Merge pull request #103 from clef/update-remote-work-policy

Update remote work policy

Employment Policies/Working Remotely.md

@@ -1,11 +1,91 @@
 # Working Remotely
 
-As a small team, things move very quickly and decisions are made or reversed as new information helps guide us. This makes it really hard to keep up with company progress for anyone who isn’t in the office participating in all of the conversations that are going on. As a result, we put a high premium on physical colocation, even though this limits the geography that we can recruit from.
+## Scope
 
-Every employee is an important contributor to the decisions we make and the work we do as a team, so we expect full-time employees to be at the Clef office between 45 and 50 hours a week, and to be punctual for team meetings. If employees have a consideration which requires them to be out of the office, they should get approval from the founder they report to as far in advance as possible, and at least a full day before the absence.
+This policy is written in the context of our current company setup, which is that every employee works in the same office for the most of the work week. Specifically, this document addresses working from home on a regular basis and/or working remotely for up to one week out of any given month. It does not address:
 
-Employees with chronic or terminal illnesses should talk with the founder they report to about their needs for remote work, flexible time, and other support.
+* A fully remote employee
+* An employee who works from the office 1wk/month or is remote for the majority of their time
+* A team that is distributed
 
-As we grow, we hope to add the capability for employees to work from home or work remotely more consistently, but, at our current size, the in-person interactions in the office are too critical to pass up.
+If and when the current company setup changes, we should address the above situations. For the purpose of this document, we interpret remote work as as a co-located employee of Clef working from home or from somewhere irregular. 
 
-When we reach 10 employees, we will review this policy to see if our capabilities to support remote work have expanded.
+## Approach
+
+We treat working remotely as a privilege that comes with both benefits and costs.
+
+The benefits are primarily ones of flexibility: as individuals, we are able to work when we want to and where we want to. This lets us do our best work and contribute to our team in a custom-crafted framework that lets us lead more fulfilling lives. The costs are primarily ones of communication: being out of the office means more base-line work and incidental complexity for all employees. More is required of both the remote employee and the employees in the office to keep in sync, collaborate, and own the work we do in a visible way. 
+
+When we work remotely, it's our responsibility to accept the benefits graciously, and go above and beyond to not let the costs affect our work or the work of our teammates. A remote workday:
+
+* is not shorter than a day at the office
+* is not less productive
+* is not an excuse for missing commitments (be they meetings or deadlines). 
+
+Even when we aren't in the office, our teammates are still counting on us and it is our responsibility to make sure we are exceeding their expectations.
+
+At the same time, it is the responsibility of workers in the office to reasonably accommodate remote workers. This means being willing to schedule meetings in light of timezone differences and to manage expectations around immediate feedback.  
+
+The guidelines in this document (and the handbook at large) give us tools to make remote work easier, but tooling is only a small part of the solution. Every employee needs to complement these tools with extra work to make remote work effective for the employee working remotely and the rest of our team.
+
+## Policies
+
+The majority of policies that support remote work in Clef apply to everyone at Clef, not just remote workers. The primary documents that outline these policies are:
+
+* [Effective Meetings](https://github.com/clef/handbook/blob/master/Operations%20Documents/Effective%20Meetings.md)
