Maintaining Conduct Standards In A Remote Setting - How Do I Handle It?

“Like many companies we are encountering new challenges with working from home. Recently, one of our employees has been smoking on-camera during work video calls. He has been told to stop but says that he can smoke if he wants to within his own home. We don’t want this behaviour to escalate – how do we handle it?”

The pandemic has undoubtedly thrown up new challenges for employers in maintaining their conduct standards and other policies, with some employees becoming too used to home comforts.

Firstly, for obvious reasons your pre-pandemic policy on smoking in the workplace is unlikely to apply, as it deals with smoking in an office environment and not the home. Secondly, the employee is