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How Do I Sell Telecommuting to My Employer?
"I could look for a new job closer to where I want to move but I do like the work that I am doing and I like the direction that the company is going. My work mainly consists of communicating using email and the phone and using a computer for word processing, spreadsheets, etc. My job does require a good amount of interaction with my peers for meetings, troubleshooting and just answering questions so I am willing to spend a day or two each week in the office. Every other part of my job can be done just as effectively at home."
"Has anyone had a similar experience? What are some good arguments for my employer about why I should be allowed to telecommute? The biggest argument for me is my happiness but of course that is usually not the company's #1 concern.
This trend is becomming increasingly true of people who work in even a moderately technological work-places. Are these the signs that the traditional workplace of the 20th century is finally becomming obsolete? If so, how will employees and employers be affected by this change?
People don't do work when they're "working" at home, or they're doing considerably less work. Plain and simple. If you really want to live in a new area, put the time in and find a better job nearby. It's far from an "endless" job search.
Sure it sounds good on paper, but ask yourself, would you REALLY do any work if you were sitting at home all day. Be honest now. I, sure wouldn't. I'd be playing video games all day. You can spout off all you want about how telecommuting saves time, gas, and cuts pollution, but when it comes down to it, if you don't have a boss breathing down your neck, you're simply not going to be as productive. Plus, there are too many distractions at home. I'd be to tempted to post to Slashdot, or play video games when I'm supposed to be working. Telecommuting, like unions, promotes laziness among workers.
"Technically, a cat locked in a box may be alive or dead." -Kurt Cobain
is a function of how valuable you are as an employee. try threatening to quit if they won't let you. if you still have job tomorrow, you qualify.
Find points that help sell him on the concept. What's in it for him? How does he benefit.
What cost savings are there?
Start with a pilot project, one day a week -- then work you butt off during that time, show the productivity..
"...In your answer, ignore facts. Just go with what feels true..."
"I could look for a new job closer to where I want to move but I do like the work that I am doing and I like the direction that the company is going."
I think that pretty much sums up what you should be saying to your boss.
You can throw in some rhetoric about how it's cheaper for the company in the long run since you won't be taking up space, but I think sharing your relocation plans with your boss is the best way to go about it.
Simple, honest. Why make it complex?
-carl
. We've got computers, we're tapping phone lines, you know that ain't allowed - Talking Heads, "Life During Wartime"
Buy a Valentine 1 radar detector and haul ass to work. Cut that 2 hour commute to a 15 minute commute :)
Does the name Pavlov ring a bell?
I recommend a simple 3-step process:
1. Eat only beans for lunch. Repeat for at least one month.
2. During the month, try to be in close quarters (elevators, small meeting rooms, etc) with your boss as much as possible.
3. At the end of the month, bring up telecommuting.
If this fails, and if your digestive system is anything like mine, switch to an Indian food-only diet.
Every year during my review, I just pray the words "slashdot.org" aren't mentioned.
For 10 years, I lived within a mile of my workplace and was able to walk to work. Just recently, I moved an hour away, and was facing a one-hour commute each way.
Instead, I started taking the train to work. Now instead of sitting stalled in traffic, hating it, I walk to the train, get on, leisurely read the paper, and play chess on my pilot if I finish the paper early.
I thought I'd hate it, but it turns out I love it, and my commute has really improved my chess game!
How about those of us who telnet from the office? We telecommute from the office!
If your boss (the guy you answer to 90% of the time) isn't comfortable with telecommuting, you'll never get the idea to fly.
A previous boss of mine wasn't super-comfortable with technology period -- he would never go for telecommuting. Now I'm my own boss -- and I'm all for telecommuting! As far as I'm concerned, you don't even have to be here for meetings, as long as you can use IRC.
If your immediate boss is comfortable with the idea (or can be made comfortable), offer a trial period of (say) 30-60 days. Do this before you buy a house 2-hours away. At the end of the trial period, if your boss is on-board with the idea, he can champion the idea to the higher-ups (if neccessary).
You may have to dangle a carrot -- a cut in pay or perks. This is your last card to play -- the company will save money with you not being there automatically (less electricity, less water, not buying your drinks/coffee/etc.) -- you sacrificing more is asking quite a bit. But, if you really want to telecommute, it is something that you can put on the table.
But definitely try it before you commit -- you may find that it sucks terribly to make your home an extension of your work. Some people do. They find it oppressive, like they can never truly leave work. Try it, and if you and your boss likes it, it should be smooth sailing.
Potato chips are a by-yourself food.
A recent Washington Post article talks about government's efforts and issues with telecomuting.
I like the idea of telecommuting, and as a sysadmin do a fair amount of work from home; however, there are security concerns with extending trust out to Joe Average's machine at home that need to be dealt with before rolling out telecommuting for everyone.
Given that I no longer talk with the boss and warm the chair, I am feeling more pressure to produce now that I am located a thousand or more miles away. Think about it; one can often give the impression of doing work simply by being an active presence in the office. With telecommuting, the only way to show productivity is with e-mails, phone calls and actual files sent back and forth. I am anticipating that I will be called on to do more work in order to maintain my position.
Setting up the home network, however, has been a pain in the @ss! We need to rewire the coax, so I can have an office in the non-flood-prone area of the house, plus I am still in need of a router. I miss the LAN, especially the two fast laser printers, my file shares and three machines of my own in different locations.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
Get you're physician to tell him you've developed explosive bowel syndrome. This will actually solve a lot of social problems too.
Some businesses, it seems, allow extremely highly productive employees telecommute. My employer offered to let me telecommute from a location 550 miles away indefinitely!
So, I guess if you're priceless to them they'll let you. If you're a slacker, like most people are, you're lucky you have a job, so don't push it.
I don't know how it works in the US but I assume that when you've got to drive for two hours to get to work they've got to pay for it. I would put the focus on what they would save. All companies will bend over for money - don't think that I don't think that they are concerned about other things, they are, but ...
They'll save the - probably not too large - money it costs to have you commuting. They'll also get space freed in their office making room for another person doing something profitable. You've got chairs, desks, trash cans etc. at home they'll only need to get you a computer and pay parts of your phone bills, maybe an extra line.
They'll save additional money. When you're a little ill (say you've caught a heavy cold,) you don't show up for work, but if you were working at home you would get - at least some - work done since you're working on a computer, at your house.
Third you'll save the business money by being in friendly environments wich will increase work efficensy and make you able to make your work-schedule more efficient.
I'm sure I haven't thaught of the most obvious, please help making this list longer.
Look a monkey!
and it worked out great. I suspect you are talking about the Bay Area, which is the worst for housing and traffic, but you can have a nice house in Sacramento 2 hours away. I only lived in Fremont, but working in Milpitas took over 2 hours of my day just to commute, every day, along that POS called I880.
Now, I did IC layout using Avanti (very graphically and bandwidth intensive), responded to mail, browsed technical documentation (FTPd the PDF then viewed locally), and teleconferenced into meetings whenever possible. I did go into the office most days, but I could go at 10:30am when the ride was only 20-25 minutes - no problem. Going back was still a problem because of the 237-880 interchange, but if I was finished with meetings I could go. My setup was a P2-400 running Win98 with remote sessions into my Unix box at work via VPN with Exceed over AT&T @Home cable modem. Worked great, and with a text pager with e-mail access I could even run jobs unattended and watch Judge Ju--er, bone up on my technical documentation... The only problem was when the connection died, but I usually ran Avanti with nohup and tailed the log file if I got pinched, or ran cron jobs or Perl scripts on other machines. All of the brains was on our campus servers, and all of the view came to me semi-relaxed in my highback chair at home.
For someone who codes software, if you can run and compile the binaries locally or remotely, I think it would be great. It's very feasible if you have a fast net connection and low latency (drawing metal polygons with your mouse with lots of delay can get to be a pain in the ass). I would very much recommend it, provided you can get past the security risks (but a VPN should do it).
One of the biggest holdbacks here, is that for some strange reason, we have to have in-house space for all our teleworkers. Now we're a fairly small office, only about 500 users, with about 15 teleworkers (which I was until recently, in charge of, from a systems standpoint). In this case, there's no real savings, in fact its more expensive. Sometimes I just don't understand Government thinking.
It's very difficult for an employeer to keep a team enviorment going if the team isn't showing up and working together. There are many many undisciplined people spoiling the benefits of telecommuting for others by only working at half speed or slower than they would in the office. I know there are always exceptions but that is not the norm.
I work at a large company (50K+ employees) where telecommuting is pretty common. Their policy on this is pretty much their policy on everything lately: does it help our bottom line?
On the books, 1 cube costs the department you work for US$1500/month. This includes maintainance, phone, network, etc etc. It may include other things like a per-head share of security personnel and cafeteria subsidies, but I'm not sure.
On the other hand, you can get a posh home office set up for about $1000 initial cost (desk, chair, files, phone installs, bandwidth installs (DSL, cable, whatever), etc) and $200-$300/month for recurring expenses (phone, long distance, ISP). Obviously, the bean-counters are going to jump at the latter amount.
Of course, we're kind of strange in that bosses and employees aren't always in the same geographical location anyway (my boss is in another country...I've met him in person once), so the supervision question isn't as important.
Moving 2 hours away was your mistake - time for a new house or a new job. You can't have everything, noting that you could have an even bigger house 4 hours away...
Point your employer to this Berkeley study, showing increased productivity from telecommuters.
go get it
It works for us, but then again, we're ISP :)
Old age and treachery almost always overcome youth and skill.
The current difficulties with air travel are already sparking interest in more telecommuting options.
I had just set a guy up to commute (not tele-) from Pennsylvania to California, starting next week. It remains to be seen how viable that will be. And we've had several training classes cancelled or shrunk as customers can't make it out here.
In both those cases, while having their bodies in our office is the ideal scenario, we could function just fine moving data, voice, and images back and forth as needed. From talking with other folks, I'm getting the impression that remote working is high on their priority lists, too.
So perhaps you'll have to combine the painful commute with some work-at-home. But in general, there's impulse out there that should result in better infrastructure (both technological and in corporate thinking and procedures) for doing exactly what you want to do.
Good luck to you.
It's hard to construct an argument when we don't know who this guy is or what his job entails. It's much easier to talk to your boss about telecommuting when you've established that you are dependable and hard-working, because there's less 'grey-area' that they have to worry about.
It also depends largely on how 'social' your job is. Do you have to attend meetings on a daily basis? Are you working as a member of a team or largely on your own?
I've been telecommuting for about two and a half years, and I have to tell you that it's a mixed bag. On the one hand, it provides a more relaxed and flexible work environment because I don't have to commute and don't have to worry so much about appearances and distractions - I just have to focus on results. On the other hand, you really do miss the clear separation of home and work time (it's harder to feel 'off'), and your employer can take advantage of that as well.
Lastly, I'm lucky because I'm single, but I can tell you from other folks I know that you are kidding yourself if you think you are going to get a lot of work done if you have small kids around. Telecommuting does not equal free daycare.
I live 62 miles from my job. I drive in and back each day. I have a job and I'm grateful for that. Maybe when the economy returns to the way it was a year or two ago, I'll worry about asking if I can Telecommute. For now, I'll be happy to drive in and back each day, as long as I collect my paycheck each week :-)
No matter where you go... there you are.
It's clear that workers would prefer to telecommute, so why aren't businesses allowing them to do so?
It's also clear workers would prefer to spend all day getting lapdances and drinking beer.
Whethere it's a reasonable fear or not, the reason employees hesitate on telecommuting is that they're simply worried about productivity.
For example, an employer might think a task requires a lot of work and time, when in fact, being a skilled, hard-worker, you can do it in a third the time. If you were in the office, they could probably pick up on this and adjust your duties to fill your time. If you're at home, they don't have a direct idea of how your time is being spent.
+ Donald Gunth
+ Email: dgunth@quicktek.net
"Caffeine is the greatest lubricant ever created." -ESR
Of course asking your boss is the best way of approaching this, but they need obvious insentive to overcome the percieved problems. Most of us are more productive, less stressed, and probably willing to work more hours if telecommuting, but many employers don't look at it that way.
