Does your job allow working from home one day a week (or more)?

[Anonymous]

Just wondering. You don't have to name the company. If your company doesn't allow it, do they say why?

Almost all of my friends work from home one day a week in various industries. I started a job that allows it about a year ago - most in my department do it once a week - and it is incredible the positive impact it has on my life. My company has been pretty vocal on our intranet about why they allow it (some people work from home more often) and they have tied it directly to $$$ - it has allowed them to close offices/floors etc, and they've found productivity goes up when people aren't commuting hours. There is apparently a whole research base around it. Fewer people have offices but the upside for the company is that people can collaborate, but also have space at home to get their non-team work done.

I was discussing this with a friend recently who works for another company in HR - her company is now at capacity and hiring more so they are piloting a desk-sharing program with the idea that people stagger schedules and work from home 2-3x a week. She said people are for the most part excited about it.

[Anonymous]

Yes. I said I would only come back after maternity leave if they let me work at the closer office rather than the main one, one day per week AND let me work from home one day a week.

[Anonymous]

I'm a fed. We're only allowed to telework one day a week if we have a long commute, which I think is very unfair. I only have a 10 minute commute, and thus won't be allowed.

[Anonymous]

I work from home many days (more than half) in my current job. My coworkers mostly work from the office. No one seems to care which we do.

Not having to commute makes a huge difference in my quality of life. So does not feeling micromanaged.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I'm a fed. We're only allowed to telework one day a week if we have a long commute, which I think is very unfair. I only have a 10 minute commute, and thus won't be allowed.

But, this kind of makes sense, right? Why telework if your office is only 10 minutes away?
One of the ways we sold telework in our office was by explaining that we'd be working during the time we'd normally be commuting.

[Anonymous]

My company doesn't but it's because we're a construction company and don't have desk jobs.

My old company started to formalize its work from home policies because they were aggressively closing offices and it allowed them to slash floor space. At some point they figured out that offices are just another flavor of overhead cost. Of course they also cut leave time, leave accumulation limits, training and IT investments. Not sure that it was helping productivity so much as serving their private equity owners. It was a bad scene, many more grumbles than cheers.

[Anonymous]

I work from home one day a week, unless I really need to be in the office. I'm in the minority here, but I am actually less productive at home than at the office. I mean, the dishes get washed and the laundry hung up, but that's not for my employer's benefit.

[Anonymous]

I can work at home whenever I like, but honestly I get much more done at work so I come in except for days when I must be at home for some odd reason.

[Anonymous]

I telework 3 days a week and have been doing it since my first kid was born 8 years ago. It's a HUGE benefit to my family's quality of life. I have a really long commute so not having to do that more than 2 days a week is tremendous. My organization allows teleworking by policy, but it is very dependent on department, supervisor, and the particular job. I work mostly independently so I don't need to be there physically that much. Teleworking was not big at my place when I started so I wrote a big detailed proposal to my boss explaining what I wanted and how I'd manage.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I'm a fed. We're only allowed to telework one day a week if we have a long commute, which I think is very unfair. I only have a 10 minute commute, and thus won't be allowed.

Another fed here, I've never heard of telework policies being tied to how far away you live, our union would have a fit (I'm in management). Our rule is that people need to be in the office 2 days a week, so if you don't work a compressed schedule you could telework 3 days a week (one of my employees does). The large majority of our people telework 2 days a week.

[Anonymous]

My office allows 2-3 days per week (the three is if you share an office so that you don't have to be there at the same time as your office mate). Federal government.

[Anonymous]

I work for a huge company, and it varies across the board. My division does not allow regular teleworking, except for very few people who work remotely 100% of the time. On my team, we are allowed an occasional work from home day if, say, you are waiting for the plumber or the cable guy, but not "just because". At least my boss was flexible enough to allow people to work from home during last winter's snow storms, otherwise I would have blown through all my PTO. And btw, there is no logistical or technological reason for this, everyone has laptops and VPN so it's very feasible to do work remotely, they just don't want us to.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I'm a fed. We're only allowed to telework one day a week if we have a long commute, which I think is very unfair. I only have a 10 minute commute, and thus won't be allowed.

Another fed here, I've never heard of telework policies being tied to how far away you live, our union would have a fit (I'm in management). Our rule is that people need to be in the office 2 days a week, so if you don't work a compressed schedule you could telework 3 days a week (one of my employees does). The large majority of our people telework 2 days a week.

Fed here. Before our division adopted a more comprehensive telework program, telework was limited to basically the people who commuted from Fredericksburg or Woodbridge. Don't know why the union would have an issue with length of commute being a consideration, since reducing traffic congestion is one of the goals of the federal government telework push.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I work from home one day a week, unless I really need to be in the office. I'm in the minority here, but I am actually less productive at home than at the office. I mean, the dishes get washed and the laundry hung up, but that's not for my employer's benefit.

Right, but I'm guessing that has more to do with your workload and nature of work than working from home. I'm guessing if you had to lead a call/present on a web-ex meeting etc. from home, you would prepare so you would be ready rather than focus on laundry before the call. I'm thinking you wouldn't say, "sorry folks, I'm not prepared to talk about this. But my laundry is folded and smells great!"

I don't do my work because my employer is watching over me. If I have something do and my employer doesn't ask me about it for two weeks, then the deadline hits, I'd better have it done or I'll look like an ass/get fired/whatever. That is what motivates most professional adults more than having to be constantly monitored IMO. So I think the productivity issue probably has more to do with your workload. My guess is that you get your work done when you need to.

There were plenty of work-from-home days this summer when it was slower that I did a workout at home during the day, watched the Today Show for a bit, whatever, but I wouldn't have been more productive at the office because the workload just wasn't heavy during that time. I think that is a different issue.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I'm a fed. We're only allowed to telework one day a week if we have a long commute, which I think is very unfair. I only have a 10 minute commute, and thus won't be allowed.

Another fed here, I've never heard of telework policies being tied to how far away you live, our union would have a fit (I'm in management). Our rule is that people need to be in the office 2 days a week, so if you don't work a compressed schedule you could telework 3 days a week (one of my employees does). The large majority of our people telework 2 days a week.

Fed here. Before our division adopted a more comprehensive telework program, telework was limited to basically the people who commuted from Fredericksburg or Woodbridge. Don't know why the union would have an issue with length of commute being a consideration, since reducing traffic congestion is one of the goals of the federal government telework push.

At our agency, the union would be involved b/c they would not allow only those who lived farther away to be permitted to telework.