This policy is written in the context of our current company setup, which is that every employee works in the same office for the most of the work week. Specifically, this document addresses working from home on a regular basis and/or working remotely for up to one week out of any given month. It does not address:
- A fully remote employee
- An employee who works from the office 1wk/month or is remote for the majority of their time
- A team that is distributed
If and when the current company setup changes, we should address the above situations. For the purpose of this document, we interpret remote work as as a co-located employee of Clef working from home or from somewhere irregular.
We treat working remotely as a privilege that comes with both benefits and costs.
The benefits are primarily ones of flexibility: as individuals, we are able to work when we want to and where we want to. This lets us do our best work and contribute to our team in a custom-crafted framework that lets us lead more fulfilling lives. The costs are primarily ones of communication: being out of the office means more base-line work and incidental complexity for all employees. More is required of both the remote employee and the employees in the office to keep in sync, collaborate, and own the work we do in a visible way.
When we work remotely, it's our responsibility to accept the benefits graciously, and go above and beyond to not let the costs affect our work or the work of our teammates. A remote workday:
- is not shorter than a day at the office
- is not less productive
- is not an excuse for missing commitments (be they meetings or deadlines).
Even when we aren't in the office, our teammates are still counting on us and it is our responsibility to make sure we are exceeding their expectations.
At the same time, it is the responsibility of workers in the office to reasonably accommodate remote workers. This means being willing to schedule meetings in light of timezone differences and to manage expectations around immediate feedback.
The guidelines in this document (and the handbook at large) give us tools to make remote work easier, but tooling is only a small part of the solution. Every employee needs to complement these tools with extra work to make remote work effective for the employee working remotely and the rest of our team.
The majority of policies that support remote work in Clef apply to everyone at Clef, not just remote workers. The primary documents that outline these policies are:
An extended remote work period includes anything longer than 2 days or any period of time where we work from somewhere irregular.
If you're planning to work remotely for more than two consecutive days, or you're planning to work remotely from a place that's not your home (i.e. from a partner's home in a different city), you'll need to follow these additional guidelines. Even more than standard remote work, working remotely for an extended period of time is a privilege — it will require a large amount of extra work from you to make sure that the team is effective with you working remotely.
Get Approval From your manager
You need your manager's approval before you can work remotely for an extended period of time. This check-in should happen at least two weeks in advance, before you make any travel arrangements, and you should come prepared with a plan for how you will handle the logistics and extra communication work involved in extended remote work. In order for an employee to work remotely for an extended period of time, they should have demonstrated in the past that they are effective working remotely and upholding their quality of work. If that's not the case, the manager can and should veto the option.
You should give everyone on the team as much notice as possible, but at least 7 days. This will ensure everyone can plan their meetings and work accordingly.
Always take the following steps to let the team know:
- Post in #office with a @channel tag so everyone sees the notification
- Communicate verbally with the people you work closest with
- Update your calendar to mark which days you are working remotely
It's your responsibility to both make sure you are effective and don't let your teammates down — regardless of the location you work from. This means that you should plan & prepare in your free time before you leave to work remotely.
A non-exhaustive list of things to ensure are in order are:
- You will have a fast, consistent wi-fi connection
- You will have a distraction-free environment to work in
- You will have a quiet, private place to take phone calls and meetings
- You will be able to work a full workday every day you're working remotely
Working remotely can add a financial burden on an individual. At the same time, it is also a privilege. While Clef is on its seed extension, Clef will subsidize co-working space costs for up to $10/day. Once Clef reaches profitability or raises its next major fundraising round, we will revisit this subsidy.
If an employee works remotely, they should make the topic of their remote work a regular part of weekly 1:1s.
This is a time where employees can voice concerns about constraints that are limiting their ability to work effectively: this could be concerns about structures inside of Clef that limit their flexibility, concerns about how the way other teammates work, or anything else that might affect how they work. It's also a time where managers should give concrete feedback on whether an employee is upholding their responsibilities when they are working remotely.
Before an employee works remotely for an extended period of time (defined below), they should schedule a retrospective with their manager for when they get back.
This meeting is essential for debriefing what did and didn't work in the time they were gone and ensuring lessons learned are rolled back into the way we work at Clef.
Having the flexibility to work remotely is a privilege. If an employee's unable to uphold the responsibilities that go along with that privilege, their manager should work with them through their 1:1s and dedicated retrospectives to resolve the issue. If the employe cannot resolve the issue, their manager can revoke the privilege.