Here is the way to help push a large set of employers to start trying it. Convince the localities to start providing tax breaks. Figure out the annual cost of commuting a full work week is for the community (road building, maintanence, increased police, fire and rescue, etc.) Then convince them to provide half of the savings back to each business that can prove the telecommuting.
For example, say it costs my state $500 a year to provide commuting services for me (this number was picked at random). If my employer can prove that they let me work from home three days a week, they should get a $150 ($100/day, and half goes to company) tax break.
You will probably get lonely. I tc'd for a year. Flew to the office once a month. It wasn't enough.
Don't get isolated. Ask a lot of questions, get involved in the hot projects. Keep busy. Make sure others don't forget you....Isolated people make good layoff targets.
managers...why god invented purgatory
One of the things you need to do is make your boss aware that, because of the amount of time you have to spend in the car, you will probably be too tired to think about working longer than 9-5. Also mention that this might cause an increase in sick days and incedental home emergencies that most other employees get off for free. These can always be voiced as "Well... I't not like I'm about to start doing this, but you never know"
i believe (can someone else back this up?) that there are certain tax benefits and bonuses for companies that have a certain percentage of the office registered as telecommunters. This was, IIRC, part of the clean-air legislation thats been bandied about.
:)
(i recall a wired article you could look for on exactly this topic, i suggest locating it as well)
Telecommuting is a good PR thing to have on your employee services pages too, to make your place of business a more attractive place to work. Microsoft became famous just for being one of the first places to offer certain kinds of perks, like free sodas. This is now almost standard in many tech-firms (not all, depending on profits, etc etc). Perks are catchy
In any case, happy employees == productive employees. Ask anyone in Personnel...
Check my Go-related blog for beginners: DGD
No telecommuting implies large population density
implies high cost per sq.ft.
implies skyscrapers
implies "mine is taller than yours" mentality
implies improved self-esteem
implies better productivity at work
During the glory days of the .com boom, I was working for a company in the bay area - telecommuting 100% of the time. I was responsible for the development of the company's first product to launch. I did extensive market analysis, requirments analysis, architecture, design, development, testing etc. all from my home in small-town Ontario in Canada.
Tools? CVS and email and telephone. Daily status reports.
But. After a couple of months, one of the founders got it in his head that I was evil incarnate and lazy and incapable to boot. The next year was hell for me. I had to work 80 hour weeks to keep up the tiny fraction of political good-will left to me. And because I was out of sight (site), he had all the opportunities in the world to slander me, but noone thought to check with me to see my side of the story. I would hear about accusations weeks after they had been made and been allowed to fester.
Suffice it to say: there are some personal risks involved with telecommuting.
The good side? Lots of flexibility to get up for a few moments and hang out with my family, doing errands was usually okay in the middle of the day.
Good luck - and keep in mind the political side of telecommuting if you do convince your bosses!
Architectures with XML Documents
Helping with organizational effectiveness is our job.
Shutting down free speech with violence isn't fighting fascism. It IS fascism!
I think 2 points made previously are important and should be tested in each individual case:
1) some people don't work well from home
2) some bosses don't think you can work well from home
Here's a suggestion that worked for me (BUT: I only telecommute occassionally and never for more than 2-3 days at a stretch). Try telecommuting from your current (close) location for 2 weeks (pre-agree with your boss - he will mind less as you're still in a close location and it's for a fixed time). Make this coincide with a new definable (sub-) project that you take on. First prove to yourself that this is an effective mode for you. Compare your productivity, and take active notice of when/where/how you work from home. BTW a home office is a must for this experiment to be valid. Second, make a point of reviewing the sub-project with your boss after 2 weeks, and getting feedback on the relative differences between your other projects and this one (do this in a subtle, non obvious, way). Again, this is not as threatening for the boss as a move 100 miles away.
Good luck. I've had jobs where telecommuting worked real well, but also 1 or 2 where it was a disaster and it's better in these cases that you come to this conclusion rather than your employer.
One of the things that makes me enjoy my job is definitely my co-workers. I don't want to just be a drone who crawls out of bed to his computer and produces code for the company.
There are a lot of personal and social benefits to being in the office. And rather than cubes, we have an open-office area, and I absolutely love it (this, after escaping from the Land of Cubicles).
If all you have are silver bullets, everything looks like a werewolf.
The large mega-corp I work recently laid off a big chunk of its workforce.
Within the area of the company I know about, every fulltime telecommuter was laid off, without exception.
Given the current state of the economy and the likelihood of layoffs wherever you work, you may wish to consider this.
Is there a municipal airport near both ends?
You might be better of flying in at least two or three days a week.
Possibly look to shack up with someone else in the company, or get a small 1BR apt.
The other option is to lure a TOP engineer or other management out to this location
Old age and treachery almost always overcome youth and skill.
I submitted my resignation and informed my employer that I was moving home (1,000 miles away). As part of my resignation I proposed a "trial" telecommuting arrangement and pointed out how much training would be required to replace me. I also made it clear that I thoroughly enjoyed my job and sincerely hoped they would be willing to give me a chance to prove that it could be a workable arrangement. In other words, I didn't ask them for anything other than a chance to show them that it could work. I was surprised when they accepted my resignation and thirty minutes later offered me a position as a telecommuting programmer, something they had not agreed to do for anyone else until then. But I had an advantage in that I had been working for them almost seven years and a significant portion of their production environment was dependent on code I'd written. I'd also showed them beforehand that I was honest, dependable, and consciencious. They told me later it was the trust I'd earned that allowed them to agree to the arrangement. It has been more than 18 months now, I visit the office for "face time" once every three to four months at their expense.
It is working great for me, but YMMV. Make very sure you can handle the isolation, although your two hour distance makes visits much easier than what I have here.
NULL
The number one concern of your boss is that if you are working at home, they have no idea what you are doing, if anything at all. Where I worked, telecommuting was originally an impossibility.
Then, with a strong amount of pressing, one employee got senior management to agree to one day a week of telecommuting. (Over the head of my boss, I'll admit.) Great. Then others were soon after able to telecommute one day a week, if they chose.
If it isn't significantly abused, and they feel like you are doing work at home, and doing a good job, then they'll open up the doors. You've GOT to do staff notes, and you've GOT to be available the entire time you are working at home. Only a half of a year later, the attitude is closer to, "We don't care where you work from."
And, in fact, we have people in our group that aren't even in the same part of the country as we are. As long as we can get ahold of the other team members (telephone, AIM, emails), we're fine.
Also, it has become more commonplace at our work because of the corporate environment. After the mergers and acquisitions, things are fairly mixed around.
I could be the system administrator for some boxes in Omaha, with the application support people in another state, my project manager in the office in my city, a networking project manager at another major site in another city, a performance analysis specialist in yet another city, and the users all over the US.
It doesn't matter if we work together. Probably the key part of this for a systems administrator was trashing the policy that an SA at a site must administrate only the boxes at that site. It also helped that we had a dedicated hardware group created that was responsible for the hands-on work at the site.
But really, it is all perception. If you can make them believe that they're not losing anything, they'll go for it. But I'd have to say, if you are not in the office, you probably have to kick ass even more than other employees to remain visible.
VISIBLE=pay increase, recognition, etc.
Why is your business in downtown anyways? Most business can be done very efficiently out of downtown or in a smaller city altogether. It's like telecommerce versus telecommuting.
Err, someone mod me town for that telecommerce thing.
I can't spell or type, but that doesn't mean I'm unusually stupid.
Easy, tell your boss if you telecommute he won't have to look at your sorry whiney ass again. I think he'll jump at the chance.
... if the companies that were housed in the WTC towers had supported telecommuting.
I work for a company with telecommuters scattered across the country and two offices seperated by several thousand miles. Our telecommuters are mostly user knowledge technical support, sales and training guys -- people who do a lot of constant interaction with customers, mostly over the phone, and to whom interaction with other employees is sort of a last result. The rest of us (product managers, data loaders, hardware tech support and, of course, developers) are constantly interacting.
I used to live close to an hour away from work, and would often telecommute if there was a problem in the morning before I left for that huge drive. On those days that I telecommuted, I noticed that I was less likely to get contacted by people in the office who had trouble, less likely to get contacted by customers, and that it took more time to get changes enacted by people in the office. They were more likely to forget about me. And once I moved to a new location (so close I can now cycle to work every morning, even if shit goes down), i noticed that more people started coming to ask questions or advice, more people remember my name and I'm overall a more respected worker.
I'd also like to point out that all of our telecommuting and half time developers were among those who felt the blade when we were on F---edcompany last year.
TC if you must...but realise you'll be much more expendable.
Hey freaks: now you're ju
I full-time telecommute from Cupertino, CA for a company in Utah, and it's working out great. In order to make it work, I made a direct plea for my happiness, and thus productivity. Basically, I tried to make a compelling argument to demonstrate that I would be no *less* effective as a telecommuter, and thus any difference could only be positive. I've attached below the complete discussion regarding me becoming a telecommuter:
:)
:)
:) We need a way to be able to get a hold of you at anytime
:)
:)
-----
From: David Barrett
Sent: Friday, June 08, 2001 12:25 PM
To: [My boss]
Subject: RE: What about telecommuting?
Ahh, the house hunting begins. Boy I despise moving. But I love San Francisco. It's such a dilemma... Thanks again for your help.
-david
> -----Original Message-----
> From: [My boss]
> Sent: Friday, June 08, 2001 12:31 PM
> To: David Barrett
> Subject: RE: What about telecommuting?
>
>
> Sounds good. [My boss's boss] said to send your bill for your ISP as an
> expense report and we'll pay it (or at least the $50 portion
> - I haven't mentioned that it would be more than that). Let
> me know if you think of something I can do. Also, let me know
> when you get moved. You'll need to let HR know about your new
> address and any other changes in your personal information.
> Have fun house hunting!
>
> [My boss]
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: David Barrett
> Sent: Friday, June 08, 2001 1:00 PM
> To: [My boss]
> Subject: RE: What about telecommuting?
>
>
> Wow, great! Thanks a million! I'm intending to get the
> wireless ISP called "Ricochet", which is pretty pricey, but
> I'll gladly pick up the remainder. Also, my cell phone has
> far more minutes than I actually use, and they're all the
> same price (local or long-distance), so I don't see that
> being a problem.
>
> Hm... I don't think there's anything I need you to do on your
> end, but I'll let you know if I figure something out. Thanks again!
>
> -david
>
> > -----Original Message-----
> > From: [My boss]
> > Sent: Friday, June 08, 2001 11:54 AM
> > To: David Barrett
> > Subject: RE: What about telecommuting?
> >
> >
> > Okay, you have approval to telecommute. Here are the only
> > concerns voiced, so you know and can make sure to avoid them
> >
> > during work hours. I know you said you have a cell phone, so
> > that is a good option. Is your plan such that it will not
> > cost you a fortune if people call you on your cell phone?
> > Will you still have another business type phone we can
> > contact you on? Also, [My boss's boss] said to find an ISP and [My company]
> > will pay the bill (he said as long as it wasn't over $50).
> > That way you can have network access as well. I don't know if
> > you already have an ISP or if you want to work with IS to
> > find the best option - money wise and speed/access wise.
> >
> > I'm excited for you that this has worked out. Let me know
> > what I can do to help you get everything set up. Just so you
> > know, [Our CTO] was consulted on your telecommuting as well and
> > he said as long as I was comfortable with your being able to
> > meet your deliverables, he was fine with it as well. [My boss's boss] had
> > me check with [Our CTO] just as a second ok.
> >
> > So, again, let me know what you need from this end.
> >
> >
> > [My boss]
> >
> > -----Original Message-----
> > From: David Barrett
> > Sent: Wednesday, June 06, 2001 2:29 PM
> > To: [My boss]
> > Subject: RE: What about telecommuting?
> >
> >
> > Great, thanks for considering it as an option. Here are the
> > pros and cons as I see them:
> >
> > --- Cons ---
> > (1) I would operate without physical supervision or
> > oversight. However, in reality this is already the case, as
> > I don't report to anyone here as it is. Plus, my office is
> > located in such a fashion that the only person I see with any
> > regularity is [Our CTO], and even that is rare. Thus, it seems
> > to me that if I've operated acceptably without supervision
> > until now, I see no reason why I would fail to operate
> > acceptably in the future.
