Suitability for homeworking

Homeworking will not be suitable for all roles or for all employees. Before a request for homeworking on an extended/long-term basis is approved, Colleges/Services should consider whether the employee(s) will be able to undertake their normal day-to-day activities effectively while working at home and how performance standards – in terms of both quality and quantity – will be monitored.

Homeworking will be most appropriate for roles which involve a significant amount of computer work or liaison with ‘customers’ by email or telephone. It will not be appropriate for ‘front-of-house’ roles which require a significant amount of face-to-face contact with ‘customers’.

Data security

For data security reasons, homeworking may not be appropriate for roles which include a lot of inputting from paper documents which contain confidential or sensitive information.

Homeworking is more suitable for:

• roles with a high degree of written rather than manual work
• work performed on an individual basis or with clearly defined areas of individual responsibilities
• work which has clearly defined objectives
• work that has performance measurement indicators
• work which does not require frequent input from others and centrally-provided facilities.

Employees who work at home need to:

• be self-motivated
• have self-reliance and discipline to work without direct supervision
• have the ability to complete work to scheduled deadlines
• have initiative, flexibility and time management skills
• have the ability to cope with reduced social contact and isolation; and
• cope with additional pressures of working in the home where the demands of family life are difficult to ignore.