I would also recommend ensuring that some form of IM is available and working. Staff should be encouraged to use it to chat even if in the same geographical location. That way it becomes familiar and a standard form of communication. It can end up as an alternative to 'the water cooler' so helps open up the informal chats that teleworkers often miss.
At one place I worked we'd sometimes have 'open mic' days where everyone participated via headset (even those in the same physical location). Typically we did that when the entire team was brainstorming or in the early phase of a project when ideas were being batted around. That doesn't work so well when people have specific tasks to work on because it becomes an interruption.
I agree about the risk of working extra hours but it's nice to be able to extend the overall hours while taking chunks out for domestic duties. That's usually how I did it - start at 7am, finish at 6pm but bursts of work interspersed with breaks to do house work or mow the lawn. When in the office I worked 8am to 4:30pm.
My current arrangement is 'work from home if you need to' and that's good enough for me. The only downside there is that you have to remember to test your home set up a couple of days before you actually need it because the infrequent use can mean you don't realise that something is broken :-/
Biting the hand that feeds IT