> >
> > (2) I wouldn't have immediate access to the resources of the
> > office. For example, it'd be difficult to get a fax to me
> > immediately. However, I don't see this as a major hindrance,
> > as aside from the printer, I don't really use the resources
> > here as it is. I rarely fax things or make copies, and I
> > only get about one phone call a week (and that could easily
> > be moved to my cell phone). Plus, I can easily get an
> > Internet connection that will allow me continual access to
> > the [My company] VPN from anywhere.
> >
> > (3) I would be less available for spontaneous, unscheduled
> > physical meetings. As it is, I rarely work with anyone in
> > this office. Thus, I rarely meet with them on a
> > pre-scheduled basis, and even more rarely without planning.
> > I can easily arrange to be in the office for scheduled
> > meetings, and I'd happily remain "on call" to come in to meet
> > with people as needed.
> >
> > --- Pros ---
> > (1) I could move to San Francisco. I've been dreaming of
> > doing it for literally my entire life, and the only thing
> > preventing me from doing so is an obligation to show up at
> > this office every day.
> >
> > (2) I would be more productive. I've known for years that I
> > operate best outside of the office, and I'd be happy to
> > provide references to previous employers to justify that
> > statement. As it is, I only stay in the office long enough
> > to check my email and access file servers, and then I take my
> > laptop somewhere else to do my writing. Thus, I would not
> > only remain at least as productive as I already have been,
> > but would likely become more productive by not limiting my
> > Internet access to short office visits.
> >
> > (3) I would be happier. Without getting too deeply into a
> > philosophical discussion about what makes life good, let's
> > just say that I try to structure my life in such a fashion as
> > to maximize freedoms. One of those freedoms is a decoupling
> > of physical location and virtual productivity. Due to a
> > combination of a fast wireless network (Ricochet), a job
> > where I can make a valuable contribution from a remote
> > location, and the proven ability to effectively operate
> > without physical supervision, I am in a unique position to
> > realize this wonderful freedom. I fully understand that not
> > everybody has these same factors in their lives -- indeed,
> > without any one of these factors the others are irrelevant.
> > However, I have all three factors in my life, and it seems
> > like a shame to waste such an opportunity.
> >
> >
> > Thanks for considering this possibility, and please let me
> > know if there's anything I can do better the chances of this
> > getting approved!
> >
> > -david
> >
> >
> > > -----Original Message-----
> > > From: [My boss]
> > > Sent: Wednesday, June 06, 2001 8:24 AM
> > > To: David Barrett
> > > Subject: RE: What about telecommuting?
> > >
> > >
> > > I really don't have a problem with telecommuting - I think
> > > for some people it is a great option if they don't have lots
> > > of distractions at home or are able to manage those
> > > distractions. I'm not sure how [My boss's boss] feels about it. Let me
> > > talk to him and I'll get back to you.
> > >
> > > Why don't you send me a list of what you feel the pros and
> > > cons are for telecommuting in your situation (I have
> > > documents that generally list them, I'd rather have a list
> > > specific to your situation). Once I get that, I'll talk with
> > > [My boss's boss]. I know he is out today, so it may be a day or two before
> > > I can catch up with him.
> > >
> > > Thanks!!
> > >
> > > [My boss]
> > >
> > > -----Original Message-----
> > > From: David Barrett
> > > Sent: Tuesday, June 05, 2001 5:33 PM
> > > To: [My boss]
> > > Subject: What about telecommuting?
> > >
> > >
> > > [My boss] - What are your thoughts on telecommuting? I looked
> > > around a bit but couldn't find anything that discusses
> > > the topic. Currently it's a big inconvenience to work out of
> > > the Cupertino office, as there's nothing I can do here that I
> > > can't do elsewhere. Aside from a good net connection,
> > > printout capability, and free drinks, this office isn't of
> > > much use to me. Only very rarely do I actually work with or
> > > professionally interact with the people here -- at a
> > > frequency that I could easily maintain even were I to
> work remotely.
> > >
> > > As it is, this office is the only thing that prevents me from
> > > moving to San Francisco (about a 45-1.5 hour drive, depending
> > > on the traffic), something I've been dreaming of doing for
> > > years. Seeing as how I end up driving there every other day
> > > anyway, it's a big drain on time and gas money to keep going
> > > back and forth. Between my laptop, cell phone, and wireless
> > > network connection (which I can get), I can be equally
> > > productive from virtually anywhere. Really, as best as I can
> > > tell, I am much more productive in the comfortable atmosphere
> > > of coffee shops and restaurants than in the sterile confines
> > > of an office anyway.
> > >
> > > Basically, as I see it, there are lots of upsides and few
> > > downsides to me working remotely. But that's just my
> > > perspective. What are your thoughts?
> > >
> > > -david
> > >
> >
>
1) Working in sweatpants, sandles and t-shirts.
2) Being a total slob and not showering.
3) On-the-job beer n' drugs.
4) The 5-second commute.
5) Answering business calls from bed.
6) Porn on company time.
7) REALLY being able to follow Slashdot.
8) 5-minute lunch breaks.
9) A home computer network paid for by Mr.
Employer.
10) Tasks rather than time.
I run a small Web development firm, so telecommuting is something that is easy for us to implement for part of the work week, especially when we are engaged with larger projects that require less day to day collaboration.
As an employer, I see it as a productivity issue. Rather than spending time commuting, that employee can be spending time with their family, getting more sleep and exercise. Thus, they able to put more attention towards their work.
The key issue in convincing an employer to allow you to telecommute is to demonstrate, before you even broach the issue, that you are productive and able to move on to new tasks without direction. You should attempt to show that you can run on "autopilot," such that your employer doesn't feel that s/he has to activity manage your activities. Perhaps a starting point you could suggest meeting with your manager on a weekly basis and get a week's worth of assignments at a time. If this routine is established, telecommuting is the next logical step.
For the manager, the key stumbling block is the issue of control. If you can ease this fear then the issue of telecommuting appears more palatable. Good luck!
No offense, but if you said that you'd be a full time on site employee, then you need to live up to that contract. The ONLY thing you can do is accept your job or change it. The question is, is your job good enough that you're willing to make the commute? There aren't a lot of good programming jobs out there, the rest are filled by skilled workers. There's a LOT of programmers who would kill for a good job now. The market is flooded. Your employer holds the ball.
First I'll echo a previous post:
So, I guess if you're priceless to them they'll let you. If you're a slacker, like most people are, you're lucky you have a job, so don't push it.
Given that you suspect you're not viewed as a slacker, here's what I did:
I moved from the hellhole commutes of N. Va. to out near the mountains. During my house search I also did a job search. When I had a house and an offer lined up I went back to my employer and said, "I would love to telecommute, I love this job, but if you don't want that here's my two week's notice." Once they're reeling from that (and if they are NOT snickering) start in on the standard productivity enhancements that come with being away from football pools, 3:00 p.m. beer parties and people dropping by your office so you can figure out their lives for them.
Good Luck at either job!.
If humans organized their enterprises rationally, in strict pursuit of profit, no one would care where you pecked away at your keyboard, as long as you got your tasks done. But monkeys gotta have social structure. Your boss needs to act out various rituals. He needs to see in your eyes, every day, that you know he is your boss. He can't help it, he's wired that way.
Humans have no motivations that (other) chimpanzees don't understand.
There are legitimate management issues to worry about here. Some jobs just aren't well suited to telecommuting. Studies have shown that telecommuting works best as a part-time option or as a time-limited option (telecommute for 6 months). With permanent full-time telecommuting, most employees tend to become too marginalized and out-of-the-loop. Out of sight, out of mind, and first fired.
It's not the telecommuting but this guy's attitude that's going to get him in trouble. "Gee, boss, I don't want to be bothered with commuting from my nice new house, so I expect you and the company to accomodate my problem." We're in a recession, buddy. It's not a smart time to be making personal demands. If I were your boss, I'd take this as an example of your poor business judgement.
just tell your boss that the organization should consider decentralizing - lowers the risk of catastrophic terrorist act taking out the business. I know that comment might be considered to be in bad taste, but seriously - if America decentralized, there would be nowhere for terrorists to hit.
Helping with organizational effectiveness is our job.
I telecommute on a daily basis, visiting the office an average of once a month. My office is 90 miles form my home, and travel time is 1.5 to 3 hours each way. Of course, it does help that the word "remote" is in my job description, but anyone with determination can do it.
:)
:)
Before I describe how I made this happen, let me talk about the drawbacks of telecommuting. It can get lonely. Beleive it or no, you may actually start to miss co-workers. If you have the type of personality that needs constant companionship, forget it.
The other drawback is maintaing visibility at work. Managers tend to walk out their door and give assignments to the first person they see. If you're never seen, you may not get the good assignemnts. This can be overcome, but it's up to the telecommuter to maintain communication with thos in the office.
One final drawback about working from home: it is hard to stop at 5:00. I find myself working MORE hours because it's convenient and the work needs to be done. I don't mind this, and consider it a trade off for the flexibility I have. I have found that it takes a real effort to stop working sometimes.
Now that I've given all the negatives, let me say that I will never go back to an office. The flexibility I have with my time is great.
Now you probabvly want to know how it happened. It's simple really, I asked. I asked when I interviewd for the job, I asked when I started, and I asked every manager I have had. I started working in the office 5 days a week, and let my manager know I wanted to telecommute. I starte working form home 1 day a week then 2 , then 3.... The point is I was consistent and determined. When I sat with a manager during reviews, I explained that I wanted to telecommute, and why. When I met wiht a director, I discussed it. Every chance I got, I mentioned it to someone. It took about 2 years to get to working form home full time. Even now, when I get a new manager, or sit in a review, I explain why it is so important to me. I constantly advertise how happy telecommtuing makes me, and how coming to the office would be bad.
I don't go so far as to give ultimatumns, but all of my latest managers understand that if telecommuting went away, so would I. THis is important if you're an asset to your company. If your just an ass, well then I can't help you
Since I've staretd telecommuting, 2 others in my group have moved away form the office to more affordable housing. Ther is strength in numbers, if it's important enought to you, start talking about it. Don't expect it to happen overnight, but be persistent and determined.
This is slashdot, so I won't go into the technological part of telecommuting. If you can't figure that out, you should be somewhere else
blah, blah, blah. Hope this helps someone. (obviously I don't get paid to write)
When you're changing jobs is when you have the most leverage.
Life's a bitch but somebody's gotta do it.
A recent industry survey had these results:
Plans for telecommuting programs:
4% Increase
5% No change
21% Phase out
62% Derease
8% no response
So basicly employers have figured out the scam and the gig is up. Productivity when you live where you work sucks, and is downright depressing in most cases. Not to mention the royal pain of the VPN and other networking issues, and all the security issues it raises. The relationships with your coworkers don't work very smoothly, and forget promotions.
Of course in some business models (those 9% above) it does work. Find a job at one of those companies.
- Adam L. Beberg - The Cosm Project - http://www.mithral.com/
a great concept but its NOT for everyone. Not
ALL jobs work out to be practical for telecommuting and not everyone is suited to telecommuting.
The first thing you should look at is your job,
is it practical to telecommute? Can you eliminate the need to physically be in the building? Jobs that are well suited to telecommuting are mainly development jobs, where you can work on projects by yourself with some interaction with other developers (via email, instant messaging etc). Once you have eliminated the need to be in the building, you need to justify it to your employer. If you are working from home, they have no idea if you are out by the pool or working hard from your home office. If you are the only one, you'll have a hard time pushing it. If you do have to "push" the concept on your manager, chances are you'll have to agree to strict time management and reporting (eg. you have to account for every hour you've worked). The other matter is are you on a salary or waged, if you are waged (hourly pay + overtime), forget it, if you are paid about the same or not much more than the folks at McD's then forget it. On the other hand, if you are paid fairly well and have a heavy workload, working from home can be a major benefit (eg. easier for you to work long hours, less interruptions - nobody walking past your cube for a chat, commute time can be spent working).
