Working at Home Guidelines
These may be subject to change.
FIRST AND FOREMOST: Our goal is “Help Spiritual orphans by creating and welcoming them into Healthy Christian Community.”
Since community is part of the essence of who we are, working away from everyone else works against our core value. It should be understood that the goal working at home (or telecommuting) is to temporarily achieve better social distancing, but that community and reaching people with the gospel is still at the core of who we are. To that end, employees working at home will need to follow simple procedures and guidelines, as well as keep community at the core of decisions and interactions.
Revolution Church considers telecommuting to be a temporarily viable, flexible work option when both the employee and the job are suited to such an arrangement. Telecommuting may be appropriate for some employees and jobs but not for others. Telecommuting is not an entitlement, it is not a companywide benefit, and it in no way changes the terms and conditions of employment with Revolution Church.
Eligibility
- Must Have permission from their supervisor
- Must have proper equipment at home to complete their jobs
- Must still be available all day during normal work hours
- Not a replacement for childcare; employee must have proper childcare needs met.
Guidelines
- Some work will undoubtedly need to happen in the building, so please do return for anything that must be done in the building.
- Please have a working webcam and microphone for Zoom and Messenger (or phone that can achieve this) and keep Messenger up and running, so we can do video chats when needed, instead of just phone calls. Seeing each other helps communication work better. If you don’t have this at home let me know before you work at home. Plan on doing video chats rather than simply sending e-mails and messenger messages if it’s more than a simple one or two sentence question. Writing a message is a good follow-up to video discussions.
- Plan to begin each work day with a video check-in, just as if we were greeting each other in the building with a, “Anything we need to discuss?” type of conversation. They usually happen automatically in the building, but we’re going to make these official if we’re apart.
- Identify which parts of your job must be done in the building, and if you plan on staying home e-mail your supervisor a plan to be approved listing what will be done at home vs in the building so everyone is on the same page. Obviously, the list won’t be exhaustive, but should include many items.
- One suggested guideline from Business News Daily said, “Remote workers should be available during office hours, must meet deadlines and complete projects with excellence and maintain communication with their manager and co-workers. Workers who do not meet these expectations risk losing the trust of leadership and sidelining their team.” This is wise.
- Note: There may be a time when your supervisor asks for your assistance in the building. Please keep in mind that our goal is to communicate the gospel! While a supervisor shouldn’t ask someone in on a whim, sometimes jobs are done easier and quicker in person.
- Employee will establish an appropriate work environment within the home for work purposes. Revolution Church will not be responsible for any costs associated with the setup of the home office.
- CYBER SECURITY. If you plan on working at home, the Church will purchase a subscription to Nord VPN (unless you make arrangements with your own vpn) and the VPN software must be installed and configured properly on ALL DEVICES that you will do online work with (including personal devices). When doing online work the VPN must be turned on. Don’t worry: Nord VPN will not track your online activity and the Church has no way of seeing what you do. In fact, VPN is often used by people in foreign countries with oppressive governments to hide their online activity. It works on your computer and phone, use it on both.
- CYBER SECURITY. You must also have a virus/malware scanner installed on ALL DEVICES that you will do work on. Please download MalwareBytes and run the virus scanner once every 48 hours. It works on your computer and phone.
- Working at Home Provides challenges, and opportunities. You may get more work done than you thought because the ‘whirlwind of the office’ doesn’t surround you. Please write down your WIG and 1-2 things you plan on working on if you have extra time during your work hours. Submit these to your supervisor. We want to use this time as a way for Church to MOVE FORWARD and become even better than before!
Spend some time thinking… and not just “how can I do my job still?” Think about this: “What can I do differently today, that wouldn’t have worked when I didn’t work at home, that will make things grow like they couldn’t have before? What opportunities do I have now that I didn’t have before?” You have some opportunities that you didn’t have before. But you’re going to have to dig and think of it… it’s like digging for gold.
Learn more
Before working from home read these two articles:
1) https://careynieuwhof.com/my-top-7-rules-for-leading-a-digital-team/
2) https://www.boundaries.me/blog/4-things-you-can-do-for-your-mental-health-during-the-covid-19-crisis