking programs in the United States so basically you know if the feds can do it we can do it none of these legalities have gotten in the way of implementing teleworking or have become litigious issues so please do talk with your attorneys about what they are so you have the right language some ideal steps that your organization may use to implement teleworking and you know these are milestones that would have been in place probably over a period of a few months for you to get your program up and running so many of you have been in a situation where you've had a coded 19 steering committee that has made you you know kind of pack in everything that's here on the slide very quickly into a week however it's important to have someone who is in command of the ship meaning someone who does the housekeeping issues someone who's you know taking the information and making sure that it's all crafted and put into you know a language they can be shared with the employees and often a lot of these programs do have an executive tram peon or management commitment a steering committee is really necessary because teleworking not only you know draws upon HR and human resources but also draws upon your IT department it draws upon risk assessment it may draw upon facilities and it's and and maybe you know some of the other departments that want to be you know experimenting this or piloting this so that steering committee is really important in shaping what direction your employer will take in terms of what is allowed and not allowed not only do during kovat 19 but also beyond so one of the first things the steering committee does is develop policies and agreements and we do have templates that we can share with you please you asked if you if you want to you know see some examples and you know it can get your steering committee working from the you know from the first day to see if you can very quickly develop some language obviously IT has to trim' in in terms of what the company can do and cannot do you know not everybody may have a company issued in a laptop some people may use their own equipment however IT really rules I would say in in this particular category because they have to be comfortable with how people are going to you know to you know remote access or you know come in and get the information yet do it in a safe and secure manner training of the participants is critical you know last week we did some top-of-the-line tips for managers obviously employees are really important and we're going to be doing some training for employees however if your organization wants us to do this you know on a one-on-one basis we'd be happy to again tailor something you know around what your policies are so that your managers and employees are a little bit more comfortable with how to telework cost savings are critical and we'll talk about some of the savings but it's not unusual for for an employer to have decided to invest in technology right away because of the emergency that's that's come up but there's still a lot of employers that will you know um be allowing people to use their equipment but the benefit of teleworking the biggest you know advantage of teleworking is that they're also cost savings in place evaluation is critical um you can do this by talking to your employees you know once a week maybe even have a you know employee meeting to go over what some issues are that have come up to go over technology issues and it's not bad to get managers also to get together to voice some of the you know issues that have they've confronted because in this biggest experiment with working remotely we're gonna have to pilot week after week to learn you know how do we make it perfect so I did mention the business case for teleworking and I'm going to provide you with more data as you know on the following slides regarding these typically what employers have found is that if a program is developed carefully meaning that there is you know there are selection criteria in place and you know these are employees and have a good knowledge of what their job is you know have the right skill level and are productive already in the office that the productivity may increase in a work at home situation and a range of 10 to 20 percent are not unusual at all and this is you as you can imagine to the lack of distractions in a normal telework setting where the employee is alone you know when they're working at home and there aren't other distractions your program also provides flexibility you know around people's schedules and helps with work and life and really does make for happier employees a lot of employers were implementing teleworking to improve recruitment and retention prior to kovat 19 you know to make sure that employees stay with the organization as we know the Millennials drop a lot and you know they look for flexibility so this was you know a necessity for keeping the younger employees morale typically goes up people are happier when they can telework the day before they telework the day of telework and the day after teleworking they're telling us that they're happier some employers have developed programs to save on their space usage meaning overhead and parking and you know there might be some desk sharing programs in place or you know some employers have implemented a schedule a or schedule B meaning some employees come to work one week and then they work at home the following week and then you know so the the the other group obviously is in when the other group is out and that has allowed companies to really you know save however in a context of overhead savings you always want to make sure that you have drop-in space available for employees that do have to come in and you know I think in the context of Connecticut commuters or sing about you know an hour save a day roundtrip for people who can telework and obviously the stress of commuting goes away so as far as productivity Flex jobs is an organization that actually conducts a lot of surveys of employees that are interested in productivity I'm sorry interested in flexibility and they have about 3,000 employees that they surveyed in in this particular survey in 2018 and 65 percent of the workers thought that they would be more productive at home than working in a traditional office environment what I always tell employers is as long as productivity stays the same that's great and if it increases it's a positive by-product if it starts going down and we need to assess whether that job the employee or the technology are not the the right fit for that particular teleworking arrangement in a normal setting obviously an employer always has a clause which says employees or the employer do reserve the right to opt out of teleworking at any