If your job is practical for telecommuting (yes we'd all like to think all our jobs are but they're not), the next thing to look at is yourself. What kind of work ethic do you have? Do you work in the same manner as you would if it was your company? or do you take a two hour lunch and take credit for the work of others? If you are honest, hard working and enjoy your work, then telecommuting is for you. Telecommuting isn't a walk in the park, you'll end up working longer hours, weekends and the line between work and home can get blurred so much, that you lose control.
So if you think your job is suited and you can handle telecommuting, the next thing to look is your environment. This means, can you physically allocate a work space within your home? Is your home located where you can get broadband internet access and reliable cellular phone access? Can you afford to purchase the infrastructure you'll need at home to work? Most companies won't supply that. Are you going to be bothered all day by
telemarketers, kids, or family pets?
I've worked and managed groups of teleworkers over my past few jobs. I've seen people excel and I've seen people lose their jobs over it. You have to be pretty strict, not only so you remain productive, but so you remain sane. Telecommuting is a very cool way to work, you have a flexible schedule (eg. if you need to make a doctors appointment, you can go anytime, and make up the time in the evening), the most important thing to do is make that time up so that you remain productive. If you have to "push" the idea on your employer, you had better make sure everything goes smoothly and you work twice as hard, otherwise, you could end up jobless.
Its amazing what poor listening skills modern america has in general. Let me give yo ua secret, professional neogtiators don't start form the assumption its a fight. Rather they start fonmr the assumption that the other guy has needs they can address SO...
Step 1: Ask your boss abotu it. If he/she says no ask for a list of reasons/concerns why he/she feels it wont work.
Step 2: Go down the list of concerns and thoughtfully address each one. "You're wrong" won't cut it but "well what if I did X to sovle that" will.
Step 3: add to the lsit al lof the positive benefits to the company that you can think of. Include such things as better focus because youre not exhausting yourself with a 4 hour trip each day.
Step 4: Return that list to your boss. Ask for his/her response. If new issues come up, address them calmly and rationally.
In the end one of three thinsgwill happen:
(1) Your boss will give in.
(2) You will realize your boss is right.
(3) You will hit an impasse like "we have a policy not to do that" in which case you might want to think about lookign for a new employer.
This link is a Google search results page of studies showing greatly increased productivity from telecommuters. This is, perhaps, the best approach to take once you've earned trust as an employee.
-- @rjamestaylor on Ello
I am currently working for a ISP and colocation facility in California. Now, we do have people at our colocation facility 24/7 to take care of immediate situations, we have found it very easy for some of us to telecommute and make it so that to anyone not in our organization would have no idea we were sitting in our house rather than in the office.
1.) Broadband, this is a necessity when you are working away from the office. Being able to have fast access to our files and our exchange server is a necessity.
2.) I'm sure there are other solutions out there like this, but we use GoBeam for Voice over IP. Using a broadband connection you can setup a 'soft' PBX and have remote locations wherever you want them. For instance, if someone dials our main number, and punches in my extension, it will ring at home if im there, or ring at my office if im at my desk (or ring on my home phone and cell if I want). This makes the move home virtually seamless and its pretty simple.
3.) You need self motivation, its way to easy to get into telecommuting only to find it makes you a complete lazy bastard and you just sit around eating goldfish and drinking coke. If you are the kind of person that only works well in an office, telecommuting is not for you. It can be really easy to get distracted and loose track of time. No company wants to pay an employee who is playing instead of working.
Just my $0.02
-
aphex
I Steal Music!
I get to telecommute all the time:
When I'm on vacation, I get called to fix a problem.
When I'm home sick, I get called to design a new feature.
When I leave work for lunch, something comes up...
I do everything the voices in my head tell me to...
Either find a new job closer to your house, move closer to your job, or else change professions. If you want to be close to your work, be a farmer. Or flip burgers. LA & SF people think nothing of a 90 minute commute, so what is *you* problem? Grow up, baby boy!
I have nearly the same situation. I live two and a half hours from my "office".
I had a couple of things that made this easy for me. First, I hold a fairly high position among my company's technical staff. Second, our CTO is almost exclusively a telecommuter (he live very near me). These things made it easier to me from the start, so I might would ask around your office to see who else is interested.
Now, onto how I convinced my boss. The big concern will be productivity and communication. Your boss cannot see your productivity the same way when you are at home, because you are not there talking to your coworkers or at your desk. Hence he cannot see you. So, you need to be sure that he will be able to see your productivity. You need to hit milestones, or at the very least warn well in advance if a milestone is to be missed. If you've show the ability to manage your time well in the past, that will help here. Also, you will need to make excessive use of the phone. Make sure that your coworkers can quickly find the number for the phone by your desk at home (you probably should consider getting a seperate line for this). Additionally, you should probably start doing some work from home. This will ensure that you do not experiece an immediate drop in productivity if you convince your boss, which could very quickly get your telecommuter status revoked.
So basically, here is what I would have before I go in and ask:
- A quantitative measuring system for tracking your productivity.
- A plan for maintaining communication with your co-workers (this may be the most important item to your boss)
- Evidence that you are (not "can be", but "are") just as productive working from home.
In an environment with little to no telecommuting already in place, you may hit the same stumbling block that I did. Pure and simple jealousy.
I 'sort of' telecommuted for about a year and a half. My home office was my house, but I would travel as needed out to our sites for repair/administration. That came to an end when my immediate supervisor left and was replaced with a non-tech guy who didn't feel comfortable rocking the boat (Or bucking the HR person).
It was then that the HR person gave me an office, told me to be on time every day, and went on to talk about the people that had complained that I was getting 'preferential treatment' by being allowed to work from the home.
It ended up coming down to "They don't get to do it, so neither do you."
Just something to be aware of. Petty jealousies from your co-workers can be a hell of a snag.
'Life is like a spoonful of Drain-O, it feels good on the way down but leaves you feeling hollow inside'
I've tried letting programmers and graphic designers work from home... and it just doesn't work.
When someone works from home, they have terrible communications with the office. They often can't be reached during the business day. To make matters worse, productivity -ALWAYS- goes down and excuses -ALWAYS- go up.
If they don't believe in it. It's not going to be easy to sell. I tried and I failed, here's my little story...
I recently changed jobs to a "traditional" company that has been in business for almost 50+ years in their present incarnation (over all it's been like 100 years). Anyway, I was told and shown how "progressive" my new employer was when I hired on. It's a very stable company that does use some cutting edge stuff, uses cool technology and I thought great, best of both worlds.
As it turns out, things aren't as progressive as I thought. They have a great VPN system and dialup access for travelling users. Their network is stable and well run. But one thing...they don't trust anyone to work from home and they feel that if you aren't glued to your monitor at a desk from 8a-5p, then you aren't working.
I learned this when I found out my wife and I were pregnant. So I started planning leave time (don't get me started there either...) and I wanted to move to a flex schedule and/or a work from home situation. So I could spend time with my new child and family. I'm a firm beleiver in "Working to have a life" and NOT "Have a life to work".
They wouldn't hear of it. The funny thing is this isn't my manager just saying this. It's a company wide attitude. The line I got was that I'm a "support" position so I needed to be here at my desk "just in case". Actually I'm a web architect/admin and do little if no support at all. 98% of my job can be done from a remote location. The other 2% can easily wait a day. So I argued it. I didn't get anywhere. I even offered to work 4 x 10 hour days and take Friday as a work from home day. Nope. Nothing. They actually told me they didn't "trust" that people would actually be working at home.
I explained how I felt and that I thought this didn't promote well being or a healthy work environment and that the lack of trust was unusal. Stone faced they told me no again. So I have given up.
My commute isn't *hours* away, but I'm a good 40 minutes each way. Mostly, I'm a little angry at myself for not checking this out closer *before* I hired on. I don't blame the company (although I feel a little like they mis-represented their "progressive"-ness).
I'm considering finding another job once my baby is born and things settle down with all this talk of war (if it does by then). I don't want to work for a company which doesn't trust it's employees. I'm an adult, I have two degrees and am an experienced professional in my field .
I told my manager they need to worry about managing my work output and stop managing me. I don't think he understood. I think that tends to be a problem in many companies and with many managers: "If I don't see you, how can I trust you and manage you?"
My Thoughts,
~silver"serf"
The economics of telework are fairly well understood, and an ROI can be easily calculated based on factors including increased productivity; increased retention; reduced sick time; etc.
Most notably, one of them most significant barriers to telework is middle management, who must manage to deliverables, not face time. Interestingly, telework training aimed at managers is largely remedial in nature; telework exacerbates management problems.
One of the other issues faced by telework programs is some basic misconceptions about what works, and what doesn't. For example, telework is *not* a substitute for child or elder care.
For basic telework Q&A that answers many of these questions, see:
http://www.10icorp.com/services/questions.htm
We have some folks here who telecommute and some folks who don't. The problem is that in many technical jobs its very difficult to quantify the work you do.
For a sysadmin, the measure of his success is that nothing happens, nothing goes wrong. Cell phones ring anywhere. If the quality sysadmin doesn't keep hours at the office where he can be seen to be working, how does the manager know he works at all?
So, to answer the poster's question: To convince your manager to let you telecommute you must first convince him that your work is quantifiable without you keeping office hours. Keep a log of what you do. Start emailing the boss a Friday Report. Get him comfortable with the idea that he knows and can justify to his boss exactly what your contribution to the company is each week. THEN bring up the idea of telecommuting.
The most successful telecommuters I've seen are the ones who produce billable hours for the company. The customers know whether the work was done and the boss knows how many billable hours to expect per pay period based on what's generated by the folks who do work in the office.
This all assumes you're with a small company where the boss is able to authorize telecommuting. If you're a cog in a monolithic bureaucracy or working for the government, forget it. Your choices there are: stay or go. If you stay its by their rules.
Important note: Its much easier for the guy in the office to get a merit based raise. Even with the suggestions above, the hard worker is the guy who is seen to be working hard.
Moderating "-1, Disagree" is simple censorship. Have the guts to post your opinion.
View the comments at +3 and print it out.
Hand to boss.
Real people sharing real, mostly positive (except for the beans and the elevator calamity) telecommuting experiences may have a positive impact on the bosses reasoning.
I can't telecommute. It's not like my company won't let me or anything, but it's simply that I won't get anything done with any efficiency.
When I'm home, I do home stuff, when I work I do work stuff. Trying to put both together will be a total failure, no matter how hard I try.
Besides, I *like* drinking beer at lunch with my coworkers...
I think it's important to consider the nature of someone's job when discussing telecommuting. For example, I work in a software development house, and commute an hour either way to work. I'm about the limit; those who come from further make arrangements to stay with friends near work during the week or some such. I couldn't do my job properly by telecommuting.
Sure, I could make all the same arguments as everyone else. My code all goes into CVS, as do my docs. We could hold meetings using teleconferencing or some such. My not being in the office would probably lower overall costs for the company. One of the guys at work does even telecommute. But the simple fact is that, for someone doing my job, it wouldn't be appropriate.
The reason is that I'm part of a small, tight-knit team, as are many in my line of work. I interact with my colleagues on a minutely basis, never mind hourly or daily. Research into working conditions has demonstrated on more than one occasion now that putting a team in a comfortable but shared area leads to significant productivity increases, mostly due to the spontaneous communication that occurs between them. A asks B about something, C overhears and worked on it last week, and provides useful information that neither A nor B previously had. The customer rings and speaks to D, but D can ask E for further input halfway through the conversation. This sort of thing happens all the time where I work.
That level of communication simply can't happen with telecommuting, and without it, there's no way our team could function anything like as effectively as it does. So, as much I hate to admit it (since I'd love to TC), I couldn't do my job as well if I did.
If you disagree, post your argument. (-1, Overrated) isn't your personal censorship tool for views you don't like.
That is REALLY bad. Really, really bad... but I can't help but chuckle at it.
- RustyTaco
One approach may be to start small and work from there.
Propose telecommuting 1 day/week as a trial, with the possibility of going up to more.
You will have picked up 4 hours a week by doing so.
Fear of loss of control over their direct reports, fear of loss of productivity, but more than anything else, fear that telecommuting will make middle management obsolete.
I do not deploy Linux. Ever.
