Q1

Q1. IT and TELEPHONE EQUIPMENT

When I’m teleworking at home, how will I access COMPANY’s computer network (via the Remote Access System – RAS)? And what equipment will I have?

A1. Everything you need will be installed for you by COMPANY I.T onto a laptop/desktop computer – with an ISDN/ADSL telephone that we will provide. We will also supply an extra plug-in, separate keyboard, a laptop/desktop stand and a long-lead mouse for ergonomic purposes. See the IT section for a list of the equipment COMPANY will provide.

IT Notes: For Data-Protection purposes (data-leaks or piracy) we have discounted the idea of having a removable C-Drive (the storage disk in the laptop/desktop) as this could create more problems than it solves. At home, you need simply to plug the laptop/desktop into a telephone line (long term teleworkers will eventually need a second telephone line or a mobile phone) and plug into an electricity power socket. The system will be the same as your COMPANY workstation at central office.

You will need an Internet connection. Some COMPANY people have such connections via for example, FREESERVE or COMPUSERVE. For connecting to the COMPANY system, I.T will install UK-on-Line or a similar service on your laptop/desktop with a direct contact to the COMPANY RAS on the CITRIX Server, with unlimited use, at no cost to the teleworker. Such a connection with ISDN operates at an average 64KB per second.

Some managers travelling overseas will be supplied with an international Global Roaming Internet Service that will connect them to the COMPANY CITRIX or RAS. See the out-of-hours notes at Q4 below.

Q2. FAMILY SOFTWARE

Can I put other software on the COMPANY laptop/desktop, such as Internet browsers and games?

A2. NO – please do not install any unauthorised software or create personal files on the laptop/desktop. And do not delete any COMPANY software. All the software supplied by COMPANY is properly licensed by the suppliers to COMPANY employees; unauthorised software may conflict or may not be fully licensed and cause software crashes. If COMPANY swaps your old laptop/desktop for another for maintenance, personal files will not remain private – so do not create any private files.

Notes: Some products, such as AOL’s Email CD for example, conflict with our settings; so you are advised not to put them on your laptop/desktop. There are also concerns about the data-protection act that lead to home-office equipment being restricted to business-only use. (See Q 9 and later questions below and read the Data-Protection section of this booklet). Regular breaches of these guidelines by an individual or excessive demands for support or extra costs may result in the option to telework being withdrawn.

Q3. REMOVING SOFTWARE

If my family or I have installed some incompatible software on the COMPANY laptop/desktop; what should I do?

A3. Make an appointment to bring the laptop/desktop to IT at CENTRAL OFFICE and we will restore the settings for you. Please don’t do it again. Telephone 1234 55 66 77 88 or from within CENTRAL OFFICE dial *4444. Regular breaches of these guidelines by an individual or excessive demands for support or extra costs may result in the option to telework being withdrawn.

Q4. FLEXIBLE HOURS

I often work flexible hours at central office, e.g. from 7am till 3pm. When I telework at home can I still decide to work flexible hours?

A4. Yes; with the agreement of your manager and the co-operation of the colleagues you have to work with, you may still elect flexible hours working.

IT SUPPORT - Note that the IT Help-Desk and Support do not provide a 24 hour service. The IT services for teleworkers are available at the same times as the service for central-office workers.

Notes: There is a debate on whether these flexi-hours must be within the core-hours as already defined for COMPANY flexible-hours arrangements. The debate is that core-hours working ensures good corporate communications, everybody is available within the same time frame/s, but a great advantage of teleworking is being able to start a task, say at 10pm and work through till say 5am.

IT SUPPORT - Note that the IT Help-Line and Support do not provide a 24 hour service. The service for teleworkers is the same as the service for central-office workers. So if you plan to work un-social hours there will be no support. If the main servers are down for maintenance, there will be NO AUTOMATIC SAVING on the servers – you could lose all your work; so take advice on backing it up and on the other technical issues of out-of-hours working. See the Guidelines above.

