Remote Work – a strategic approach has been saved
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Remote Work – a strategic approach
Deloitte Global Employer Services
The pandemic has accelerated the future of work and there is an increasing desire from employees and employers to evaluate the long term potential for remote work. While the landscape is ever-changing, we are seeing remote work come to life in several scenarios today. Each has different features, challenges, options and possible solutions.
International remote working considerations
A variety of stakeholders across functions need to align and identify priority actions and shared goals to ensure successful remote working can be achieved – enhancing employee experience and business unit efficiencies, while reducing compliance (tax and legal) risks.
To ensure successful remote working and to reduce compliancy risks, organizations should take several points into considerations such as employee wellbeing, homeworking arrangements, tax, financial and legal impact. Especially when there is a cross border element, such as a foreign hired employee working remotely in his or her home country (or a third country), compliancy risks are higher. Immigration and employment law, social security or employment tax impacts important aspects to consider.
A strategic approach to remote work
Many organizations are exploring how remote work will be approached in the future, and whether it is a desirable and sustainable long-term solution. Global Mobility functions are in a unique position to define, lead and manage the strategy and implementation of such a solution. Deloitte can support your organisation in the process of defining a remote work strategy, including setting the policies and guidelines.
Finally, in order for remote work to be an integrated part of the mobility journey, the business should determine who the stakeholders are and what each of their roles and responsibilities are in order to create a strong governance structure with clear assigned ownership. Assigning roles and responsibilities will allow the organization to create a supporting process and the necessary tools to streamline said process. This will include steps from approving and documenting remote work approval processes, to back-end operations such as payroll.
Remote worker compliance
The complexity of supporting tools can range from simple guidelines and decision trees for internal use, to technology tools that keep track of remote workers and the associated compliance obligations. The Deloitte Remote Workers Identifier uses a simple survey to identify employee whereabouts since the start of the pandemic to enable an up to date analysis to be performed, assessing mandatory compliance obligations. The data can be presented in a user friendly dashboard and enables a triage process to be implemented to prioritize actions.