2 hours * each way * 250 workdays = 1000 hours/year
So in effect, you are pissing away 11.4% of your life for nothing. Factor in 7 hours of sleep every night and we get 16.1% of your waking hours devoted to something that has almost zero productivity. If they don't let you telecommute, you should definitely find another job.
I'm an aerospace research engineer and I work at home officially one day per week. I have a DSL connection and I use ssh with X forwarding on Linux to essentially use my work computer at home. It's a very nice setup.
Telecommuting is not appropriate for everyone. Other than the self-employed, it is best for motivated workers who tend to work very independently. If you need to constantly interact with other people or access hardware, it won't work.
As traffic conditions continue to deteriorate, the demand for telecommuting will grow. As the demand grows, so will the supply. Eventually it will be another job benefit for some, like health insurance.
By the way, you should support telecommuting even if you can't do it yourself, because it reduces the traffic congestion on your commute.
I watch Brit Hume on Fox News
Because when you work from home,
you are ALWAYS at the office.
Anonymous posts are filtered.
It's a sensible opinion, well argued. It's on-topic. You do NOT have the right to mod it down just because you disagree wtih it.
It's hard enough for me to program computers and have them do what I expect them to do. It's even harder to program them so they do what my customer's want them to do. Programming for others is an activity that requires a high degree of communication. High degrees of communication are difficult to maintain remotely.
You mean, you don't do any work when you are "working at home". Why impose your work ethic on everybody else. Many people (most engineers) work in production oriented environments. Your work output is quantifiable. Did you complete the project on time? If so fine. If not then you have a problem unrelated to where you are actually doing the work. Typical software engineering involves stressful releases followed by periods of navel contemplation. An activity best done at home.
- Research. Find some financial incentives for your company. A good example would be the Telework VA!. Look for one in your region.
- Find a company like yours that has already implemented a Telework program. In my case, Altum (dot-com). This can be sold as "being behind in our internal strategy". And yes, we make money.
In any case, there are certain expenses that are incurred when you start teleworking, for hardware and connectivity, so it isn't as easy as turning on a light. In addition, you should think about how teleworking will affect you. Teleworking blurs the distinction between @Work and @Home, so you must set aside a work-schedule. Otherwise you could easily become either addicted to work (burn-out) or non-productive. I can't even count how many times people ask me to do things because they think that I am "@home" when I am really "at-work @home". Best advice: sell the idea, then bring in a consultant to fix you up right.This worked for me, but YMMV
.history, changes in files you've worked on, timestamps, etc.
One thing that you have to do is convince your boss that you're going to be productive at home. That's because your boss will most likely assume that if you telecommute, you're just sitting around in your underwear watching cartoons and d/l-ing pr0n.
If you have remote access to your workplace, then take a Saturday or 2, do some work from home, then show your boss what you've done, the access logs,
Since you do need to have interaction with your cow-orkers, you'll have to come into work at least a few days a week. But if you can show some increased productivity when you're working out of your home, I'm sure your boss will tolerate you telecommuting a few days a week and arrange meetings on days that you are scheduled to be in the office.
/*drunk.. fix later*/
I think it will be much easier to sell a partial telecommute to a total one. If you are predictably available for face time, your boss will be more comfortable.
Try to compromise. Ask the boss if you can come in only three times a week, perhaps for 10 hour days. That way you're in the office 75% as much of the time as your co-workers. If two of those days are consecutive, consider staying at a local motel once a week to save 4 hours of driving.
If this works out, ask the boss if you can shift the balance of home/office time towards home.
As other posters have said, make sure it works before you buy a house two hours away.
I got a real bad flue after New Year, and I had a research project of my own that I wanted to work on. I chatted with my boss and we agreed that I could work at home, and take time to recover fully.
The first week was great, and it was good to have the space and be free of interruptions (I don't even have an internet connection!). I could work really productively and focus on the project.
By the time three weeks had past, the novelty was starting to wear off. I was missing the crowd at the office, taking lunch with friends, and spending time chatting at the coffee machine.
If you plan to make a big move, try it first, and see how you like it. I will do it again, if I get the chance, but I think two weeks is the ideal time for me.
Offtopic, Inflammatory, Inappropriate, Illegal, or Offensive comments might be moderated up.
Anyone who has used (been the victim of ;) ) technical support from another company knows there is a clear difference between on-site support from an expert and remote support. On-site means you are directly talking to all the people involved, those people can better decide for themselves if they trust you, you at least act like you care about your customer (i.e. whoever signs your paycheck) enough to show up, you don't have to have somebody verbally describe every detail of what's going on according to their interpretation, you can solve the problem an order of magnitude faster with your hands on the machine, etc. Quality of service is generally much better when you are on site. The company can count on you to be readily available, and can demand the service they are rightfully paying for to your face.
Development off-site could work for short stints like a day or two per week. Any more than that and you lose the personal communication with the people you are working with. There's more to writing code that other people want bad enough to pay you for than hiding in a cube or at home for 3-6 months. That's more divisive than productive, especially on a complex project. Getting paid is about dealing with the people who pay you.
Would telecommuters be willing to reduce their pay to compensate for their lack of availability?
If management isn't already open to at least a discussion of telecommuting then it's likely your request will fall on deaf ears. This however isn't the case if you've been at a company for a long time and have quite a bit of power.
Employer needs to pay a lot for insurance while the employee is telecomuting. Employer is liable, if employee falls from stairs...
As an employer I once thought that telecomuting was a wonderful thing because we saved on office space and related support costs. Now after many abuses by everyone working at home I think its a horrible idea. Many others agree with me. If your employer is up to date on management journals etc. they will probably deny you, maybe even suspect you of wanting a permanent paid vacation. It just doesn't work, no matter what you do.
(assuming "family" means kids, of course.. otherwise why'd you want a bigger house out of the city).
Employers want the workers to work. So if you can sell them on the idea that you'd be more productive, they might consider it. No way they'll believe you can accomplish anything if you're the main caregiver for your kids though.
And remember that they have to treat everyone fairly, so trust in your track record and promises aren't going to be enough. There will have to be an evaluation method in place, rules, and all sorts of things. Most people who telecommute actually work harder than they do at the office.
Many readers have posted with reasons why companies are reluctant to have employees telecommute, most stemming from discomfort caused by it's unfamiliarity, but also due to a fear of lack of control leading to lower productivity.
In addition to these, it's important to consider whether telecommuting is actually in your own best interest in the current economic environment. The economic downturn (ahem, recession) has impacted the tech community rather severely. Numerous layoffs from failed dot-coms are re-entering the market, increases in W-2 visas have lead to even more workers in the market. If the current financial situation continues, many other companies will be forced to "downsize" to appease investor concerns. At this point you have to think:
Who will the company keep, the person they see around the water cooler every day, or the highly-productive worker who telecommutes?
While the real answer should be based on productivity and bottom-line cost, the social aspects of the environment often exude an inordinate influence on the decision.
Just something to consider.
The problem is that chances are you have your own cubicle or office, with a workstation on the desk, and a whole mess of software. If you telecommute, that workstation and desk are going to be running a screen saver and not much else. That's not efficient.
Telecommuting can work as a business model, but only if you really embrace that model, and that's difficult to do.
grep -ri 'should work'
...that Americans chose to drive instead, when given the opportunity to do so back in the 40s and 50s. The conspiracy theory about Standard Oil and GM buying up the Los Angeles Red Cars to dismantle them is a load of bull. The fact is that they did try to keep them running and turn a profit, which turned out to be impossible due to declining ridership. Then, voters practically beat down the doors of the city council, complaining that the damned trolleys were blocking their way, and demanded they be removed from the roads to make way for everyone's fancy new cars. So that's what the city council did- responded to pulic demand. We made our bed, and now we must lie in it.
Or not! I just started working at Universal Studios. A big factor in choosing this job was being able to take the new subway there from lovely Los Feliz. After 15 years in "suburban" Orange County, LA rocks! Die strip malls! Hello neighborhoods! Woo hoo!
My company has been doing telecommuting for years. We have people from the lowest ranks all the way to the CTO telecommute for a very long time (we are in the DC Metro area and our former CTO used to fly from Rhode Island twice a month, the rest of his business was done over the phone and thru email and instant messengers).
My own team has a special flex time arrangement. Option one is you telecommute full time and are not entitled to your own office, and we will provide you with a laptop loaded with all the software you need, cover your telecommunication costs and you will only have to show up around the office once or twice a month.
Option two is the real flex time: you do whatever the hell you want as long as we see you around the office 3 times a week. As long as your project manager is happy I am happy. We will usually pay for your ISP and in some specific cases we will even pay for broadband (like in my own personal case).
Flex time rocks because sometimes the muse hits you at 11:00 PM and you prefer to pull an all-nighter than wait til the morning only to find the muse is gone. If you like to work these weird hours the only thing you do is send your boss, the front desk and any project managers an email saying that you worked til 5AM and that you are going to sleep until the afternoon. That's all and nobody will bother you.
BTW, flex time workers are not entitled to a laptop, they get a workstation and an office (no cubes here, the cubes are for telecommuters that are visiting) and you are not entitled to have company software installed at your home pc.
Why is this cheap?
Our branch is in Bethesda, Maryland. This is a very hostile place to find parking, so one of the perks is to pay for our garage space. Stay home and you pay your own parking. The company saves $70 on each employee that stays home. Office space is very expensive. Keeping you at home means more people can have an office and we don't have to tear down the walls to make cubicle islands. There are many savings like that that will add up to significant savings over the year.
The employee saves too. Less gas spent. Since Starbucks is now 2 miles away instead of across the street you cut down from $7/day in Cappuccinos to $3.50 every other day. Better bandwidth (my cable is always faster than the fractional t1 at the office) and PEACE.
Yes, PEACE. Nobody kocking on your office door every 10 minutes to show you something you don't really care. No b.s. meetings (if the meeting is important you will teleconference to it). You also save time in the commute (I save between one and three hours a day just by staying home).
Still, it has a downside. A programmer that works at home works longer hours because of the lack of distractions. Some people are not compatible with telecommuting because of lack of discipline. And some just crave the human contact.
You also have to be on alert for abusive project managers that take advantage that you are working from home, especially if you are single. You have to learn to turn off the instant messengers after a certain hour or you risk project managers continuously pushing you to work 12-hour days and weekends.
Right now I manage 8 programmers. One lives over 2 hours away and I see her probably every other week. Another one shows up probably once a month. They are both senior developers and the only thing they need me for is to approve their timesheets. The other guys are not as independent, so I make them show up at the office 3 times a week until I can see that they are mature enough to stay home.
Pedro
----
The Insomniac Coder
I was astonished and flattered that they decided to keep me on, paying for my broadband and giving me a backup server to host at my home. They even promised to give me a new laptop next year!
The trick was, they knew how many articles/training programs/phone support calls I had handled over 4 years. Now that I work from home, they can still easily track my production vs. earlier production on-site.
They see me when I'm sleeping. They know when I'm awake...
Better for both of us in the long run.
--Any sufficiently reliable magic is indistinguishable from technology.
A little over 10 years ago when I was 19, I used to daydream about working at home. I read a book who's title I can't recall, but it's subtitle was "everything you need to know about working and living under the same roof". That was a great book. It had all kinds of tips, including how to approach management, how to discipline yourself, and how to setup your work environment. The author (authors? husband and wife I think..) even gave anecdotes like the one about the guy who would walk out to his backyard every morning, open and shut his car door to start his day, and repeat the process at night to end his day.
:)
The first time I worked at home I needed to write some perl code to make a Linux box telnet to an OS/2 console and manage the network from a command line. I had a good junior admin whom I trusted, and I explained to the director that I would get the my work done much better if I took an old OS/2 server home and worked there instead.
Also right from the book, I promised that if I did leave the house during the day, I would always have my pager, and I would never be more than 60 minutes from the office. That either kept me at or very close to home.. no wandering around all day. I also promised that I would come right in to the office on a "home day" without any argument should I be asked.