Q5. SHARING HOME-OFFICES

When I work at home, I often share a room with my spouse or child. Are there any COMPANY rules that would stop me sharing home-office-space in this way?

A5. No. COMPANY have no reason to discourage you sharing work-space at home; providing that confidentiality of COMPANY matters and our Health and Safety, Data Protection and other COMPANYs’ responsibilities are not compromised.

Q6. EMAILING FROM HOME

From central office, I send emails and files around the COMPANY network and out to other organisations. Being in HR I also access the new HR system and my colleague in Tax has access to PAYROLL data. Can I/we do the same from home or do I need to additionally protect such E-communications?

A6. Some specialist software, including PAYROLL, is not yet available to remote workers. You have no need to take extra precautions with email as once your laptop/desktop is connected to the RAS (the COMPANY network) it is as secure as your central office PC. You will be given a KEYFOB or TOKEN and/or code that opens the channel between your laptop/desktop and the COMPANY system firewall (to the RAS) and you will need to use your own passwords as usual.

Q7. IT VISITS TO HOME

In central office, IT support will send a member of the support staff to help me with a PC problem. Will the same people visit me at home if needed?

A7. NO – it is too expensive to provide IT support at employees’ homes. There is a cost and time consideration. The local Telecom or COMPANY telephone engineers may visit, by appointment.

Equipment Maintenance Notes: The most effective support method is for teleworkers to use COMPANY laptop/desktops and to bring them into central office to be re-set or repaired; usually a laptop/desktop will be repaired the same day (i.e. within 24 hours), or if there is a hardware fault, a replacement machine will be supplied the same day.

IT TRAINING - All teleworkers have an IT training session or briefing on the few differences between working at central-office and working at home. This training may become accessible on the COMPANY WEB site. The IT Help-Desk help-lines are open and should be the first option if a problem arises. Do not cart in your laptop/desktop until you have tried all other remedies – often faults can be fixed over the ‘phone. Should any visits be made, then both teleworker and visitor must abide by existing office procedures and rules of behaviour.

Q8. HEALTHY POSTURE

In central office, my workstation meets the requirements of the Health and Safety (Display Screen Equipment) Regulations (UK 1992). How will I ensure that my home-office set up complies with these regulations?

A8. Read the HSE section and Forms above. Initial advice from COMPANY is provided via Self-Assessment checklists accompanied by spot visits or audits.

HSE Note: Each COMPANY home-office is subject to risk assessment to assure compliance with appropriate regulations made under the Health and safety at Work etc., Act (UK1974). COMPANY supplied electrical equipment, including plugs and connectors, is subject to statutory checks (PAT test) every year. As stated in Q1 above, the COMPANY laptop/desktop provided will also have a free-standing plug-in keyboard and a mouse. The slim laptop/desktop screen, the machine’s small size and the plug-in peripherals, together with a height adjustable stand, will enable the optimum set-up from the ergonomic and DSE perspective. COMPANY retains full responsibility, as for central office working, to ensure compliance with workplace safety regulations. Employees also share the responsibility and must be seen to be co-operative and acting intelligently.

Q9. WAIVING COMPANY RESPONSIBILITIES FOR A TELEWORKER

My family and I don’t like the prospect of people calling at our house to undertake risk assessments or other checks so I will sign a legal waiver to exempt COMPANY from its HSE (health and safety) obligations as an employer. I s a waiver drafted that I can sign?

A9. NO. Sorry. In your telework agreement, you have already agreed and signed to the access COMPANY requires to make such checks and tests. On your PC screen you agree each time you log-on to COMPANY’s privacy and data protection terms.

Waiver Notes: COMPANY cannot by law give-up its responsibilities as an COMPANY. We are legally bound to do what is necessary and practicable to assure to bring teleworkers’ offices into legislative compliance. Equally, under the Data Protection Act and under the provisions of RIPA – Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act, COMPANY is permitted under certain circumstances, in public bodies, to check on employees’ communications and work-data. When you are plugged into the RAS, from home or the central office, all the information you email or speak may be overheard by colleagues – and vice-versa – you may read or hear their messages. In an emergency, IT managers can access the data stored on the RAS server under your name. This does not change in the home-office system.

