Success Factors

How to Create a Workable Plan

Frequently Asked Questions about Employees with Cancer Working at Home

Trouble-shooting Guide

Ad hoc telecommuting allows an employee with cancer to be productive while dealing with the challenges of her illness by accomplishing part or all of her work from home on a temporary basis. Check with Human Resources to see if there is any precedent for making accommodations for people who are unable to work a “regular” schedule in the office because of illness or injury. Note: Given the nature of cancer, the arrangements you set up may need to be modified to accommodate fluctuations in the employee's treatment progress.

Success Factors

To make ad hoc telecommuting succeed, the following issues need to be considered:

1) Communication

You and your employee should jointly come up with a written communication plan that gives the days and times the employee plans to be in her home office, any regularly-scheduled medical appointments out of the office and the times she plans to be in your organization's office. You should also decide together how and when you'll be in touch with one another when she's working at home and how and when others who need to communicate with her can do so. Communication techniques include:

• E-mail
• Telephone
• Fax
• Pager
• Written notes
• Shared calendar
• Posted schedule
• Conference calls
• Voicemail messages
• Face-to-face on days in the office
• Socializing outside of work
• “Gone Telecommuting” sign

If possible, the employee working at home should attend any regularly scheduled meetings and training, either live or by conference call.

Make sure your telecommuter knows what is going on in the office. One suggestion is to help her find a telecommuting partner, a co-worker who can help her keep connected to the info rmal communication channels.

2) Nature of the Job

Not all jobs are appropriate for telecommuting. The best jobs for telecommuting have independent and/or project activity. Jobs that require extensive face-to-face time and teamwork may not work for telecommuting, nor will jobs that depend upon ongoing input from co-workers or the constant need for shared reference material/equipment. However, most jobs have some tasks that can be accomplished at home.

3) Equipment Issues

Anything you can do to help your employee with cancer work from home will be greatly appreciated. This might mean coming up with equipment that you can loan her while she is working at home. You and the employee can also consult with IT to determine what equipment she needs. Equipment might include:

• A personal computer/laptop
• A combination printer, scanner and fax
• Effective remote access
• Beeper
• Additional telephone lines
• Telephone
• Voice mail

It is important that you and your employee put in writing your expectations around the ad hoc telecommuting arrangement. This agreement should cover such issues as space, equipment, furniture, schedule, safety and security, workers comp and tax matters.

4) The Home Office

When an employee works at home; she must remember that she is working from home and plan accordingly. It is important that she have all the resources she needs to be at least as productive as she would be in the office. You can help her by talking through with her the items she might need.

If the employee has dependents at home that require care and supervision, arrangements should be made for someone other than her to provide that care. In addition to the fact that it's hard enough to combine work with cancer treatment and recovery, telecommuting should not be a substitute for dependent care.

5) Measuring Performance

The best way to tell whether or not a telecommuter is performing his or her work is by assessing the results – the outcomes or deliverables that have been established at the outset of telecommuting. You can evaluate the work of your employee this way even when you can't observe her working.

6) Teamwork and Cross Training

Telecommuters can still be integral parts of your team even if they're not in the office on a daily basis. If possible, teams should have meetings when everyone is available, even if some participate by phone. Telecommuters who have unique skills, especially employees with cancer, will do well to cross-train one or more co-workers in key areas and make sure these co-workers know where important info rmation they might need is kept.

7) The Possibility of Overwork

Although some managers might worry that a telecommuter isn't working enough (because the manager can't “see” them”), the opposite might be true. Having one's work around all the time can be an invitation to long hours. Have a discussion with your employee about this issue and show your support for setting boundaries between work and the rest of her life

How to Create a Workable Plan

Developing an effective way of working at home is most likely to occur if you let the employee take the lead in figuring out what will work best for her in terms of the number of days she will be able to work at different stages of her cancer treatment and recovery and when she'll want to work at home. Here are some possible plans:

• An employee going through chemotherapy and feeling fatigued might combine ad hoc telecommuting and a 50% part time schedule. She might work one day a week at home and two days in the office on the non-chemotherapy week. During the alternate, chemotherapy week she could work two days a week at home but none in the office.
• An employee who is the caregiver of someone with cancer might choose to set up an office at home and work there around his or her partner's treatment schedule.
• An employee whose job isn't suited to telecommuting might temporarily want to switch to some kind of work that would allow her to telecommute several days a week.

