How Do I Sell Telecommuting to My Employer?

EyeBhatingThisCommute asks: "I work in an area with extremely high housing rates. I make an OK salary but even so finding a residence worth the money and that meets my family's needs has been tough. I recently found a home in a great neighborhood about 2 hours from my current job. It is perfect for our needs and is a great value. I know some people may make this commute without a thought but I drove this for 5 months when I first started working in my present area and it made me miserable. How can I best convince my employer to allow me to telecommute for the majority of my work week?" We've done previous articles about telecommuting: here, here and here. It's clear that workers would prefer to telecommute, so why aren't businesses allowing them to do so? When property prices in the city seem to be on a climb without end, how is one supposed to find the perfect marriage of job and location without an endless search?

"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?

Comments

Telecommuting

[Dr. Prakash Kothari]

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.

Re:Telecommuting

[skotske]

Simply put - That's your problem. Most of us strive for a job where we manage our time and work towards fulfilling our responsabilities rather than the clock's.

If you cannot manage your own time then that is nothing to do with teleworking........

Re:Telecommuting

[Rufy]

All that you've said is very true. I happen to work for a company that allows me to telecommute 1 day a week. I waited until I had been working here for over a year before I started asking my superiors what they thought of the idea. I also spent that time working very hard to prove my worth to the company. Since I'm a software developer for a small company, I tend to get assigned projects that don't require a lot of group interaction, though we do have occasional meetings.

Since I've been working at home, I've found that I do tend to get distracted much easier by various activities, but it's not always what you think. I'm married with 2 kids, so my house isn't exactly a "working environment" by any means. So when I'm not thinking about loading up Half-Life, I've got my daughter wanting me to read stories to her or play her computer games with her. I still tend to get more work done at home though, since I usually don't have our support people coming to me every 5 minutes with a problem they haven't bothered to troubleshoot themselves.

One benefit beyond the whole "I'm tired of sitting in a car for 2 hours a day" idea is that working at home also allows you the feeling of greater flexibility over what time you'll be working that day. Instead of 8 to 5 or 9 to 6, it might be 12 to 8. Maybe you'll work a few hours this morning, then go hit the computer stores during lunchtime for a few hours, then come back and finish the day. This doesn't always work well when something at the office blows up and your coworkers end up talking to your answering machine, and the cellphone argument is negated by the fact that you were supposed to be home that day anyway. It all depends on how your company works. The people I work with have varying schedules, so on my home days I don't have to be at my desk at a certain time. As long as the work gets done on time everyone stays happy.

Working from home CAN work. You need self-discipline and a decent home-office setup to make things work. VNC via SSH is a beautiful thing in this case, since you won't have to have a full backup of your workstation at home. You also need to remove distractions. Tell your family members to stay out of your room during the day. Build a machine at home with no games installed and use that for your "work" machine. Hook it to a proxy that rejects everything you shouldn't be doing (like posting on Slashdot). Not like I do any of these things, but you get the idea.

Re:Telecommuting

[Anonymous Coward]

Hey, I'm at work and I read slashdot, play games, talk to friends, and duck the boss. You don't need to telecommute to have low productivity. But look at it from an hours perspective. A 2 hour commute means 4 hours a day wasted in a car. You can be 75% as effective at home and still get the same amount of work done. I spend way too many hours waiting on the computer or ISDN lines for data. I can't do this from home because its all classified, btu most people can.

Many aren't as disciplined

[Anonymous Coward]

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.

Maybe your approaching it the wrong way.

[color of static]

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.

Telecommuting and Politics

[under_score]

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

How I did it...

[NullPointer]

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.

My experience trying to telecommute...

[silversurf]

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"

Suck it in and do it..

[LinuxHam]

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.