Q10. PLEASE CONTACT ME

As a senior manager, my colleagues at central office, particularly junior colleagues, say that they “don’t like to call you when you are at home”. I assure them that when I’m working at home, that I am at work and insist that they call me; but they are still reluctant to invade my privacy. How can I get the point across?

A10. Training. This requires a cultural change and it tends to happen by evolution as teleworking grows. In the meantime urge them to call you and remind yourself to call them frequently.

Training Note: Training and education for teleworkers and their core-team colleagues will be provided to help the process of change. COMPANY may install an ISDN /ADSL business telephone line/s for each long-term COMPANY teleworker and this number will be included in the office directories. With or without a dedicated line, when you are working at home transfer your central-office calls to the home number. Also be pro-active, initiate communication with central office each day by calling-in and asking people to call you back. It is proposed that for long-term teleworkers a seamless system of call-forwarding will be adopted that is opaque to the caller.

Q11. RECORDS for THE TELEWORK PROGRAMME

Will I have to keep any additional records or fill in forms as a teleworker?

A11. NO. BUT in these guidelines there are FORMS for you to use when you apply for equipment and reimbursements and you will have to use these (on-screen and emailed if possible). If you anticipate ever being asked to report on,

say, your first year as a teleworker, the simplest RECORD to maintain is the First Year Teleworker’s Diary. Set-up a diary BEFORE you start teleworking, by entering your planned daily communications with COMPANY colleagues. DURING telework days the Diary has to be completed to reflect what you are doing and in particular what problems and what benefits you experience.

Q12. DRINKING, DRUGS & UN-SOCIAL HOURS

If I’m working out of core-hours at home, need I comply with COMPANY’s no-alcohol /drugs consumed and no-alcohol /drugs on the premises policy?

A12. Yes, and this includes all illegal drugs use. The “premises” being confined to the area of the home-office space. Because when you are working at home your home-office is a COMPANY micro-office and you may be communicating in real-time or creating communications for transmission to COMPANY employees, so in your home-office you should comply with all COMPANY work guidelines including the no-alcohol policy.

You will not be held to account if you have consumed alcohol out of hours at home and you are contacted out of hours by a COMPANY colleague. – Best advice – never answer the business phone if you’ve had an alcoholic drink.

Q13. IMPROVED PRODUCTIVITY

People say that most teleworkers are more productive working at home than they are at the central office. How can this be without extra hours or more stress and will my work be monitored more than it would be at central-office?

A13. Your work will not be monitored any more closely when you telework than it is at central-office. Teleworkers tend to be more productive due to time and energy saved from commuting and due to fewer interruptions.

Productivity Note: USA studies show that most teleworkers achieve “an effortless increase” in productivity. This comes from saving time & energy from commuting, from fewer interruptions, from better health/less sick-leave through personal control of the environment and, for smokers, from being able to smoke and work without leaving the building (saving an hour a day). Because most teleworkers prefer to regularly update their managers and colleagues with work-in-progress, there tends to be an automatic greater flow of information about work-in-progress. Such volunteered information is more effective for managers COMPANY may be reluctant in central-office to ask a central office colleague to “show me what work you did yesterday”. Every hour per work day saved from repetitive non-productive tasks (e.g. commuting) is equivalent to 30 work-days a year (240 work-days x 2 hours = 480 hours, divide into 8 hour days = 60 work-days). Some teleworkers save 70 days a year and put 50% of this time back into their jobs.

Q14. TAX RELIEF

Will I qualify for Tax relief on my home-office costs – and if YES, then how much tax will I save?

A14. This is unlikely to apply to COMPANY teleworkers.