time with or without reason you may be wondering how productivity gets measured I really like the results that the Society for Human Resource Management put out based on a survey they did I think it was about 2016 and they asked managers to respond to how you know are what are the common methods that you use to gauge employee productivity while employees are you know working remotely and as you can see almost 50 percent said they base it on the responsiveness of the employee meaning getting back to emails voicemails you know considerations that are sent their way about over 40 percent said it's through goals and parameters that they know this they know also because the employees were reporting the progress they're making so a lot is going back - are their goals are their objectives are their deliverables and are those being met and I did want to point out that a very small percentage of the employers said that they gauge productivity based on when an employee logs on and logs off so even managers don't want to be in the business of you know you know having to look at when people logged on and when people log off and they're more consider concerned with what happens in that day that people are teleworking so a few other fridays and this is from flex jobs that the top reasons people do want flexible work are as you can see some of the reasons cited here Mike work-life family demands time savings commuting stress 97% of the respondents were interested in being a flexible worker 61% of people who responded to the 2018 survey said that they have left or considered leaving a job due to the lack of you know flexibility and 22% more we're teleworking in 2018 compared to 2017 another question that typically comes up is what should employers be evaluating when teleworking is in place and I think these are very important issues right now for you to be looking at so what are some you know things that you should be tracking obviously you know you do want to be collecting just even qualitative anecdotal information from employees and managers about what's working and what's not working and also you know make sure that you're covering the same type of information from the managers some employee employers do you know send out a survey you know on and I you know in this quote at nineteen period you know on a weekly or twice a month just to get some quick responses to you know what are some issues that people are facing you you definitely want to track the technology problems your IT department is going to be critical in that and it would be great if they could share some FAQ frequently asked questions you know even on a weekly basis of some questions that have come up repeatedly and what those solutions are you you do want to make sure that you are assessing the impact on productivity for different jobs different employees again we are not in normal circumstances but once we do go back to you know a post emergency situation we do want to have an idea of where teleworking can continue to be practice and where it may not be feasible and you know I think I've talked about the other points it's just overall satisfaction with the teleworking experience and the lessons learned so what's the future after kovat 19 I think we've pointed out that planning now is critical and please manage your employees expectations so be very clear that we are doing this right now before kovat 19 and you know after this period you know we will be may be looking at teleworking again and and have a policy or guidelines available for continued use with certain criteria and expectations so you know employees don't think that right away oh I'm going to be able to do this forever and Norman or may they want to there are people who are going to be teleworking and will opt out in the future because they will find it to you know not be something that is easy for them you also want to look at improved technology I know of so many organizations that had they didn't have a virtual private network in place but had to get it very quickly so that employees could be working remotely I think we're gonna see more virtual collaboration because the more we get used to these video you know sharing videoconferencing types of collaboration the easier it becomes to do some of these when employees are teleworking and you know this the one issue that always comes up in every organization is oh we always have to be meeting and we have you know needs to be around each other to be able to work at home and and you know that's why it may not be possible but I think this period will make a good case about how that collaboration can happen we'll see probably increased part-time teleworking more employers embracing the one or two days a week and as I mentioned not everybody is going to want to continue so these are just some high level tips make sure you you know have top-level commitments and make sure you are you know getting that level of commitment as you're going through through teleworking you know the planning selection process are critical you know making sure everyone knows about access communication and be flexible you know it's sometimes having a you know 1:00 in the afternoon meeting with an employee may be just the right time because that's when their children are napping and given today's externalities that may you know be the only solution your program has to fit your culture and you know no two programs are the same and we can help you with that and obviously we always want to plan for expanding these programs and it might be after at 19 we just have to find out how to now bring back some of the workforce but yet allow some others to have the flexibility Thank You al hum I want to take this time to quickly remind everyone to type any questions you have in the Q&A tab at the bottom of your screen al hum I think you touched on a lot of great topics and really highlighted the need for companies to start adding some structure to their programs while the transition for many of us was pretty sudden it's important it's important for employers and managers to start thinking long term about how they can formalize their programs and really structure it in such a way that they're in the best possible position for success now I want to remind everyone about the two resources as shown on the screen the first is a state's website which has the latest kovat 19 information and the second is our website I want to emphasize that we are here to help your company with everything we went over today so if you have any questions you need help to develop or formalize a program or maybe just getting a simple policy or agreement in place don't hesitate to contact us again there is no cost for companies in Connecticut to use any of our services