Although there has been a lot of media focus on the “Return to the Office (RTO)”, remote and hybrid working is still very much part of current ways of working. UK government data suggests that 28% of employees were hybrid in Q1 2025, with a further 14.3% fully working from home. The proportion of hybrid and research employees in the US is similar; research from late 2024 suggests that 28% of employees are hybrid , and 11% fully remote.
Policy management is critical for every organisation, especially those in regulated industries. Employees need to have successful access to policies, procedures and guidelines to minimise risks, support operations, underpin compliance, complete tasks, support decision-making, improve customer service and more. Policies must also be up-to-date and properly managed.
It’s equally critical to have a robust approach to policy management when you have a remote or hybrid workforce. Remote and hybrid employees need easy access to policies just like everybody else, but there will also be some policies which are specifically targeted to them.
In this post we’re going to explore why policy management for remote and hybrid work teams is important, some of the associated challenges, and how a robust policy management solution like Xoralia helps.
Access to information
When people worked in offices and they needed to ask a procedural question or where to get hold of an essential policy, they could ask the person sitting next to them or visit the go-to colleague around the corner who has been here since the year dot and has the answer to everything.
When working remotely either fully or hybrid, there Is no friendly go-to-person nearby to ask. For many working remotely, the only living thing they might see all day is the cat!
People working from home or out of the office must have clear and easy online access to the information and documents they need to get things done and perform their role on a self-serve basis. This includes easy access to critical policies, procedures and related guidelines which are essential to day-to-day work.
A level playing field
Organisations with active remote and hybrid working are usually based on a principle that employees should be able to carry out their role successfully from wherever they happen to be - either in the office, at home or from another location entirely. If employees are significantly disadvantaged out of the office, then it makes it harder to successfully implement remote work and productivity will suffer.
Access to information from anywhere - including policies, procedures and guidelines - is therefore essential in establishing a level playing field relating to hybrid and remote work. This principle can also apply to frontline workers who also usually work away from desks and on the go.
Policies relating to homeworking and hybrid work
There will often be policies which are specifically targeted to or are particularly relevant to remote and hybrid employees. Some of these will be policies which relate to hybrid working patterns while others might relate to the specifics of homeworking - for example ergonomics or the potential for cybersecurity threats.
Remote onboarding
When fully remote employees join a business, they will invariably go through an onboarding process which will also principally be remote. As part of this a remote employee is very likely to need to read a set of company policies which must be easy to access. HR teams may also need to keep track of whether a new hire has actually read a policy and may even need to report on it.
Regulatory compliance and meeting ISO standards
Regulated sectors and organisations with standards such as ISO 27001 will need to demonstrate that they have a robust policy management approach in place, and likely an employee attestation (mandatory reads) process as part of that. Regulators and certification bodies need to know that approaches apply to hybrid and remote workers to the same extent as they do for those fully based in the office.
There are some challenges associated with managing policies for remote and hybrid teams.
#1 - Access from anywhere
The ability to arrange access from anywhere to policies is a must for remote and hybrid workers, but this can be challenging from both a technical and user experience viewpoint. Ticking all the boxes on security can also be hard, particularly in highly risk-averse organisations. Some policies need to be highly secure, and remote access can make security and compliance teams feel distinctively uneasy.
Access to policies for remote and hybrid workers needs to be easy and intuitive, as it can be harder to provide helpdesk support for those outside the office. The level of access also needs to be the same inside and outside the office, to ensure that there is that level playing field.
#2 - Targeted policies to only those who need it
There will be some policies that are simply not relevant to fully remote teams, in the same way that there will be some non-relevant for fully office-based employees. Some policies - including the HR handbook - might need two versions, but its imperative to deliver the right version to the right group.
#3 - Driving awareness of policy changes
Policies need to change all the time for many reasons including a fast-evolving regulatory landscape. Employees will need to keep up with some policy changes. Communicating dry policy updates to an office-based workforce is hard enough, but its arguably harder with a remote workforce who are less connected to the day-to-day.
#4 - Remote onboarding
Remote onboarding is difficult to do well, and it is not always ideal for both employee and employer. Effective access to policies and establishing they have been read is actually probably one of the more straightforward aspects of remote onboarding - mainly because there are fit-for-purpose solutions that can do all the heavy lifting - but without policy management software it is very challenging.
