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

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.

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.