A Prospective Employer Says I Can Work From Home – Should I Get This in Writing?

As soon as COVID-19 hit, offices were shut down, and many companies transitioned to home working where possible to keep their employees safe. Some companies went so far as to announce long-term policies allowing staff to work remotely well into the 2021, or even indefinitely.

Mostly, it’s been a positive change for organizations and their staff. Even the flexible working skeptics admit there’s more to measuring productivity than just time spent in the office. Companies can also hire from a wider talent pool now—they don’t just have to search within the local area.

Whether this will be a permanent shift, however, remains to be seen. None of us really know what will happen over the coming months or even years, and if life does return to normal, it’s possible that work will too.

Check the policy

This is a key thing to bear in mind when interviewing for a role. At the moment, many candidates are accepting positions on the basis that everybody is working from home. This is great if, say, the position is amazing, but the commute is long. You might expect it will never become an issue because even when the office opens up, you could travel in a couple of days each week.

It opens up a world of opportunities—if it’s guaranteed. The last thing you want, though, is to leave a job you’re happy enough in and start a new role, only to find out that six months down the line, you’ll have a brutal commute five days a week, and it’s just not feasible. Or worse, you’re working for a company whose headquarters are hundreds of miles away in a location you have no interest in moving to. So if a company brings you on with a flexible approach, how can you be sure it will continue? Is it part of your contract? Does the company culture seem truly committed to remote working—rather than just a forced temporary arrangement?

Post-pandemic

From bonuses to vacation time, things can get complicated very fast if you agree to something that isn’t written down. Location is no exception. The last thing you want is to be told down the line that flexibility was just a verbal conversation and was never guaranteed.

Your company’s stance on remote working could change as quickly as it did at the beginning of the outbreak. Perhaps business opportunities will mean more staff need to be in the office. Suddenly, this could become a negative situation for staff who might even have to leave their job and find one closer to home.

Even if your role can still be done remotely, opening up the office to the majority of staff could change what it looks like. If you’re not in the office with your team, you might feel disconnected or miss out on conversations that lead to new opportunities or promotions.

Proceed with caution

 A majority of companies still don’t have a longer-term remote working policy yet, and job descriptions don’t generally talk about work from home flexibility because those companies haven’t even figured out what they’re willing to offer existing employees yet, let alone new hires. They may even just be planning to revert to their “normal” policy—as short-sighted as this may be when it comes to culture and talent.

If you’re currently interviewing with a company and you think you will accept an offer, therefore, you should push for them to document the flexibility they are offering you. Like most terms, there’s no harm in having them in writing so you can refer back to this at a later date.

If it isn’t in writing, perhaps the company isn’t making a true commitment behind the statement—and it’s worth considering what this means about their values as a whole, as well as what will work for you and your career. For every Google and Twitter offering permanent work from home flexibility, there are dozens of companies who haven’t quite decided what the future will look like yet, so approach any new remote working offers with caution.