With hybrid working now commonplace, is it time to revise your business’s employment contracts to reflect hybrid working?

What is hybrid working?

Hybrid working is where an employee splits their working time between their work premises and another location, usually their home. Hybrid working is a form of flexible working designed to help your employees achieve the longed for work-life balance, whilst still meeting the needs of the business. Hybrid working is not a legal entitlement, and this is therefore offered completely at the discretion of employers.

Do you need a hybrid working policy?

Legally, you don’t need a hybrid working policy in place. However, if hybrid work is now the norm for your business, it makes good sense to have a clear hybrid working policy to outline your business’s approach to hybrid working. A defined hybrid working policy ensures that practices are transparent and everyone in your business knows where they stand. A hybrid working policy helps mitigate any issues or complaints moving forward.

What should you include in a hybrid working policy?

Expectations

Your hybrid working policy should be clear on the division of the employee’s time, i.e. the amount of time that can be spent working remotely or in the workplace. If this level of detail is not included in the policy, and employees begin to work remotely for a period of time, you risk employees arguing they have an implied contractual right – given that their role is now entirely remote.

The hybrid split is entirely at your discretion. For example, you may be looking for a 60%-40% split for, where employees can work from home 60% of the time but must attend their workplace for the other 40% of their working week. This would equate to 2 days at the workplace, and 3 days working from home for full-time employees (which would be pro-rated accordingly for part-time employees).

Ensure that your policy is clear on situations when employees must attend their workplace, such as for team meetings, all employee conferences, or face to face training.

Some things to think about include:

• Are you going to enable people to work anywhere in the UK?
• Do you want to specify that they need to work at home?
• Do they need to inform or request consent if they’re going to work from anywhere apart from their home address?

If employees are permitted to work remotely abroad, there will be further matters which will require consideration for such an arrangement. It is essential to note that there may be immigration, tax and data protection issues to be aware of, and it is recommended that you seek legal advice in respect of such matters before allowing employees to work overseas.

It is important to highlight within the policy instances where the policy may be revoked for individual employees, for example, if there are concerns over their conduct, performance or health and wellbeing.

Eligibility

Your policy must set out the eligibility criteria for your hybrid working approach, if necessary, as this will allow you to mitigate any future disputes. As an employer, you need to decide if the policy is a company-wide policy, or only applies to specific roles in the business. If certain roles are not deemed appropriate for hybrid working, the policy should outline the rationale as to why this is the case to provide clarity to employees.

Provide clarification if, for example, that there are face to face elements to the role, or if there are regulatory reasons which prevent the employee from working remotely, or perhaps if the role requires equipment that is only available in the workplace.

Working remotely

Your hybrid policy should clearly define the expectations of employees when they are working remotely in the locations you have specified. Your policy should, as a minimum, include:

• The equipment and technology needed to perform the role effectively, whether the technology will be provided or if the employee needs to supply this themselves;
• How any sickness absence or other absences from work will be reported while the employee is working from home;
• The health and safety policies that need to be adhered to whilst employees are working remotely and how risk assessments will be carried out.;
• The data protection approach while employees are working from home. This should include any physical documents moved from the workplace to a remote location and how these must be stored in order to maintain compliance with GDPR; and
• The availability of employees when working remotely. The policy should set out if employees should be available for set hours or if there is a flexible approach.

Get in touch

For further advice on employment law, get in touch for a chat.