After COVID-19, Lancaster County leaders are asking should employees work from home?
If employers haven’t had the conversation already, it’s coming soon. And it isn’t just the private sector.
Lancaster County Council has to tackle working remotely.
Earlier this week, council members debated the productivity, responsibility, accountability and flexibility of its employees. They debated when it makes sense to allow remote work, and how it can be monitored.
“The county currently does not have a policy, so in March when we started going to remote work we were sending our employees out into the unknown,” said Alison Alexander, deputy county administrator.
Council asked staff to come back with a policy that states it’s for emergency use, and define what an emergency is. The full council isn’t likely to pass anything soon to allow remote work on a routine schedule.
One council member believes productivity and quality hiring could increase with some remote work options. Others believe employees could spend too much time in front of the television.
“I understand during the pandemic we had no choice but to work remotely,” said Councilwoman Charlene McGriff. “In the normal scheme of things, I think eight hours is eight hours. I think they were hired to come to the county building to work, and I think we will start something that we may not be able to control.”
Councilman Brian Carnes disagreed.
“One thing that COVID-19 has taught us is people can work remotely,” he said.
A new policy would outline guidelines and expectations for employees and supervisors. Alexander said the policy presented has support from department heads. The county has a time clock system, email, phone and video conferencing among a variety of tools to connect with employees and make sure work gets done.
“That’s something we have to do whether they’re working here in the office, in the field or in this case working at a computer at home,” Alexander said.
The county doesn’t have fully remote positions or plan for any. Still, if any remote work is to be an option the county needs a formal policy.
“We’re asking council to look at our workforce a little bit differently,” Alexander said. “That’s something that COVID-19 has sort of forced us to do.”
Sons, daughters and hires
About half of council brought up sons or daughters during the discussion. Many of those sons and daughters now work remotely. Many on council see a younger generation more interested in remote work options.
Carnes said he sees a new policy as integral to hiring the best talent from that younger generation.
“We have been marching in this direction for a long time,” he said. “And when I say ‘we,’ I’m talking about normal businesses. We can either choose to keep the county marching, trying to get them on the cutting edge, or we can continue to be a dinosaur and sit back and not realize that the workplace has changed in the last few years, and we need to change with it.”
Carnes said his son works for a large company where productivity improved during the recent wave of remote work from coronavirus social distancing.
“One of the reasons that happened was because there was not as many distractions from inter-office stuff and things like that,” Carnes said.
McGriff said she worries about other distractions.
“I really don’t think that we’re going to get eight hours of work, six hours of work or whatever,” she said. “Because you’re going to be home cooking. You’re going to be home looking at the TV. Somebody comes to the door, you’re going to deal with that problem. And that’s just normal stuff.”
McGriff said her daughter loves working remotely. McGriff said she herself works remotely. McGriff has 13 people who work for her.
“Sometimes you bump into them at Food Lion (during work hours),” she said. “That’s not working remotely. That’s taking advantage of your employer.”
Councilman Allen Blackmon said he hears the concern about hiring.
“We’re going to have to attract people to work for us just like anybody else out there in the private sector, and if it becomes necessary to compete that we have to allow people to work at homes, we may have to go down that road one day,” he said.
Yet he also shares productivity concerns. He, like most of council, favors remote work for emergency use but not as standard practice.
“If someone is allowed to work at home, the department head, supervisor, whatever needs to know that they’re really putting in their time,” Blackmon said.
Carnes doesn’t see a great deal of difference determining employee productivity from home compared to an office.
“If the supervisor can trust that person to do the work that they’re assigned to do when they’re in the office and they can check that work to make sure it’s done, then surely they should be able to trust that person to do the work at home and be able to review that work and make sure that the work is done in the way it’s supposed to be,” Carnes said.
McGriff said higher productivity from remote work during coronavirus may skew what long-term results would be.
“Emergency situations put us in a position,” she said. “And yes, they didn’t have a lot of other things to focus on because you couldn’t do anything. You had to stay home. You had to work remotely if you were going to work.”
She has concerns what will happen when some department heads allow remote work and others don’t. Or about workers compensation if someone is injured at home.
Other council members offered concern about county service. Some jobs require personal interaction.
“When people come here, a lot of times they know somebody in this building and they’ll go find that person and say ‘I need this taken care of. I don’t know what to do.’ And those people can help them,” Honeycutt said.
Chairman Steve Harper agrees.
“This is not the private sector,” he said. “We are a public organization. People come to this building to see somebody.”
Harper said he gets complaints when people come to a county office and find it’s closed. Many departments, he said, only have a handful of employees.
“When you start sending people home remotely, you’re going to have limited capabilities here,” Harper said.
This story was originally published June 25, 2020 at 10:17 AM.
