Many workplaces allow employees to work from home. However, often in those situations, the employer really does not know from where the employee is working. Recently, one of our firm’s small business clients, based in an employer-friendly state in the south, had an employee move to California without the company knowing. Neither management nor HR was aware that it had a California employee. This ended up causing some material issues when it came to daily overtime, taxes, and other issues.

If you have employees working from home (WFH), you should strongly consider implementing a policy that provides that (a) WFH employees cannot work in another state or country for more than thirty (30) days without advanced written approval, and (b) that the exact location of all work performed remotely needs to be communicated to the HR department in writing.

There are many reasons for this:

1. You want to know where the employee is working in case they are injured and to assist in tracking any related WFH expenses. Being injured while WFH is a workers' compensation event. In addition, you do not want to have employees who are working in an unsafe environment.
2. The laws of every state are different. For example, an employee working in Arizona is required to be paid overtime rates only if he or she works over forty hours in a week. If that employee moves to Nevada, he or she must be paid premium overtime rates for all hours worked in excess of eight hours in a day, even if he or she does not...

Read Full Story: https://www.jdsupra.com/legalnews/a-remote-work-policy-that-ensures-4328066/