Work from home rules for agency teams: availability, client calls and review

A client messages a social media agency at four in the afternoon. The post she approved yesterday needs a change before six. The account manager is at home and the designer is also at home. Nobody knows whether the designer is reachable, so the account manager rings three people before he finds one. The post goes out late and the client remembers it.

Working from home is not the problem here. Missing rules are. This post sets out what an agency owner should write down, in what order, and how to keep it light.

Agencies run on client deadlines, so rules should follow the work. List the main kinds of work on your team: creative production, writing, client servicing, media buying and reporting, and internal management. For each, ask what the client expects, when someone must be reachable and what can be done quietly alone.

Some tasks need a shared room: a brand workshop, a shoot or a pitch rehearsal. Others do not. You can mark each kind as home, office or either, instead of one rule for everybody. The work from home and hybrid policy service helps agencies draft such rules in plain language.

Availability is the rule that causes most friction. Staff worry about being always on. Owners worry about silence. A written window solves both.

• Core hours: a block when everyone on a client team can be reached by chat or phone, chosen to suit your clients' working day.
• Response times: how quickly a message from a client or a colleague should get a reply, by channel. Choose the times yourself, based on your clients' needs.
• Focus time: blocks when a designer or writer may mute notifications, shown on a shared calendar.
• Out of window: what counts as urgent, who may be called and who decides.
• Status: a single place where people show they are away, in a meeting or in focus time.

Take the example of a content agency with a weekly client call every Thursday. The writer who drafted the piece should join, since the client's questions are about the draft. If she is at home, her internet and her audio matter as much as the draft. Ask each person to test their setup before the week of a big presentation, not during it.

Clients judge the agency in the first minute of a call. Decide the basics: camera on or off, quiet space, a backup way to join if the connection drops, and who speaks. Agree who leads, who takes notes and who sends the summary after the call. If a team member lacks a quiet space, offer an office desk or a coworking arrangement on call days.

Plan for the day a client turns up unannounced online. Name a cover person for each account who can join at short notice. The overview of marketing, advertising and creative agencies shows how account and delivery roles are usually split.

Review also means feedback on quality. When people work apart, comments written in a file or a short recorded walkthrough often work better than a long call. Agree where feedback goes, who gives it first and how long a draft may wait for it. A draft that sits unreviewed overnight is a common cause of late delivery.

Owners often fear they cannot see effort at home. Effort is the wrong thing to look at. Look at output and handovers: files saved in the shared folder, drafts posted for review, tickets updated, and checks on time estimates. Set review slots, such as a short morning plan and an end of day note, and keep them brief.

Tracking software that records screens or keystrokes damages trust and often tells you little about creative work. If you consider any monitoring, decide with your adviser what is proportionate and tell staff in writing before it starts.

1. 1

   List the roles and their work types

   Mark which tasks need a shared room and which do not.

2. 2

   Agree availability and response rules

   Draft core hours, focus time and what counts as urgent. Test them with two team leads.

3. 3

   Cover equipment, connection and data

   Decide who provides what, how files are stored, and what must never sit on a personal device.

4. 4

   Set the review rhythm

   Choose the daily plan, the weekly team call and the monthly one to one.

5. 5

   Write exceptions and approvals

   Say who approves a change of arrangement and how long it lasts.

6. 6

   Pilot, then revise

   Run it with one team for a cycle, collect complaints and fix the wording before you roll it out.

Purpose and who the policy covers.
Roles and tasks that suit home, office or either.
Core hours, response times and focus time rules.
Client call standards and cover for each account.
Review rhythm: daily plan, weekly meeting, monthly one to one.
Equipment, connection, data handling and confidential client files.
Approval of exceptions, review date of the policy and a contact for questions.

Some situations will test the policy. A team member lives far from the office and wants to work from another city for a few weeks. A designer has a power cut during a deadline. A parent needs to be at home on school days. Decide who may approve such requests, what evidence you need and how long an exception can last. Treat similar cases in the same way, and write the outcome down.

Remote teams hide overload. Use your utilisation numbers to see who carries too much, and the post on utilisation and billable hours shows how. Make sure juniors still get feedback, and read how to judge creative output in the post on reviews for writers, designers and editors.