But for your general information tax issues in the USA and UK for telework mainly depends on the precise wording of the agreement to telework and partly depends on whether COMPANY decide to pay teleworkers a Use-of-Home-as-Office allowance and how any travel concessions are currently treated by Payroll and/or by your IRS inspector of taxes. However, any costs you incur over and above amounts reimbursed by COMPANY may qualify as a tax deduction (read the Tax & Financial Guidelines in this booklet) so keep a good record.

Tax Note: In other organisations an average full-time (5 days a week) teleworker, based mostly at home, can see a reduction of about $300US to their tax bill.

Q15. CAPITAL GAINS TAX ON MY HOME

I’ve heard that the Internal Revenue/ Inland Revenue tax the profits in a home-office under Capital Gains Tax regulations when you sell your house. Is this true?

A15. YES and NO. Capital Gains Tax (CGT) theoretically applies to the part of a house that has been successfully claimed (see Q14 above) as an office for income tax relief purposes. But for all practical purposes the CGT is not usually levied as the CGT assessment requires “exclusive use” of the space. This is unlikely to apply to COMPANY teleworkers.

CGT Note: Few home-workers claim exclusive use. In the exceptional circumstances where an assessment is raised, Roll-Over-Relief can carry CGT tax forward to the next home and so on – but only if the space is formally recognised by the Inland Revenue as a business-asset. Where/If an assessment is raised it will be on a Time and Space used formula (the office as a proportion of the space in the house for a period of months as a proportion of the time owned). Where an assessment becomes a CGT bill to be paid, the owners of the house can first claim their annual CGT exemption/s (about £6,000 CGT profit each).

Q16. RESPONSIBILITY UNDER THE (EU or UK) DATA-PROTECTION ACT.

My lawyer tells me that I will become responsible under the data-protection act for any information, paper or electronic, that accidentally or deliberately leaks from my home-office. Can I be sued for such data-leaks?

A16. YOU ARE NOT LIKELY TO BE LIABLE - COMPANY is your employer and is fully aware of the provisions of the Data Protection Act and COMPANY complies with the act. As a teleworker you are little more likely to breach the act than any other employee. Provided you follow these guidelines you are not at particular risk under the act. COMPANY is insured for civil liabilities arising from inadvertent breaches of the Act.

Notes: UK - The Data-Protection Act (UK 1998) - Fines and Penalties:

Article 8 of the EU Human Rights Act seeks to protect the privacy of individuals. employers are generally prevented from monitoring employees’ communications. BUT, for business and practical purposes there are exceptions to the no-monitoring rule. For example, the UK RIPA the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act, allows monitoring in public sector bodies such as COMPANY .

When you log-on to the COMPANY RAS system the opening screen that you tick is giving your authority to COMPANY to have the option of monitoring your communications on the COMPANY RAS system.

The COMPANY is primarily responsible under the Data-Protection Act.

If an employee is negligent or deliberately breaches the act, both COMPANY and the employee will be liable to face criminal charges. Any fine levied on an employee will be that employee’s own responsibility but COMPANY may, where it is deemed appropriate, agree to pay or contribute to legal fees incurred in defending the charge. Breaches of the Data-Protection Act are criminal offences.

Note that it is not possible to insure against your own criminal acts.

Q17. DATA-PROTECTION: HOW CAN I LIMIT MY DP RISK?

I have read the Data-Protection section in this booklet and it does seem to conclude that I might be legally responsible for leaks of COMPANY data. What are the main actions I should take to limit the/my risk?

A17. The advice given in theses guidelines can be summarised as:

First – Lock Up. Always operate a clear-desk policy, as applies at central office. This means putting away all paper, into lockable filing cabinets, and always locking your computer if you leave the room for a short time and switching off your computer (requiring passwords to reconnect it) if you leave the room for a longer period. Always disconnect from the COMPANY RAS when you leave the room.

Second – Your Negligence. COMPANY fulfils its obligations under the Data-Protection Act but if a leak occurs through your culpable negligence or deliberate action you may be personally liable (see A16 above).

Notes: Make sure your home insurance