+* [Communication and Transparency](https://github.com/clef/handbook/blob/master/Onboarding%20Documents/Communication%20and%20Transparency.md)
+
+### Extended Remote Work
+
+#### Extended remote work 
+
+***An extended remote work period includes anything longer than 2 days or any period of time where we work from somewhere irregular.***
+
+If you're planning to work remotely for more than two consecutive days, or you're planning to work remotely from a place that's not your home (i.e. from a partner's home in a different city), you'll need to follow these additional guidelines. Even more than standard remote work, working remotely for an extended period of time is a privilege — it **will** require a large amount of extra work from you to make sure that the team is effective with you working remotely.
+
+Get Approval From your manager
+
+You need your manager's approval before you can work remotely for an extended period of time. This check-in should happen at least two weeks in advance, before you make any travel arrangements, and you should come prepared with a plan for how you will handle the logistics and extra communication work involved in extended remote work. In order for an employee to work remotely for an extended period of time, they should have demonstrated in the past that they are effective working remotely and upholding their quality of work. If that's not the case, the manager can and should veto the option.
+
+#### Give the team heads up
+
+You should give everyone on the team as much notice as possible, but at least 7 days. This will ensure everyone can plan their meetings and work accordingly. 
+
+Always take the following steps to let the team know:
+
+* Post in #office with a @channel tag so everyone sees the notification
+* Communicate verbally with the people you work closest with
+* Update your calendar to mark which days you are working remotely
+
+#### Plan & Prepare Beforehand
+
+It's your responsibility to both make sure you are effective and don't let your teammates down — regardless of the location you work from. This means that you should plan & prepare in your free time before you leave to work remotely. 
+
+A non-exhaustive list of things to ensure are in order are:
+
+* You will have a fast, consistent wi-fi connection
+* You will have a distraction-free environment to work in
+* You will have a quiet, private place to take phone calls and meetings
+* You will be able to work a full workday every day you're working remotely
+
+#### Co-working Space Subsidies
+
+Working remotely can add a financial burden on an individual. At the same time, it is also a privilege. While Clef is on its seed extension, Clef will subsidize co-working space costs for up to $10/day. Once Clef reaches profitability or raises its next major fundraising round, we will revisit this subsidy.
+
+### Manager Retrospectives
+
+#### Regular 1:1s
+
+If an employee works remotely, they should make the topic of their remote work a regular part of weekly 1:1s. 
+
+This is a time where employees can voice concerns about constraints that are limiting their ability to work effectively: this could be concerns about structures inside of Clef that limit their flexibility, concerns about how the way other teammates work, or anything else that might affect how they work. It's also a time where managers should give concrete feedback on whether an employee is upholding their responsibilities when they are working remotely.
+
+#### Dedicated Retrospectives
+
+Before an employee works remotely for an extended period of time (defined below),  they should schedule a retrospective with their manager for when they get back.
+
+This meeting is essential for debriefing what did and didn't work in the time they were gone and ensuring lessons learned are rolled back into the way we work at Clef.
+
+#### Loss of the privilege
+
+Having the flexibility to work remotely is a privilege. If an employee's unable to uphold the responsibilities that go along with that privilege, their manager should work with them through their 1:1s and dedicated retrospectives to resolve the issue. If the employe cannot resolve the issue, their manager can revoke the privilege. 