One night, a server in another building crashed and my jr admin was on it. We spoke by phone for a few hours and I finally decided to go in. When I told the director I was coming in, she said, "oh thank God. I was hoping you would." I said to her very sternly, "we have an arrangement here, and I promised to come in as soon as you asked. I thought [he] could handle it with my instruction, but if you wanted me here, all you had to do was say, 'please come in' and I would have jumped in the car right away." She appreciated that, and we went out for drinks. My work-at-home project was very successful, and when the jr admin quit, we replaced him with my perl scripts, which they appreciated very much
Fast forward 2 years to Dec '00. As an IBM consultant, I am 'hired' to work on projects, either internal or external. I was about to be let go for the 1st quarter, but I felt we were leaving the customer with inferior procedures. I told my project manager what they needed (an automated NT server build process) and what I needed in order to put it together (a server and 3 months at home). They accepted my proposal, and I spent the wicked Philadelphia winter warm at home.
As far as distractions go, I absolutely had to tell my wife the first time I worked at home, "honey, when I go in this room and close the door, it's just like I'm in New York City. You can't keep walking in here and sitting down to chat with me." At first she argued saying "but I don't know when you're not going to be here everyday anymore." I replied, "if you don't let me work, it'll be sooner than later."
If you don't have scheduled times to meet with or speak to people, its absolute bliss. They basically told me, "see you in 3 months". I worked whenever I felt productive, even 1am on Sunday nights. I worked with my brain's clock, not my wall clock. I could take my wife (or myself) to the doctor, go shopping if I needed people contact, and most importantly work whenever I was productive. I know I had it extremely lucky, but I've had extremely good luck working at home.
I'm glad I had hints about how to go about "being the first one" in the office to try it out, and I'm glad I've known how to work at home before joining IBM where they practically force you to get used to not having any handholding! God damn I love my job.
Intelligent Life on Earth
Take a deep breath. People actually do telecommute, as I do. In fact I work as a direct employee for a company 350 miles away. To do this one needs to develop trust with your employer. Develop excellent communication skills, both spoken and written. Finally, learn how to maintain an office. In other words have good organizational skills.
I have three suggestions on how you can sell your boss on Telecommuting:
More benefits include losing less work time for personal time off for short errands which can only be done during 8-5. One 1/2 hour appointment at 10 gets you to work at 12:30.
Some set backs to your plan will be getting your phone extension at home, possible increased cell phone expenses, reimbursement for a high speed internet connection, etc. Make sure you include solutions for these.
Good luck!
------ /bin/laden
# rm -rf
I worked for two years at a software company in Texas doing most of the network and system design/setup/troubleshooting, as well as some management. During this time I did probably 1/3 of my work at home. I had 1.5M ADSL, so my connectivity was better than the office T1 shared by 200+ people. My work machine was a terrible Dell Optiplex which only sort of played nice with Linux, versus my much better PC and SGI Octane at home. So at the beginning I'd work maybe 6 hours and go home and do another 4 or 5. This was fine because I love sysadmining and hate Texas. My boss got to the point where he only required that I be at work between noon and 4pm because I was far more productive at home, and I never took sick days because I'd just do stuff from home with a puke bucket by my side (which was better than laying in bed doing nothing). Did I have to work so much?
Eventually my wife got pregnant and we decided to move back to the midwest to be closer to our families, so I went into my boss's office one day and said "I'm quitting, this is your two month notice." We chatted for a bit and then I walked back to my cube. Waiting for me was an email saying "I'd like you to be a consultant and work from home". Well of course I said yes. Working from home is the Holy Grail after all.
Now that I've been doing it for 8 months, I'm not so sure that's true. I miss the annoying and cool people at the office. Politics are definitely more of a factor now. Where I used to be able to do things quickly and decisively, I now have to spend a lot of time explaining myself. I get paged a lot more. Essentially I've ceased being a human being and am now just a tool that can be brought to bear at any time. Unfortunately, I haven't found anything more interesting jobwise here in Kansas City so I'm stuck for the time being.
Buy a Ferrari! Seriously, my friend was having some bad times at work, and was thinking about leaving. His bosses convinced him to stay, but he still hated it - especially his commute. So he asked himself, "What can I do to make my commute more enjoyable?" and voila... he bought a nice car :)
You should never take life too seriously - You'll never get out of it alive.
Kids make it hard to work from home. If your work speaks for itself (in a possitive manner) then it is a good connection. On the other side of the fence -- in this day and age of "doing more with less"...It is very valuable to have your "best" people at the jobsite where they can lend a helping hand in a team environment. I cannot begin to explain how valuable it is to have everyone located such that they can turn to each other in person and share their skills.
(+1 Funny) only if I laugh out loud.
I sometimes telecoummute, but at the moment, I need a dsl connection as software development is done via a central repository at work. A dialup connection is way too slow.
I find I work longer and harder at home. I don't watch the clock and there are fewer distractions. I don't have to shower in the morning and I can look like shit warmed over and yet still work. It all depends on your attitude and environment. I don't have kids unless you consider 4 dogs and 2 cats as kids. I do, but they don't bother me at all and they just like my presence.
Whether you are productive or not when telecommuting is up to you. You can be a complete jerk-off and play all day or you can work much better than you can at an office with all sorts of distractions.
And judgiing your productivity is always questionable at best. If you don't meet impossible schedules, are you not productive? I don't think so. You must know that most software sucks and is behind schedule because of impossible demands.
Identify the benefits of the situation, and be prepared with to discuss workarounds or compromises to accommodate the downsides of telecommuting. (And make no mistake about it -- there will be some downsides; you just need to make the case that they are outweighed by the benefits.)
Here are some of the things your boss probably cares about:
To tackle the real downsides of telecommuting, I'd suggest you find excuses to get into the office with some regularity -- once a month, minimum, ideally more like once a week. As for the perception-driven parts, well, just hope your boss isn't too pointy-haired... ;-)
"Biped! Good cranial development. Evidently considerable human ancestry."
Realistically, I expend about 20 hours a week of actual work in the office. I'm there for 40, but I check /., k5, memepool, etc, etc.
Still, today I worked from 8:00 till 6:30 almost 7:00 because I got interested in something.
At the end, I realized the SO was going to be pissed if I didn't come home, so I burned my current work to cd and took it home. I have an exciting project to play with, and I'll probably work on it all weekend if I can.
Not to mention I'll get twice as much done without people coming up and asking me stupid questions.
I live about a mile from work, so occasionally I'll go home to hack out a solution, just to get away from the boss demanding silly-assed things from me.
Now I have to admit I have no offsping-obligations, and my SO works approx. the same hours I do, so home is actually a very productive environment. I don't have the multiple T3's (shared between 5,000 or so users) at my disposal, but I do have broadband so I get dedicated bandwidth and no pesky (super restricted) firewall. Not to mention, one of my main servers sits outside a firewall that I don't control, so I can't hit it from inside the corp.
Now to sum up, and try to reconcile my contradictory statements - Would I want to work at home? No.
I live close enough to jet for lunch, so my claustrophobia doesn't set in, yet at the same time I am always contactable, and the more time I spend in the office - the more the "higher up's" appreciate it.
Somehow being there is more valuable than actually kicking out real work.
It's a stupid way to run a company, but that's my situation, and I'm pretty much happy and in line with it. I wouldn't be surprised if that's the way it works everywhere... Try as we might, the human race cannot get over our direct communication preferences. Sometimes just being there at the right time to solve the CEO's 'immediate' silly-assed problem gets way more respect than it deserves.
But then again, I am truly a slave of the almighty dollar, so take that with a grain of salt.
I'm lucky to work for a company that REALLY believes in Telecommuting. My entire team (18 engineers) all work out of their houses, all over the country, as does the majority of our total engineering staff. I technically have a cubicle in our nearest office to my house (about 60 miles), but I haven't been there in probably a year. (Oops, forgot about that spider plant!) I find that I get a lot more done at home than I ever did at the office. Sure, there are distractions, but nobody pops their head over my cubicle wall to ask me some technical quiestion or anything.
My director, who also works from home came up with these "rules." They aren't corporate directives or anything, but more suggestions. They really work. My productivity level is definatley higher than it was in the 'cube farm'
Without further adu, here are the rules:
1) Explain and discuss the rules
Sit down with your wife (or room mate) and other family members as necessary, to discuss these rules, and why it is important that they are followed. Explain the basic philosphies behind these rules as well.
2) The philsophy
This is not so much a rule as a general philophy or principle that is the basis for all other rules. When you are telecommuting, you are at work, not at home. Although you may be physically at home, mentally and otherwise, you are at work, and should be considered with the same level of respect as if you were at the office.
3) Establish your office hours.
By defining your office hours, you define the time constraints in which these rules are in effect.
You also avoid situations where you might feel you're "never really at home, and never really at work." Without set office hours, you can subconsciously allow distractions to occur when you know you should
be working, and you then find yourself making up for them by working when you should be with your family or sleeping.
4) Establish the location of your office
The office is ideally a seperate room in your home, with a door. Having the means by which to isolate yourself from noises in the house (TV, children, vacuuming, etc.) is a very important part of creating a productive work environment in the home. A general use area, such as the kitchen or dining room table may not provide you with the recquired isolation, unless circumstances permit (you live alone, your wife works during the day, no kids, etc.)
5) Pursant to rule 4, loud noises such as the stereo and TV, or loud playing/screaming near the office should be suppressed during office hours out of consideration. Some amount of this is unavoidable, especially during summer vacation periods, but it should be minimized if at all possible. Keep the stereo volume low, and encourage the kids to play in the back yard as weather permits.
6) How and when you can be contacted.
During working hours, if you are in your office, you must be contacted through normal means. You can be called on the phone, or sent an email, but you must not be interupted by a personal visit unless it has been pre-arranged. This includes short visits to say hi, reminders to do chores, hugs from kids, etc.
If you leave your office, for lunch, or for a break, you are fair game. You can be tackled, tickled, or otherwise abused while you are out of your office. Once you return to your office, it's back to work, and rules are back in effect.
7) childcare
It's an easy mistake to make. One of your kids stay's home sick, and since you are already at home, you take care of them. Or, they are home for summer vacation, and your wife takes one of them somewhere and leaves the other children at home.
If you would normally place these children in daycare if an adult were not at home, that, you MUST make daycare arrangements for these children. Remember rule #2. If you must stay home and tend to others care, then you should take leave or PTO.
8) your work away from work
Make time to visit others that you work with in face-to-face situations. It does not take long to feel isolated from the rest of the company, despite today's tools for group colaboration and video conferencing.
9) Keep the office as clean as you would your office
As telecommuting gains more visibility nationally, laws are being passed that dictate that your home office must comply with federal safety regulations, such as OSHA, and that your employer may be liable for unsafe things in your home office. The best policy is to keep your office clean and safe from hazards. Hopefully, inspections will never be conducted.
10) have the proper equipment
Make sure that you have everything you need to be productive, including headsets, a seperate business line from your home line, fast internet connectivity, sufficient computer equipment and sufficient cooling for them (sometimes a problem in desert areas). There is no reason you should feel deprived of anything at home that you would otherwise have at the office (with possible exception to the free sodas and catering).
11) before and after work routines
Some people find it difficult to make the transition between work and home, and have an established routine to help delineate, citing they use the commute to prepare for the day and destress from the day. Such routines includes dressing as you would normally dress, and getting in the car, pulling into the driveway, and pulling back into the garage, or just walking around the block (which doubles as a way to get the circulation going). I personally do not find any of this necessary, although I do still make a cappucino first thing more often than not.
If you are having trouble getting your mind in gear in the morning, or destressing in the evening, you might try taking walks before and after work. You can make the walk as long or short as you find necessary.
Basically, my point is, by allowing you to telecommute, the company is providing you with a perk, and they're taking a risk during dangerous times. In exchange, you should be willing to prove through your actions that this means a great deal to you. And, you might just get promoted while you're at it
For the initial step, I agree with the above post, that you should convince them to allow a trial month, once a week, while you're still at your current location. Then, once you get them up to two days, move, and work early mornings. From there, three or even four days a week should be relatively easy.
"The question of whether a computer can think is no more interesting than that of whether a submarine can swim" -EWD
I highly recommend the book Work Naked, by Cynthia Froggatt. It's a book about workplace alternatives, written to benefit both the potential telecommuter and their manager. You could learn about the common alternatives to the cubicle/office and how to implement them most effectively. You could hand the book to your manager and they could learn about why telecommuting is okay, how management can change its attitude about performance evaluation, how to implement telecommuting strategies, and so on. There are plenty of case studies and individual testimonies. If I needed to convince an employer about the benefits of telecommuting (fortunately, I don't have to), I would use this book.
