Your workforce is the lifeblood of your business. Reassure them. Make sure they know you are doing everything you can to care for them as individuals, while also protecting the health and longevity of your business.

As you shift your business operations to a remote or distributed workforce model, you might consider the following:

Employer Obligations

Check the regulations and guidelines in your state to find out what your responsibilities are to remote workers. The rules are often different for remote workers. Example: Some states expressly require employers to reimburse employees for any reasonable business expenses they incur, such as Internet access from a home office. 

From sbshrs.adpinfo.com

To Do List

As found on Fisher Phillips, preparations for remote work scenarios include:

• Take an inventory of the types of equipment your workers would need to get their job done and ensure they have access to them. This could include laptops, desktop computers, monitors, phones, printers, chargers, office supplies, and similar materials.

• Encourage your employees to prepare for the possibility of an immediate migration to work at home. They may want to develop a “ready bag” that they take home with them at the end of each day, allowing them to begin working remotely at a moment’s notice. This would include laptops, smartphones, and other related technology, but also physical items (such as binders, documents, materials).

• Make sure you consider and clearly communicate with your workers about which physical items are acceptable to be taken from the workplace and which need to stay on location at all times.

• You might want to take the time now to digitize any relevant physical materials to make remote working easier.

• You will also want to communicate with your workforce about whether they can or should take digital photos of physical calendars, whiteboards, Kanban boards with stickie notes, or similar items, or whether they are prohibited from doing so.

• But perhaps the most important thing you should do is take the time to develop a remote work policy if you do not have one in place, or review and update your existing policy as it relates to this specific situation.