Onboarding Documents/Communication and Transparency.md

@@ -0,0 +1,69 @@
+# Communication and Transparency
+
+The best way for you to make a decision about what’s good for Clef is to have all of the information about what’s going on at Clef. The same is true for everyone else you work with, so it’s important that we’re all up to date about what’s happening, even with the areas of Clef that we’re not actively involved with.
+
+Transparency may seem like a passive process, like "don’t hide anything," but it’s actually a big challenge to keep everyone up to date and on the same page, especially on projects they’re not working on on a daily basis, even for a company the size of Clef. These are some of the policies we use to make information more accessible, but our work is ongoing.
+
+## Communication
+
+### Friday #Updates
+
+Every Friday, everyone on the team posts an update in the #updates channel in Slack that includes:
+
+* What they accomplished this week
+* What they hope to accomplish next week
+
+This makes it easy to keep in the loop on projects and also keeps everyone at Clef accountable to everyone else to do their part.
+
+### Pro-active checkins
+
+When we're all in the office, it's easy to see when a teammate is around or available. When an individual is out of the office, this visibility immediately drops to 0.  When we're working remotely, it's our responsibility to let our teammates know when we're around and available. 
+
+**Doing this is as easy as posting a message in Slack to say when you drop in or leave.**
+
+It's also a good idea to be proactive about letting teammates know what you're working on and how it's going. 18F has a great paragraph on this:
+
+*Proactively communicate. As Kate Garklavs, a content designer who lives in Portland, puts it: “Because I'm remote, I've taken to sending short, proactive progress updates to my teams ("Hey, all — wanted to let you know that I finished writing XYZ and sent it to so-and-so for approval — should hear back by Friday."), even when daily standups aren't required. By sending these short updates throughout the day, I hope to keep folks in the loop with regards to what I've been up to.”*
+
+With increased individual flexibility, since we're all working at the same time less, it's important to go above and beyond in letting people know when we are around.
+
+### Calendar Updates
+
+If you're working remotely or from home, you should put a calendar event indicating where you are working from for all the time you are out of the office.
+
+### Slack
+
+#### Slack Names
+
+Slack names are an easy way to communicate where you are located and when you are away from your desk. If you are working from home, taking PTO, or sick, you should update your Slack last name to reflect name to reflect this.
+
+#### Slack Status
+
+There are 4 states in which a teammate can be in on Slack:
+
+1. *Active (green)*. Similar to when someone is sitting at their desk in the office, they are considered available and can be expected to respond in the range of a few minutes to an hour.
+2. *Do not disturb (green)*. This teammate is at their computer, but focusing. Expect a response when they are done with whatever they are focusing on, but don't wait for them.
+3. *Do not disturb (gray). *This teammate is away from their computer and off work. Expect a response the next work day.
+4. *Away*. This teammate is off work or temporarily away. Check the #office channel — when a user goes away, whether it's during their work day or when the day is ending, they should post a message letting the team know they are stepping out. If they posted a message in #office saying they were stepping away but coming back, expect a response when they get back. If they posted a message saying they were done for the day, you should expect a response the next work day. 
+
+Obviously, edge cases exist, but it's important that on both ends of our communication (both asking and responding) we uphold these expectations so that everyone on our team can plan their work effectively.
+
+## Transparency
+
+### Public Slack Channels
+
+Almost all Slack conversation should happen in public Slack channels where the rest of the team can see it. You may not subscribe to or pay attention to every channel, but conversations that happen in public channels are searchable and readable by the whole team, so when someone wants to know how we decided on some course of action, Slack gives them a place to look back at the conversation.
+
+Not every ping or question needs to happen publicly, but when in question, you should err on the side of posting publicly. Currently about 60% of our conversations happen in public channels, which is a number we hope will keep growing.
+
+### Public Calendars
+
+Work calendars should be shared to make scheduling meetings really easy and also to let the rest of the team see where we’re spending our time. Personal calendars often have sensitive information, and should be kept separate. Work calendars are documentation of how we’re budgeting our hours and are useful for the rest of the team.
+
+### Open Stats
+
+When we measure something, it should be visible to everyone on the team. Our stats will be great sometimes and disappointing others, but when we hide or silo the hard stats, fewer people can help fix them. We’ll try to keep the most critical stats posted in the office, but any data that we’re collecting should be open to everyone.
+
+### We Succeed Together When We Trust Each Other
+
+Communication and negotiation among groups of people is difficult, but the more honest we can be with each other, the easier it will be for us to trust one another and work together as a team. Openness and honesty will be critical to our success, which is why this is one of our core values, and why it’s a mantra we repeat in many conversations.

Operations Documents/Effective Meetings.md

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+# Effective meetings and group work
+
+To increase flexibility in how and where employees at Clef work, we agree on a shared set of constraints for group work and meetings. 
+
+## Meeting Ettiquette
+
+### Meetings start on time
+
+If you're leading a meeting, it's your responsibility to start the meeting on time. If you're attending a meeting, you are responsible for showing up on time.
+
+### Meetings happen in regular hours
+
+All team members should make themselves available for face-to-face meetings between 10:30am-1:00p Pacific Time, as long as they are scheduled at least 24 hours in advance. If a meeting needs to happen outside of these hours, the meeting organizer should scheduled it a week in advance. 
+
+### Meetings should have a video option
+
+If you're hosting a meeting with a remote worker invited, it's your responsibility to provide a video link before the meeting starts for them to join. 
+
+If you're attending a meeting remotely, you should join the video call before a meeting starts. It's your responsibility to ensure this is possible — this means being in a quiet place with a fast internet connection before the meeting starts. Calling into a meeting via phone or from a public place is unacceptable.
+
+For some meetings, voice calls will be sufficient - this decision is up to the meeting organizer when they create the meeting.
+
+### Prerequisites for successful meetings
+
+The following things are pre-requisites for successful group work:
+
+* A fast, reliable internet connection. Remote employees should make all efforts to mitigate video call lag.
+* A quiet place to take meetings
+
+If you're planning to work with another person on the team (i.e. for a meeting during meeting hours or to pair program), you should make sure these are available.