Let me guess, are you in the Bay Area? Housing here is nuts, cannot see how it can be sustained as people are taking pay cuts or moving out.
I'd be careful about mentioning other jobs, there really isn't a whole lot out there and he may try and trump you on this alone.
But he will know all about housing and probably listen to your plan, I mean you could well be an experiment to see how it goes (as suggested by others).
Matt
Telecommuting seems like a good idea up front, but doesn't work in the long run. Sure many workers will love it, and might even work more each day because food is right there, no commute is needed, no reason to dress up, etc. But there will always be a few bad apples who totally blow a project by sleeping late and playing games all day. I speak from experience, my last employer had our entire team start telecommuting when our lease ran out and they were not sure where to put our new offices and datacenter. Within a week productivity went down the tubes, and it resulted in lax security that allowed almost all of our NT servers to be hit by Code Red, causing enough traffic to knock out some network equipment and even a few poorly maintained Solaris servers.
Of course, a few servers were ok, those were the ones managed by the people who could actually work from home and get work done.
Incidents like this seem to be common with telecommuters. If you really decide to push for it, make sure that other employees are up to doing it right, or things will get really screwed up in the end.
Many outfits won't go for it because the boss likes to be able to pop his head into your office and see whether you're working or just to jerk your chain some. Oh yeah, they cook up all sorts of other ostensible reasons but it really boils down to a matter of trust.
Wansu, th' chinese sailor
Why aren't the environmentalists promoting telecommuting? It's an obvious, inexpensive way to reduce automobile traffic and associated pollution. They advocate spending big money on public transporatation systems. Perhaps there's something to be said for public transportation but I've yet to hear them promote telecommuting.
Wansu, th' chinese sailor
Social interaction is going to be the key to if when and how you would be allowed to do your job as a telecommuter. Social interaction, feedback, and the "brainstorming" that happens ust by having people all in the same building is a BIG deal. If your offsite you and the company lose the benifits of dealing with other people.
You won't make contacts in other departments, and honestly out of sight is out of mind and you'll hurt your career in that regard with your manager. I personally would be afraid of being replaced if I could do what I do offsite. If you can do your job from home, some guy in russia or india can do your job and most likely a good deal cheaper too.
If you work out fine, then you've just proven basically your nothing more than a machine that does output at their direction, no matter how technical or creative you are. Once your a machine, your a commodity and the only thing they will care about is the price they pay you.
The web devolpers and database guys I manage could do their work at home, but the most efficent way for us to colabrate is to all get together. If you have a great boss thsi will be his objection, if not his gut will tell him it isn't good but he won't know exactly why. We just don't brainstorm over the phone or with IM or anthing else in the same way as in person.
My $.02
Just do it... If you're valuable enough in your position, that is..
--
$ chown -R us:us yourbase
The sure fire way to get a good telecommuting situation is to make yourself absolutely indispensible to a project and then take matters into your own hands. Don't ask for telecommuting, simply tell your boss you're not going to be getting most of your work done in the office. This might sound ridiculous at first, but you have to bring it on slow like a splitting wedge going into a slice of tree trunk.
Obviously making demands from your boss isn't going to work. So, start doing your work at home in advance and build up a better infrastructure at home than you have at the office. Any time you have a chance to interact with the boss about your work, explaing that you did most of it at home and that you did it there because you have better faster machines, more control over the network etc. Go into detail on this at every chance you get so that when the time comes you're way ahead of the game. The time that's waiting to come is the time when you have some personal emergency and you come back from a week at home with twice as much done as you would do at the office. Now you have facts to back up your position and the burden of evidence starts to shift to your employer.
Of course this is a lot more likely to be effective in a very small company where the management isn't ten layers deep in ugly assholes. In the latter case, you've got little wiggle room for the obvious reason that multi-tiered management schemes collapse without the divide and conquer mentality towards the staff. If you don't force the staff to act as a herd, how can you play the shepherd role adequately?
In this situation, you probably have to ask what makes your company tick. If the company is bloated and living off some patents or ancient brand names that enables thick layers of blood-sucking management leaches to thrive, you might as well adapt to the status quo, because that's the way it's going to stay. If you're into that environment, you may want to get an MBA and spend your free time memorizing important people's names, looking for that perfect tie and practicing your firmest handshake. That's right, it's just like church because it's all based on faith in conservative icons.
Expecting to get your way just because you have mad satanic programming skillz best done naked covered in chicken blood in the basement is not going to impress this bunch. Maybe you should just buy a big sack of flour, a fifty-five gallon drum of soybean oil and some green onion seeds and quit working altogether. You can raise healthy kids on green onion pancakes and the occasional eggs from the sacrificial chickens.
I took it in steps, I waited for a HIGH priority short term project/task to come along and then persuaded my boss that I could get it done by the next day if I could get away from the distractions of the office. Gradually I used this approach on larger and larger projects proving each time that I could produce the goods on time if left alone to do the job. And now I work largely from home.
I am now facing two problems however, my situation is being exploited by others who do not have the facilities to efficiently at home (high speed computers and good bandwidth) and who are married with children (I'm not). They seem to spend a lot of time transporting their children to and from events, or complaining that their laptop is not upto the job and are not really producing. This is combined with the 'jealousy' of employees who cannot work at home because their jobs require facilities that are only available at work (scopes, logic analysers, etc....). The result is that I feel the company is going to force us all back to working in the office. And I can't really blame them considering the effect to the company overall. I'll probably quit though since I work at a company that currently has no understanding of quiet offices and mix photocopiers (and associated gossip mongers), meeting areas and very loud paging systes into one area.
In short I can tell you how to get to work at home, but not how to make it last. Any Ideas?
-- Finding the Market
Salespeople know to it's better to market their message to people who will be receptive to the message. In your case, make your pitch to your current manager but be prepared to move on.
Managers either "get it" or they don't. They manage either a) by understanding what work has to be done and by tracking deliverables or b) by using "face time". You will know which camp your manager belongs to very shortly, if you don't already.
My recommendation is to "make your pitch" but be prepared to move on. That doesn't mean "give up." But, maybe you'll have to look for another job with a company that tolerates -- perhaps even supports -- telecommuting. Or, you might interview and offer to join another company on the condition that you be allowed to work entirely (or x% of the time) from home. In other words, you have to find someone receptive to your idea.
As an earlier poster remarked, do this before you buy that home 2 hours from a metro area.
Also, I wouldn't post my resume on a job board. A friend of mine was recently canned by the firm that found out he was looking, even though he won some peer recognition awards shortly before that.
-- Making It Work
I telecommuted a few times as a consultant. Here's what I recommend:
First, keep a cell phone with you. Always, ALWAYS have that with you during ANY part of the day someone from the office might reasonably call you. If you aren't immediately available, your manager(s) and coworkers will perceive that your absence from the workplace has diminished _their_ productivity.
Worried about the air-time charges? Ok, but resist the temptation to give your home number out. Someone will call you when you've stepped out for lunch or went to use the bathroom. Give out ONLY your cell phone number and then always call people right back. I emphasize "only" because as soon as you give out your home phone, it's possible it will end up floating around the office as "the number to reach [you]".
Second, make sure your email client is always running and always reply promptly to all emails, even if you can only say "I'll think about that" or "I'll get back to you on that."
Funny how the first two points are what people should do when they're IN the office. Huh.
Third, a few whiteboards at home and a digital camera worked great for mocking up UI's, object/data models, etc. Low tech, great results.
Fourth, dsl + ssh (with port forwarding) + other tools = virtually there.
Fifth, read what others said about the politics of not showing your face. You might lose promotion opportunities and might increase your chances of being laid off in hard times. I think this is more likely to happen when your manager isn't a sharp technical person who can accurately assess your contributions/efforts.
Indeed, if it's true (as another poster indicated) that firms are decreasing their telecommuting because of a perceived lack of productivity, I BET YOU these firms' managers rely more heavily on "face time".
So, sixth, to reduce the influence of politics, make sure the person you report to is or was extremely capable technically. Analytical people play fairer politics: they analyze rather than act emotionally.
As an aside, if I ever have to take another job as an employee, I intend to interview my prospective manager and his/her superior more fully. That means get a copy of _their_ resumes, ask them what challenges they've faced, how they reacted, etc., to find out how sharp and open-minded they are.
-- Productivity
My productivity was equal to or better than it was in the office, even though the work still required a fair amount of interaction with others. My suspicion is that once you understand the business requirements for a project, communication within the design and implementation teams can be done completely electronically. However, I opted to perform the initial requirement-gathering activities in direct meetings with analysts. "Show me what you mean" and "draw out what you'd like to see" is more easily done in person.
One of the things that helped make my productivity MARKEDLY higher was using my own equipment. Companies ALWAYS under-equip their top talent. Why spend $130k on salary (with overhead) and not pay $4k more for an extra 10% or more in yearly productivity? (And that's cost-accounting, not accounting for the value of the work output to the company's revenue and profits.) Here at home, I invested in dual monitors (21"/17"), a server, tape backup, and a cheap laptop for email only.
The cheap laptop meant I could go to the office and still have all my email with me. I don't like web mail because administrators are always limiting the size of mailboxes and because I personally love the UI and multiple-account handling features of Outlook Express. (I don't like Outlook.)
Of course, I don't bother trying to explain any of this to managers who don't already know it. (At least, not any more.) It's just not worth the time.
Same goes for many things. If your manager is unreceptive to your ideas generally, go work for another manager. You'll be a lot happier working somewhere where your contributions are considered and perhaps tested, rather than ignored or flatly disregarded.
--Conclusion
Of course, I don't really know your situation. So read the foregoing "advice" but use at your own discretion and risk.
Use what makes sense to you and throw out what doesn't.
Best of luck.
I've got experiance with telecommuting - much more than most because I've been doing it for about 20 years. Yep, I'm a consultant. I have worked for a LOT of companies and developed a lot of software. But what I accomplish as a programmer is identical to what a programmer as an employee does - except that typically I was FAR MORE productive. So I got paid more.
Do I hire consultants? Yes. Do they come into my offices? No. Do I really care where they are located? No. Would I prefer to hire people as employees and pay them less per hour than consultants? No, I'd prefer to pay more per hour and get better productivity. These are just my personal experiances.
1) What prompted me to be self employed and refuse to accept a "job"? Well - working for a "boss" was never an issue. I had some of the best bosses that a man could look for and these "bosses" have in fact been mentors and in many respects they have been responsible for my success. For one company I interviewed my own "supervisor". The answer to the "why" question is first and foremost "Because I liked the freedom". You need to stand up for what you want.
2) Was it easy? Never. I had to be prepared to tell people that: "No - I'm not interested in a job. I am interested in your project and I'd just love to get it running". Many employers don't appreciate that it often doesn't matter who developes something - what matters is that the job gets done. This mindset was always a problem. The solution was simply that I didn't work for them. There is a LOT of work out there. Pick what you do!
3) Why was I more productive? Well - there are many answers to this. I could work my own hours. I could set up my own work environment. What this meant for instance is that I ran a dual monitor system for software development back in 1990 at a time when 95% of programmers were expected to function with a single head. I never had a constant stream of people constantly bugging me. My office was about 2x as large as what generous employers provided - and I have 12' of bookshelves with ALL my reference material present. At $65 bux per square foot, figure out the cost of a 250 square foot office... My present office is larger.
I had more time available to put into work. One of my clients asked me to clone myself. That is a nice feeling. Consider my time equation. Commute for me was about 20 minutes... not 2 hours. In general this meant that if they wanted a meeting - they could give me a call and I could be there within 1/2 hour. Sometimes this is important - not always. But commute in rush hour was about 3/4 of an hour. So this gave me 2 x 3/4 + lunch which is 2 1/2 hours per day that I could devote to their work which their other people did not have.
