Many small businesses hire new employees and allow them very flexible schedules. This may include the ability to work a couple of days a week from home or at times the entire job may be work from home. This allows a small business to be more flexible and helps them attract top talent with flex schedules and work conditions. However there are a few things that a business needs to watch out for when hiring employees who work from home.
A recent article in Business on Main covers these points that we will take a look at here.
Time tracking
When an employee works from home how do you know how many hours they actually put in? This becomes a big question if they are paid an hourly wage because the employee may qualify for overtime pay. But can you really track these hours? It’s a tricky situation but there are ways to help protect yourself by being aware of it and putting checks and balances in place.
Workplace injuries
Now not every work from home job involves something where an employee might be injured but if it does is it covered by workers compensation? The answer put simply would be:
“If the injury occurred at the employee’s home, but not during work hours, then workers’ compensation wouldn’t cover the injury. Rather, it would be a claim covered under the employer’s group health insurance plan,” says Mike Glassman.
But again it’s very important to simply be aware that this situation could arise and you may want to consult an attorney to know if your company is properly covered.
Securing data
With everything being done online today data leaks are a big problem even in offices let alone while an employee may be in other places. An employee working from home could easily be using unsecured connections even public connections to complete work. They also may download company files to their personal computer that may be infected with some type of virus.
It’s another tough situation to handle but one tip is to make sure you supply your employee with company computers so you can have some control over what is on the computer.
Hiring employees that work from home has some major advantages for small businesses but it’s important to be aware of the downside and make sure your business is prepared to handle any situation.
Read the full article on the costs of working from home.
This article is brought to you by MSN’s Business on Main
