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I'm relatively new to my company, but it seems as though certain divisions within the company have a very liberal telecommuting policy. In fact, several people seem to work 2-3 days a week from home. My understanding is the company is very open to telecommuting, but oddly enough, not many people in my division seem to work from home, even for a day or two per week. When they do, they tend to send out the "i'm working from home" email with an excuse tied to it -- have a doctors appointment, kid's sick, car's in the shop. I'm sure most of them are working from home for these reasons, but I wonder if it's acceptable to just work from home because you want to? My question is, does your company have a telecommuting policy? How many days do you work from home per week? Do you feel the need to only work from home when there's a valid excuse?
My main reason for asking is because I have a fairly long commute (about an hour) and it's been wearing me down. Working 1-2 days a week from home would do wonders for my stamina.
My company used to have a fairly liberal policy on telecommuting but cracked down recently on people who were primarily telecommuters. Now it all depends on the job and my boss. My current job doesn't lend itself well to telecommuting but my boss is OK with it. Sadly when I had a job I could do almost exclusively from home, my boss at the time frowned on it. I too had a nasty commute and found I could be much more productive at home, but he was old school and didn't believe in it. So really it all boils down to the culture, how your boss feels about it and whether you can do your job remotely or not.
First of all, you need to prove you can be productive and get your job done at home. Talk to your boss and see how he/she feels about it. Start out slow and if they see you are still contributing while not being there in person, you could expand it to more days.
In my experience there are two key differentiators for Telecommuting.
1. Can every aspect of your position be accomplished as well from home as it can be in the office?
2. Does the person telecommuting have the tools and, more importantly, the discipline to to accomplish as much or more from home as in the office?
I telecommuted for 12 years in prior positions. In the job I'm currently in, I was told no telecommuting when I was hired. They were aware that I had a history of telecommuting and I had/have a lengthy commute in this position. After a year, they told me I could telecommute one day a week. After my second, I was offered two. Now, it's whenever I feel the need because, like you, the commute time can wear you down and you need that extra hour sleep or can use a day of quiet, without office interruptions or visitors, to prepare, organize and plan.
The key is to be able to prove yourself as productive from afar as you can be in the office and, better yet, more so. I would say that 2 out of 10 people that I've worked with over the years could honestly say they got as much done telecommuting as being in the office. That's why it's not been adopted on a wider scale outside of sales.
In my experience there are two key differentiators for Telecommuting.
1. Can every aspect of your position be accomplished as well from home as it can be in the office?
2. Does the person telecommuting have the tools and, more importantly, the discipline to to accomplish as much or more from home as in the office?
I telecommuted for 12 years in prior positions. In the job I'm currently in, I was told no telecommuting when I was hired. They were aware that I had a history of telecommuting and I had/have a lengthy commute in this position. After a year, they told me I could telecommute one day a week. After my second, I was offered two. Now, it's whenever I feel the need because, like you, the commute time can wear you down and you need that extra hour sleep or can use a day of quiet, without office interruptions or visitors, to prepare, organize and plan.
The key is to be able to prove yourself as productive from afar as you can be in the office and, better yet, more so. I would say that 2 out of 10 people that I've worked with over the years could honestly say they got as much done telecommuting as being in the office. That's why it's not been adopted on a wider scale outside of sales.
Excellent post. Even if you have proven yourself in past jobs, you MUST prove yourself in your current job before approaching the subject.
I telecommuted for a couple years prior to this job. Now that I'm making the commute I have a new-found respect for telecommuting. With a 1 hour commute each way, I'm spending 10 hours per week just getting to work and home. That's more than a full day of work per week. Just doesn't seem like the most productive approach to work or life.
nj01, you can use that to your advantage as long as you truly can be productive working from home. My proposal was, I leave at 6:40AM and am at work around 7:30AM. I leave at 4:30PM and that's it, no work from home. If I telecommute, I'm online between 7-7:30AM and I stay on until 5:30-6PM. Same hours taking my commute into account, with a more online, PRODUCTIVE, time. 9-1/2 hours of work time, vs 8 to 8-1/2 hours. Win-win. Gotta get the work done, but not tied to the desk.
I work at a university and they have a telecommuting policy - quite open basic policy, but spelled out in each telecommute agreement - days, times, etc, equipment and data security/access, work comp, etc. In our dept, some positions are win-win from home, at least part of the time - ie, statistician, survey workers (phone surveys). All telecommute agreements (signed form) however, are also run it by the IT manager for security, data, equipment, purposes. I work in HR, so not so workable from home, however I see all the agreements and there are quite a lot of positions that seem win-win, at least part of the time, from home. We've even had several employees relocate (even out of state) yet, continue working from home for a few months while we recruit for replacements.
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