I’m looking for a working abroad policy for remote workers which incorporates any timeframes, time zone considerations, or any considerations for contigency plans for internet access/internet stability etc.
My group/organisation focuses on digital organizing. We are a worker led nonprofit organization where each staff person helps to shape our internal policies (the short version of our structure). We have about 8 people on our staff, and we want to have a policy that is flexible, meaning we want to allow people to work abroad, but not for an indefinite amount of time.
At my last org, we separated two components of this question: work schedule and work permanent address.
- For work schedule, we had general norms and expectations laid out in job descriptions (naming that the org is fully remote but with core hours of availability, plus any travel expectations) and a flexible work policy in the handbook, and letting specific teams work out schedule changes more specifically.
- For work permanent address, we had a PEO that required a US-based perm address and bank account as a condition of employment, but had no minimum number of days that needed to be spent at that permanent address in a given year.
Together, this helped us focus on making sure work was working without getting into where people were or for how long. We also mitigated the expense of people’s travel by issuing reimbursement maxes that were an average of three good sample tickets from their permanent address to a location they were being asked to travel to work (eg, no super long layovers, reasonable arrival/departure times, etc). Then we’d say, for X trip you can be reimbursed up to $Y, which again let them manage the booking however they wanted (from wherever they happen to be, tacking on vacation if they wanted, etc) while managing equity, predictability, and sustainability on our end.