Reasons for Working at Home instead of Office

[TechBoyJK]

Hi all!

If you have complete access to all of your work information at home and don't really need to be in the office to do 95% of your job, what are some good reasons for working at home instead of the office? Essentially, I come in, sit at a cubicle, log into the company intranet via IE and go to work. I can log into the same system from home. Anyways, I am working up to going to my boss and offering a pay cut if I can work at home instead of having to drive 30-40 minutes through city traffice everyday, each way. Everyone in the company communicates primarily through email anyway. We have Cisco IP phones, so I can even have calls to my extension forwarded to my home phone.

I bring this up because I got sick last week and did work from home. Not only was I more productive, I saved 1.5 hours of time in commuting and didn't have to deal with the distractions of the office. I was able to sleep in later because I didn't have to shave, shower, get dressed (have to dress nice), and drive to work and get there on time. I also saved money on parking.

 

[Descartes]

I'm a software developer, and when I'm not at a client's, I'm usually working from home. I'm generally A LOT more productive, but not everyone has the discipline. The bennies:

- I relax on my couch with my laptop and wifi listening to cable radio/mp3.
- I eat breakfast whenever I want, go get coffee at my local coffee shop, etc.
- If I'm annoyingly frustrated with an issue, I take a break and come back to it later.
- It's very quiet (single, no kids), no one to distract me, etc.

Some say they lose the social factor by working at home, but I am at a client's all the time as it is. I could never work in a cubicle farm again.

 

[ThaGrandCow]

Don't offer to take a pay cut. Just tell him about increased productivity and the benefits to you and your work.

But you and him both know the real reason you're trying for it...
You: Hmmm, I'm stuck right now. I wish I could get my mind off this for a few minutes.
<wife walks in>
You: Honey, can you help me relax for a minute?
<wife gets on knees>

Ahhhh the benefits of working at home

 

[conjur]

Originally posted by: Descartes
I'm a software developer, and when I'm not at a client's, I'm usually working from home. I'm generally A LOT more productive, but not everyone has the discipline. The bennies:

- I relax on my couch with my laptop and wifi listening to cable radio/mp3.
- I eat breakfast whenever I want, go get coffee at my local coffee shop, etc.
- If I'm annoyingly frustrated with an issue, I take a break and come back to it later.
- It's very quiet (single, no kids), no one to distract me, etc.

Some say they lose the social factor by working at home, but I am at a client's all the time as it is. I could never work in a cubicle farm again.

Discipline is the key.

I'd have to be in a room w/no TV

And for the social factor, just meet up with colleagues/friends for lunch everyday or put stuff on a laptop and head to a library or a hotel lobby

 

[phantom309]

Just remember; if you can do your job from home, someone in India or the Phillipines can do it too, for 1/4 the pay.

 

[freebee]

Do not offer to take a pay cut to work at home.

Instead, write a letter (or essentially a business plan) detailing some of the points you posted here as to why the company would benefit from you working at home. In addition, be sure to calculate any setup costs, increases in productivity, etc. in tangible amounts, not just "will be more productive". The company wants to be able to make a decision, and it can't do it with random figures.

Also remember to schedule it so you drop by the office every week or so, to maintain relationships with co-workers and to ensure you are not forgotten. Many teleworkers can be just as productive as those employees in an office, while being able to enjoy the greater freedoms of working at home.

 

[pukemon]

Originally posted by: phantom309
Just remember; if you can do your job from home, someone in India or the Phillipines can do it too, for 1/4 the pay.

yep it's definitely still an employer's market. but hey it's worth a shot...

 

[Descartes]

Originally posted by: phantom309
Just remember; if you can do your job from home, someone in India or the Phillipines can do it too, for 1/4 the pay.

But not really.

 

[RossMAN]

I would love to be able to work from home

 

[TechBoyJK]

Originally posted by: phantom309
Just remember; if you can do your job from home, someone in India or the Phillipines can do it too, for 1/4 the pay.

There is a trust issue. I have worked here for some time and my boss trusts me. I also need to be able to come into the office every once in a while for meetings etc.

 

[TechBoyJK]

anybody else have any good ammo for convincing a boss to let me work from home?

 

[TechBoyJK]

bump

 

[dabuddha]

I can access our *nix machines using VPN software and can work from home but I doubt they'll ever let me.

 

[Jeraden]

I've tried numerous times to be able to work from home but never have any luck. To the worker, it seems completely logical. For the company, they always have the same concerns:
1. While they never come right out and say it, they will never trust that you will be as productive, they'll figure you'll goof off all day.
2. Even though almost all dealings with people are over the phone/email, they still like the security that you are there in person if they really need you.
3. If they let you work from home, they think everyone else will be jealous and want to work from home too.

Here's the most ludicrous example I've run into. I'm an Oracle consultant that typically jumps from project to project (company to company) every couple years. My last project was one where I was travelling during the week and came back home on weekends. We worked out a deal where I could "work from home" 2 weeks of the month and work at the clients office/travel 2 weeks a month. Turns out my definition of "work from home" differed from theirs. Instead of working out of my actual home, they wanted me to work out of a local branch office they had in my home city. So I had to drive into town and park to walk into this branch sales office. The problem with this office was they were connected to the main headquarters over a 128kbps network line and I got about 12k/s transfer speeds in either direction. I also had internet access into their system from home in case they needed me off hours. Going over the internet, I got full cable modem download speeds (100k/s and whatever upload cap I have). So everything was SO much faster when I logged in from home. They didn't care about this though, they'd rather I went into the local office so my presence could be accounted for even though they knew I'd be far less productive over their slow ass network. On top of that, the branch office was a sales office, which means what I was doing (IT work) had absolutely nothing to do with anyone else there, so its not like that factored into their decision. I didn't report to anyone at the office either, I just came, worked, and went home and rarely spoke to a single person there. Made absolutely no sense at all.

Anyways, back to the topic, you need to somehow prove to them that you working from home will clearly be more productive or somehow save them money. Unless they are extremely nice, they won't let you do it unless they will be convinced it will be advantageous for them. For the most part its hard to really prove that it would be, since honestly it doesn't really benefit them all that much, however it benefits you hugely. Offering to take a pay cut might be a possibility depending on how your organization is structured and whether your personal pay really affects your department/manager at all - its possible he could care less how much they'd save on your salary. Personally, I'd be willing to take a 10% cut if it meant I didn't have to come in to work (45 minute drive each way + pay for parking). As far as stating your case, I'd focus on the productivity gains they'd see, although they'll be fairly skeptical about it. The best argument I could offer would be that by working from home you can work on a task until its complete instead of having to stop at 5pm and start again the next morning (depending on how your work environment operates).

 

[SuperTool]

I work from home over VPN a lot.
Usually in the morning, and then come in after lunch. Most meetings are after lunch. Sometimes I am more productive, and sometimes less. Since I live 5 min from work, it's not really a big issue.
I am more of a private guy, so I like to work from home, since I have a shared office. If I had my own office, I would come to work more.
Nice thing about Unix is that if you have x-server running on my windows machine, you can open all the apps remotely and just use it as a dumb terminal.