Frequently Asked Questions about Employees with Cancer Working at Home

Q. How can an employee who is going through cancer treatment or recovery and working at home stay visible?

A. It will be easier for the employee if she can arrange her schedule in order to attend as many regularly-scheduled meetings, trainings and other functions as possible. If this isn't possible, she should stay “visible” through frequent phone and e-mail contact and by attending meetings via audio conference when she can't attend in person.

Q. How can an employee who is going through cancer treatment or recovery and working at home avoid feeling isolated?

A. You can help the employee by checking in with her regularly and giving her tips on ways to avoid isolation:

• You should both use every appropriate communication option as effectively as possible:
  • You can set specific times to check in by telephone
  • You can leave messages for one another on voicemail
  • At any time you can send e-mail messages to one another.
• She can replace the feeling of loneliness with positive action — going for a walk when it's time to take a break, calling or emailing a colleague to share information or ask for feedback, finding others who work at home and getting together with them.
• You can both make sure that on days she is in the office that she is visible: attending meetings, serving on committees, giving presentations.
• Let the employee's coworkers know that she's working from home and expects to be called there when they need information or want to share something with her. If she's not up to answering the phone, she doesn't have to.

Q. Is telecommuting a solution to dependent care?

A. No. If an employee has someone taking care of dependents while she's in the organization's office, she should have someone taking care of dependents while she's in her home office. This is especially true for women who are dealing with their own cancer as well as for those who are caring for someone who has cancer.

Q. How can I evaluate the performance of an employee who is working at home?

A. The best way to evaluate the performance of any employee, whether working on site or working at home, is to establish clear results and deliverables for contributors, and then use these to assess performance. This is one of the keys to success for all Flexible Work Arrangements.

Q. How can a telecommuter plan her tasks to avoid leaving key files and materials at the office?

A. Many telecommuters find that the way they plan and organize work activities evolves as they settle into their work-at-home arrangement:

• Some employees save certain types of activities for the days they work at home. They can therefore focus on having the files and tools in the home office that will help with those activities, which might be writing, reading, report generation or strategic planning.
• If the employee can have access to your organization's network, she won't have to carry hard-copy files back and forth.
• On days when the employee is in the office she can keep a list of things she'll want to take home with her and accumulate them in a basket, box or carry-all bag to take back and forth between the two locations.

Trouble-shooting Guide

No matter how well you and your employee have planned and implemented an ad hoc telecommuting arrangement, from time to time breakdowns do occur. Below are four common breakdowns you might experience:

BREAKDOWN: An ad hoc telecommuter who has cancer discloses her condition to her coworkers and they are afraid to call her at home.

INTERVENTIONS:

• Talk to the employee who has cancer about this and find out what are the optimum ways and times for others on the team to contact her.
• Share this information in a discussion about the situation with all involved. If the telecommuter can't attend in person, have her participate by phone. Open communication is essential.

BREAKDOWN: An ad hoc telecommuter has frequent computer breakdowns on a laptop while she is in her home office that keep her from doing her work. Her calls to tech support don't help.

INTERVENTIONS:

• Plan ahead for this contingency. Encourage the employee to always have back-up work that she can do (reading, planning) without a computer.
• Talk to the telecommuter to find out what kind of computer breakdowns she's having. Involve a technical support person to see if it's time to replace the computer.
• Have the employee bring the laptop to the office as soon as she can so the technical support people can look at it.
• See if you can find her a better loaner laptop.

BREAKDOWN: A telecommuter who has cancer complains that she is not being given good assignments and is afraid she will be passed over for promotion. She feels this is because she disclosed that she has cancer and she is not as visible as people who work in the office full time.

INTERVENTIONS:

• Take a good look at any assumptions you might be making about the employee's ability to work. If she has not asked for a reasonable accommodation and you reassign tasks to other employees, you could be in violation of the ADA . Talk to the employee to find out what she wants and needs.
• Coach the employee about career development opportunities.
• Make sure the employee stays visible by participating in face-to-face meetings, attending social activities and serving on committee on days in the office.

BREAKDOWN: There are still many managers who don't see the benefits of allowing a woman with cancer to work at home.

INTERVENTIONS:

• Be a role model for others. Show how you can be supportive of an employee with cancer, keep up your unit's productivity and comply with anti-discrimination laws at the same time.