How to Switch Employees to Remote Work In 5 Steps

According to the Ministry of Labour, in 2020 the number of remote employees in Russia increased from 30,000 to 3 million people^[1]. When coronavirus restrictions were lifted, only 30 % of employees wished to return to their offices^[2]. This temporary trend has become engrained in our life and won’t lose ground. A hybrid work format, when an employee combines office and remote work, will obviously be the most popular. Lyudmila Nevmyanova, Head of Project Group 2, HR Administration Department, BDO Unicon Outsourcing, tells what legal and technical aspects an employer needs to take into account in order to properly switch the team to remote work.

1. Define office rules for employees, schedules and place of work

Due to the circumstances, remote work in our country has officially been equated with distance work. Since 1 January 2021, the term “remote work” has become fully legitimate and has been used along with the term “distant work”. Remote work is governed by Chapter 49.1 of the Russian Labour Code. Today, employment relations can be formalized by entering into:

1. A remote work contract, when a new employee is hired on a distant work basis;

2. A supplementary agreement on changing working conditions, for existing employees.

Determine the duration of remote work for an employee: whether it will be a permanent or temporary solution, for example, due to the worsening epidemiological situation in the region. For those employees whose business processes require their personal presence in the office, opt for a hybrid model.

To manage your teamwork effectively, you are supposed to work out a safe office space, make out schedules for the presence of employees in the office and commit them to writing in a supplementary agreement or local regulations of the company. Remember to find out and specify in the contract the location where the employee is to perform their job function remotely, because this affects the employee’s salary directly as work in regions with special climatic conditions requires extra guarantees and compensations.

2. Get qualified electronic signatures

The employer and the employee may enter into an employment contract and a supplementary agreement providing for remote work by exchanging electronic documents. For electronic registration, amendment and termination of an employment contract and supplementary agreements thereto, it is allowed to use an enhanced qualified electronic signature (EQES), or an enhanced unqualified electronic signature of an employee (EUES) and an employer’s EQES.

As early as 1 July 2021, the heads of organizations and individual entrepreneurs may apply for a qualified electronic signature (QES) on a free-of-charge basis to the Federal Tax Service or its authorized representatives, such as certification centres who have been accredited according to the new rules and passed an additional qualification procedure (the list will become known only in July). From 2022, obtaining signatures from the Federal Tax Service will become mandatory, even if the previously issued certificate has not expired. To obtain such a signature, you will need to apply directly to the tax office or its authorized representatives, which list will be published on the FTS official website in July 2021. The heads of financial organizations and government agencies will need to apply for a QES to the Central Bank and the Treasury.

Employees will have to receive an “electronic signature of an individual” in accredited centres in order to use it with a new “electronic power of attorney”, which is still under development and implementation. More news about the power of attorney is expected only by the end of the year.

From January 2022 onwards, the rules for obtaining and issuing qualified signatures will change with information on the updates expected at the end of 2021.

The possible pitfalls for both the employer and the employee using an e-signature may be that the e-signature can expire by the time important electronic documents need to be signed. Therefore, it is important to keep track of expiration dates.

3. Organize an electronic HR document workflow

With a large number of remote employees, it is worth considering to introduce an electronic personnel document management system (EPDMS) in the company to make communications and document exchange easier and more transparent.

Do this in several steps:

• Analyse and describe all HR processes existing in the company. Thus, you will understand which processes can be abandoned and will be able to vividly assess the risks of information digitalization;

• Make sure to develop local regulations for electronic interaction and familiarize employees with them. This will help you optimize work and avoid chaos;

• For each employee, determine the type of electronic signature depending on the competencies and tasks performed (for example, whether they have the right of the final signature, whether they are responsible for approvals or only for submitting documents).  

4. Take care of technical support

To implement electronic workflow in the company effectively, choose technical solutions based on your company’s specialization and business processes: set up an accounting system for administration, take into account the volume of document flow, and determine the approval flows in the company.

Take care of providing remote employees (both permanent and temporary) with the equipment necessary to get their job done. According to the Russian Labour Code, an employer shall provide a remote employee with the equipment necessary for work or compensate for the costs of using personal equipment. Employees will also get compensation for equipment, software and hardware, information security and other products belonging to them or rented by them, as well as refund for the costs associated with their use.

5. Do not forget about information security

If your employees work with personal data or valuable business data, it is important to exclude the Bring Your Own Device principle. Transfer information to a cloud system located on corporate servers. Employees should work with this data only virtually, which makes it impossible to copy anything to a third-party device and inaccessible for the employee’s housemates.

It is well worth conducting regular briefings and workshops for employees on handling insider information in order to minimize the risk of leakage. In addition, make sure that your company envisages regular password changes; folder and document access privileges; licensed antivirus software.

^[1] interfax.ru/russia/757540

^[2] iz.ru/1141501/2021-03-24/v-mintrude-oglasili-kolichestvo-rabotaiushchikh-distantcionno-rossiian

Source: HR-Portal