The COVID-19 pandemic has put a spotlight on human resources professionals who have had to rapidly transition employees to working from home (WFH) while also protecting those still working in company facilities. These new conditions will likely continue even as businesses experiment with approaches to reopening. Employees and employers alike may feel the return to offices is too risky or may face external challenges such as finding suitable childcare. Many companies will let employees who’ve proven they can effectively work from home continue to do so.

COVID-19 can render an entire workplace hazardous. This is reason enough for implementing a WFH policy when possible. But managing remote work cannot be left to supervisors’ understanding of productivity software. The decisions that company executives make now can have long-term consequences, build new practices and norms, change employee relationships with supervisors, impact workers’ sense of privacy and safety, and establish—for better or worse—the types of work that will be valued by the organization.