Are contractual changes needed?

Someone starting to homework will not necessarily need to have any formal changes made to their written contract. Generally only designated homeworkers will have their contract changed to reflect the homeworking arrangement. At BT, for example, a designated homeworker is anyone who works from home for on average 40% of their contracted hours, but elsewhere it may be 50% of the time or higher. If you are a designated homeworker your contractual location is your home address. Designated homeworkers are issued with specific homeworker contracts, whereas employers tend not to change the contracts of employment of occasional homeworkers.

Professionals’ union Prospect advises that designated homeworkers should try and get a contractual variation specifying their position as a homeworker as this is likely to give additional protections. It is also likely that the nature of a homeworking arrangement will need to be spelled out, particularly where large parts of an employee’s working time are spent away from the home office, such as in visits to customer/client premises.

Organisations may not regard occasional homeworkers as being entitled to the same benefits as contractual homeworkers. For example, only contractual homeworkers may be eligible for a heating and lighting allowance, or for their IT equipment to be supplied by the employer.