#5 - Chasing remote and hybrid policy owners
Policy owners and approvers also work remotely. Digital workplace, compliance and quality teams sometimes need to chase and remind policy owners and approvers that they need to update or approve a policy, otherwise it is about to go out of date.
When the policy owners work remotely, they can be even harder to get hold of, especially when you’re relying on email threads that don’t get answered or just fizzle out. We know herding cats is a cliché, but working with hybrid and remote policy owners and approvers is probably marginally more difficult than herding cats!
A robust policy management solution like Xoralia can help fix most of the challenges in managing policies for remote and hybrid employees. Let’s explore how.
Challenge #1 - Access from anywhere
Fix: Microsoft 365 integration, intuitive interfaces and the Teams app
A solution like Xoralia establishes a clear central policy library that can usually be accessed by all employees wherever they happen to be working - either in the office, at home, or at another site. One of the reasons that Xoralia can deliver easy access from anywhere is that it integrates seamlessly with Microsoft 365 and is also based on SharePoint:
With Xoralia, all data remains within your Microsoft 365 tenant, overcoming associated challenges around security and access
Users accessing policies remotely will access them in the same way as accessing SharePoint Online or existing Microsoft 365 tools, which is already likely to be in place to support other remote or hybrid work.
Using Xoralia is super-easy with familiar Microsoft interfaces, and a solution that is very intuitive, designed around the needs of the user, not just the compliance team. Policies are easy to find through targeted overviews, custom metadata for filtering, and by leveraging the power of Microsoft Search. Remote workers very rarely need support to access or use Xoralia.
Xoralia also comes with a unique set of SharePoint web parts as well as Teams and Viva integration which means users can access policies whatever system they happen to be working in. Many organisations centre office and remote work through Microsoft Teams, so the Xoralia Teams app brings access to policies right into the daily flow of work.
Challenge #2 - Targeted policies to only those who need it
Fix: Leverage existing targeting plus automated notifications
Xoralia can target policies based on Microsoft Entra ID groups so you can ensure policies that need to be seen by remote or hybrid employees reach the right people. All this means you can target policies based on location (relevant for hybrid employees), role, level of hierarchy, team, division, country and so on.
Xoralia is also personalised so that individuals can see details of mandatory policies to read, notices of updates for particular polices, employee attestation tasks and more, all within the solution. Notifications can also be received by email.
Xoralia ensures policies are relevant and targeted to every individual. No more remote workers having to access policies that relate to working at HQ, for example.
Challenge #3 - Driving awareness of policy changes
Fix: Employee attestation and targeted notifications
When there is a policy change that employees need to know, you can make it mandatory to read the new policy and target those employees who need to know the change.
Employee attestation is a feature where employees must digitally acknowledge that they have read and understood a policy or policy change, underpinning mandatory reads but also awareness of any policy revisions. Granular reporting and automated notifications also drive very high rates of acknowledgement, even among disconnected remote and hybrid employees, in turn supporting your compliance efforts.
Xoralia even has the ability to create bespoke questions and quizzes so you can require employees to answer questions about a particular policy update, again increasing awareness.
Challenge #4 - Remote onboarding
Fix: Employee attestation, effortless remote access
Xoralia ensures that policies and procedures - such as the employee handbook - can be fully integrated with your remote onboarding process. New hires can easily access all the policies that they need to read as part of their onboarding experience.
Employee attestation also supports the onboarding process so line managers, HR teams and new users themselves can keep track of whether particular policies have been read and agreed to.
Challenge #5 - Chasing remote and hybrid policy owners
Fix: Bespoke policy creation and approval workflow
Xoralia comes packed features that support policy owners and approvers. For example, it automates the policy authoring and review process so that admin teams no longer have to waste valuable time chasing remote policy owners with endless emails that get ignored.
You can design and set up custom workflows within Xoralia that define who is involved, the review and approval steps in the process (which can be complex and multi-step) and even the final publishing step. This provides clarity and transparency for everyone involved and drives accountability. Admins can see where a new policy or policy review is in the process while authors and approvers get notifications of what they need to do and when. Overall, the process is much smoother, clearer and more efficient.
Access to policies and procedures is essential for remote and hybrid staff, but there can be challenges. Xoralia overcomes most of these by establishing an easy-to-use, personalised central policy library that sits deep within your Microsoft 365 environment, supporting the existing set-up that supports remote work.
If you’d like to see Xoralia in action, why not book a free demo?
