Chorus also set up a policy on work hours. Employees have to be at their desks in their home offices during normal business hours. They can't opt to work odd hours. All employees have to use instant messaging (IM) applications, and they have to put their phone numbers and their IM handle in the global address list on company's Microsoft Exchange Server. (Read about the flexible work policies at healthcare provider CareGroup and Blue Cross Blue Shield of Massachusetts.)

In addition to the general work policies at Chorus, Marvin Luz, vice president of client services, says his group had specific, common-sense rules it had to follow. For example, they can't have TVs or stereos on in the background. Nor can they eat while on the phone with customers. These rules are meant to send the message that even though employees work from the casual confines of their homes, they must maintain a certain level of professional decorum while on the clock.

Every employee had to agree to and sign off on all of these policies. Existing policies, such as those pertaining to computer and internet usage, remained in place.

How to Provide Remote Tech Support

One question that lingered in Chorus employees' minds through this transition was how the company was going to provide tech support. What if a virus infected someone's computer or an application crashed? After all, even though the company maintains a data center in New Jersey, its IT staff also works from home and visits it on an as-needed basis. It's not like a help desk staffer can walk over to someone's desk to troubleshoot and fix problems.

The processes the IT group put in place to resolve technical support issues remotely aren't much different from the measures they took when an employee was working at a client's office and needed help from an IT staffer in New Jersey or Texas.

For example, if an employee is having a software problem—if they get an error message or they can't connect to a particular drive—Aron Schneider, who works in Boyd's IT department, says IT simply takes control of their computer using remote desktop software like iTivity or by setting up a WebEx meeting. Boyd says Chorus uses WebEx extensively to shadow clients and remote workers when troubleshooting and as a teaching and collaboration tool. "If there is something we are trying to resolve or accomplish (loading Citrix at a client site, for example), the team will get on the WebEx and we will talk through the activity. This is a good way of keeping contact and providing training and knowledge transfer," he says.

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