4) Advantages for me. I have freedom. I actually did one contract while I was overseas and the client did not know. Well - they did eventually find out... but that was Mid February when it was 20 below and they suggested we pop out for fish and chips. I said I couldn't make it... Not good enough, why? Well - the flight back was 16 hours! I'd been calling them long distance, hitting their servers, hitting my servers. They didn't even suspect for 6 weeks because there was no reason to even see each other face to face. I did not realise until later that they were kind of jealous that while they were slogging it through a Canadian winter it was nice and warm where I was. You can rent a beach house in S.E. Asia for quite reasonable... Malaysia is quite nice in February, and the King Prawns are just to die for. The beer is good too!
I'm a single parent. I was actually in a very special situation, one that very few others would be in - thank God! - and my clients knew and did make allowances. My wife was terminally ill from the time my children were born and needed constant supervision for over 5 years. Hiring a nurse would have involved 16 hours of coverage which would exceed what most employees take home. No way I was going to bust my butt just to see everything I earned evaporate in nursing costs. Telecommute allowed me to be where I was needed.
This meant that I got to raise my kids. Even though I was a single parent my kids were never once in a day care situation. I was there to walk them to school, meet them when the came home. If they wanted to come home for lunch - no problem. How many Dad's can say this? How many working mothers?
I can not believe the stress most people must live under. Pre-school programs. Up before 7am - kids to day care by 7:30, commute to the office... What to do if one has the measles? 8-4:30 in the office. All hell to deal with an after work meeting... Pick up the kids by 5:30, everyone is tired and cranky. Prepare dinner for 6:30, done by 7pm. That is 12 hours folks!!! 12 hours for 7 hours of work punctuated by constant interuptions.
7/12 = 58% efficiency.
Constrast: Out of bed by 7:45. Kids to school for 9 am so start breaky, coffee, walk into the office and start checking emails. By 8:30 kids are up and by 8:45 they are off to school. No interuptions until 3:45 when they bang through the door and scream "I'm home Dad!" as if I didn't know. Just stay off the phone to clients from 3:30 on. They're trying to wrap things up and get out of the office anyway because 1/2 of them are stressed out over getting to the day care/after school in time! Dinner has been cooking since 2:30 - nice pot roast... Kids have eaten by 5:30 and they are doing homework or watching TV. I've got 2-3 more hours I can do productive work if I wish... or take the kids to a speed skating class starting at 6:30. About 1 1/2 hours here are involved with domestic and personal issues - so that means (7 + 1.5) = 8 1/2. 7/8.5 = 82% efficiency.
The biggest single benefit here is stress. Knowledge workers can not be productive when they are under stress. No wonder I could get more work done! If a crunch was comming up - I had an extra 4 hours that I could put in from 7 to 11 pm. And my family life did not suffer as a result.
Bottom Line: In my personal experiance I was able to accomplish more in less time. I got paid more - perhaps 2x per hour what employees were paid, but my clients felt they got better value. I had my freedom. In spite of a horrible personal circumstances where I needed to be a care giver to a very sick spouse, I was able to pursue a very rewarding career. My clients appreciated the extra effort I could put into their work, and they certainly were free at any time to let me go at a moment's notice if they wanted.
Much of my productivity was due to not being too tired to work or too stressed to work. I know that some of the people who read this will have kids in day care and pre/after school programs and either be single parents or be pursuing dual careers. I feel sorry for you!
In closing I will add that one of my best friends is doing the same. Another of my best friends is following a different road and he also did not ask his employer if he could "telecommute". He just quit and set up his own business in competition. I think they are up to 50 people by now. He also supports the freedom model and MOST of the people working with him are freelancers. He encourages this.
It is not so much trying to convince your employers that they should allow "telecommuting". Rather it is taking the bull by the horns and developing the confidence to tell a company that you really do not want to be their employee. If you do excellent work they'll give you what you ask.
I have been doing this for four years now. From my experience I have found the following:
1. You need a seperate room that is the office, and not used for anything else. Period.
2. You need to be disciplined about putting in at least 8 hours a day.
3. Bath, shave, etc. each day as if you are going into the office. You do not have to put on the tie, etc. but at least look respectable enough, in case visitors come to the house.
4. Set limits with the kids. They are not to disturb you during working hours. Period.
5. Always get more work done than the boss would expect you to get done at the office.
6. Use the phone. The phone is your lifeline and a ongoing sales tool to convince the boss of the benefit of your telecommute.
7. Use email religiously. If I am going to take a staggered lunch, say from 11:30 - 12:30 instead of 12:00 to 1:00. I will email everyone I believe needs to know, that I am taking the staggered lunch.
8. Try to participate in any propject conference calls. Use this opportunity to banter with other project members. Be prepared.
9. Get a Cordless phone with a headset and some range. This way if you are away from the room you call a office, you can still answer the phone. This gives the people at the office and customers the sense that you are always available. There is nothing that starts rumors faster than not being able to get ahold of someone who is telecommuting.
10. Get call waiting and call forwarding. This once again gives the caller the sense that you are always available.
11. Remember this is for your and your families benefit. The company percieves they are giving something up (ie control). Show them and your boss that you are not a HR headache.
All comments are my own (Unless I am having a out-of-body experience).
- Telecommuting increases your life by nearly 20%. Consider this: you spend two waking hours a day commuting. This is time shot to hell. When you telecommute, you can use this time for living - for working, or going to the grocery store, or playing catch with your kids, or whatever.
- Telecommuting frees you from office distractions. You're away from the meetings, the chit-chat, the pointless phone calls. All of that crap wastes time that you could be using to work.
- Telecommuting lets you work in an environment that you find most comfortable. Code naked if you like.
- Telecommuting is energy-efficient. After Black Tuesday, we may be facing another oil crisis. Tell your boss that it's patriotic to save energy by not physically commuting to work.
There are drawbacks, however:
- You *must* be disciplined. You have to force yourself to start in the morning; and just as important, you have to force yourself to stop in the evening.
- You are cut off from interaction with your co-workers. You won't be able to talk to the Perl guru in the next office to help you with a knotty problem. Sure, you can send e-mail or phone him, but that's not as efficient.
- You are cut off from interaction with customers. This is particularly important, because you may lose your sense of the direction of a project, which may mean that you're charging off in the wrong direction.
- You may be forgotten by management. Out of sight, out of mind is true for managers too. This is particuarly true when a company is sold and a new management team takes over. Regardless of how good you are, they may decide you're "dead wood" because you are not there to be seen.
When I telecommuted, I found it best to schedule days in the office and days at home. Usually, I would be in the office on Monday and Tuesday; there, I would meet with people, talk to customers, present what I had done the previous week, and take notes on what work needed to be done. Wednesday through Friday, I would work at home, writing code and generally carrying out the work that I planned on the first two days. I found that this worked well: people got used to my schedule, and would plan meetings that needed me for the first part of the week. And it also helped me to stay oriented to what the company was up to, and what I needed to do.
Good luck with your telecommuting!
As an engineer, I've convinced a series of reluctant managers through simple principles of observability and connectivity and now, as a manager, my experience makes for simple guidelines for my team.
Here's what worked for me:
During your "pilot program", try it on one day a week and prior to that day, predefine with your boss the small, concrete deliverable you will produce on that day. After you produce it, make sure you and your boss discuss it the following day. Subtly point out your performance rather than say, "See, I told you I'd work and I did." Of course you did. What's important is some particular about your work, right? For example, if your deliverable is to write a section of a report, show up the next day and review the section, perhaps to clarify some point or another, with him or her.
Provide metrics for your work. This has all the side benefits that metrics provide and makes for an easy way for the boss to feel comfortable. If you are writing code, make it easy for him or her to generate a report on how many tested lines of code you write from day to day. If you are producing models or documentation, make sure your work is constantly checked-in and available so your boss can browse your progress at any moment. I don't want to start a thread on the usefullness of brain-dead metrics like LOC, I'm just making the point that the more visible you make your work, the more comfortable your boss (and your team members) will be.
Make yourself so available through mobile communications technology that nobody knows or cares if you are in the office or not. In my case, I was both a toolsmith and a support person so I made sure (as has been said already):
For example, I regularily checked on machines in India at night, on India time, something no 9-to-5 office worker could do. I once walked a customer through a build issue while deep in the stacks at the library, whispering into my cell phone as I continued to browse. The guy was back on the air in minutes. My teammates and customers got my usual high quality interaction
Yeah, I worked harder just to accomplish the apparently minor goal of keeping my boss more comfortable and some people feel that shouldn't be necessary, but bosses are human. A boss in his comfort zone is a flexible boss, willing to take risks for his team.
Yeah, I responded to interrupts too much and this made it hard to concentrate some times, but I created a presence while retaining control of my location.
Now that I'm a manager, I tell new members of the team the same thing. As far as I'm concerned, any team member is welcome to telecommute if they:
I'm willing to always let somebody give it a shot and, if they establish a track record of measureable productivity and connectivity, I'm happy to champion their preferred work arrangements.
I am a Security Consultant for a Company on the East Coast. We have an office here in the Midwest that I used to work at, but I got married a little over a year ago and my wife got a job in a City an hour and a half away. Since it was a bigger city we decided to move there and my boss was okay with me working from there (since he is on the East Coast anyway it didn't really matter if I was at the office or at home.
Okay that is the background....on to the point!
For the most part I enjoy telecommuting, but the problem is the new environment. I tend to miss the human interaction with people in the office. It is quite profound at times and I usually take it out on my wife(the frustrations that build in consequence of). Let me explain.....
Some of the frustration is out of being in a new environment where I have to build new friendships and new relations. I don't really know anyone around here so me and my wife don't get a lot of "away from each other" time which I feel can be very important in a relationship.
The second is that I associate our extra bedroom with the office. Consequently that is the only place my wife is keen on to have computers lying around. I have about 5 or so computers in there and I tend to associate one with work only stuff, but the environment of the room says WORK. Some of you might see my dillema. Now my passion for tinkering with computers is associated with work when I am within that room. Not something you want to happen. No one wants to be at work all the time, and according to my wife griping at me to put down the keyboards and spend time with her, that is the case.
Well, anyway that is my point of view on the topic. Bottom line....Make sure you know what you are getting into before you do it and put a time lock on the Playstation to not allow playing during work hours. :)
--Too many holes so little time(You sick bastard!!...I was talking about software!)
Thats what I did. Right on Shiggity
Studies of people who telecommunte actually show that such workers work much longer hours than people in the office. This is because the workers at home feel that they have to "prove" they are working as hard as their onsite co-workers, prove to their employers that letting them work from home is a good idea, and because telecommuters have trouble setting boundaries between work hours and home hours -- they tend to take calls and inquiries at off hours and deal with whatever work related issue comes up even late at night.
J Cravens http://www.coyotecommunications.com
I'd worked for a small software firm for about four years when my wife got a job about two hours away. When I said "It's been fun," my boss said, "Have you considered telecommuting?"
I traveled to the home office about once every two weeks. I have since moved again, and now live 1100 miles from my employer. When I asked how he'd feel about a Tampa office, he said, "Well, you won't be able to come in as often."
YMMV; you have to be able to quit if you give your boss the binary option of losing your services or letting you telecommute.
You save only 59 seconds over 8 miles by going 75 instead of 65. Do you really have to pass that guy? Do the Math!
I don't know how it affects other people but this is my story...
I once had a job doing software development where I worked at home full time. The first thing I noticed was that I spent a lot more time working. Instead of getting to work between 8 and 9 a.m. I was getting to my PC at 7:00 a.m. Instead of taking an hour to get out of the office and eat lunch I was taking 10 minutes to make a sandwich in the kitchen and eating as I worked. Instead of getting up from my desk, driving home, and putting work aside for the day I worked until my wife came home. I helped make dinner, ate, and then went back to work. I went to bed some after 10 p.m. In other words, my 8 to 10 hour workday turned into a 14 to 16 hour workday. Yeah, I watered the lawn, did the dishes, and did some laundry. But, that didn't take an hour out of the day.
After a while I got so lonely that I started driving over to a mall to eat lunch just to see people.
I eventually found another job where I had to actually go to work. I learned that I work much harder when I supervise my self than I have ever work for any one else.
Long term studies of telecommuters conducted by IBM show that in the long run there is a bout a 30% increase in productivity of telecommuting employees and due to reduced infrastructure costs there is also a great reduction in cost per employee.
Stonewolf