Abusing working from home

[jaybee]

I work in IT and we have a policy which is basically that you can work from home generally 1 day per week when appropriate and at the managers discretion. Usually this is granted after passing probation and you negotiate your selected day of the week based on your personal preference vs business requirements.

Unfortunately over time, it has become very slack and so "flexible" to the point it is arguably abused by some and there is a fear that it will be ruined by these individuals where it will be stopped entirely. Some of the issues we face with it are:

1: People not asking for permission and just working from home when they feel like it
2: People giving extremely poor excuses for working from home
3: People not doing much work when working from home and disappearing/going quiet for long periods
4: People not communicating as much from home
5: People communicating/doing too much from home (possibly trying too hard to ensure they are viewed as doing enough work)
6: People feeling they cannot leave their computer in case they are skyped/emailed with something urgent and appear to be slacking off when not available instantly.
7: People strategically booking appointments for days when they DO NOT normally work from home, and then taking those days as work from homes days in additional to their normal designated home working day.
8: As above extending holidays by taking additional days as "work from home" when in reality they just want an easy ride for a couple of extra days.
9: Using any travel delay - even minor - as an excuse to work from home
10: Missing vital events, collaborative efforts and meetings by prioritizing home working first.
11: Major issues occurring with minimal staff on site to be able to speak to someone first hand
12: People having really poor microphones/comms setup at home if at all, causing a lack of communication for any meetings or team conversations for that day.
13: Response speed during major incidents taking longer
14: People blaming remote connectivity issues on their poor broadband speeds
15: People having powercuts and "broadband" issues seemingly all the time
16: People using work from home to prevent sick days totting up by stating that they will work from home whilst ill. In reality they are in bed doing nothing. i.e. Genuinely ill sometimes.


The list can go on and on...

The biggest issue is the effect it is having on the business and the way our team is perceived. The amount of work that is not getting done due to the amount of people working from home is quite bad. When Joey works from home Monday, Danny on Tuesday and Jonny on Wednesday, that's really disruptive and hard to book meetings. The people that are pro work from home will tell you that "I can do everything I can in the office at home", but the issues is...you can't. Sometimes face to face is sooooo much productive in a room with all the necessary people in. Skype and conference calls have their place, but the amount of issues we have trying to get everyone in on a call in a timely manner is untrue. Then you have the conference call bingo of "can you hear me" among other classics such as, "bit of an echo", "I'm getting a delay" and "sorry I was on mute".

I also feel a lot of team spirit is lost when everyone works from home. You miss out on office banter and general information that you can give to someone instantly by turning to your side and using your voice. Conversations and discussions can happen quickly around a screen and collaboration is just better being more productive.

Having said all that, yes working from home is great sometimes. The benefits of it breaking up the week and the grind of the commute is refreshing and helps keep us sane. Sometimes working from home is good if you want to immerse oneself in some long piece of code or something. Other times it can be distracting.

If I cared about the business I work for and I set the standards, I would have to ban working from home until respect had been earned back. I'd do a reset and see how many people could come in reliably for a few months. We also have issues with sickness and attendance generally so it would be a good test.


What are your thoughts on home working and do you face any of these issues at your workplace?

 

[OspreyO]

Only works if the work suits it, has a distinct start and end and a predictable completion time and the person is a good communicator. What you describe sounds like a chaos.

I would specify a day or days where people can't work from home. A meetings day. Track productivity and put metrics on it.

Its really up to a manager to make it work. if they can't they shouldn't allow it.

 

[FishThrower]

We used to have a WFH policy where everyone worked from home one day a week... this got scrapped pretty quickly as it was a nightmare getting things done due to lack of communication, or people using the " bobby is working from home today, I will speak to him when he is next in the office " line.

I personally liked it as I don't get hassled to do other stuff so I'm left to do project work with no interruptions, so I actually achieved a lot more than I usually would.

However, it's human nature to take the ****, and a lot of people aren't disciplined enough and treat it as a half day, you need to have very trusting and professional individuals for it to work properly.

 

[DarkHorizon472]

If they perform their role / job as required that is the main thing. Managing a remote team is a different to managing a team based in a single location. When you bring in working with people across national borders it changes again.

If people WFH don't perform properly then unfortunately they cannot be allowed to. It depends on the job and the person.

 

[adolf hamster]

1: People not asking for permission and just working from home when they feel like it
need some kind of policy to prevent this- ie disciplinary
2: People giving extremely poor excuses for working from home
with 1 in place, then its up to the manager to deny people with poor excuses
3: People not doing much work when working from home and disappearing/going quiet for long periods
4: People not communicating as much from home
that's part and parcel of it, the worst offenders should have to answer for their quiet times.
5: People communicating/doing too much from home (possibly trying too hard to ensure they are viewed as doing enough work)
at least they're trying?
6: People feeling they cannot leave their computer in case they are skyped/emailed with something urgent and appear to be slacking off when not available instantly.
they shouldn't be required to be at their pc any more than they would be in the office, the whole "available instantly" thing isn't the greatest expectation.
7: People strategically booking appointments for days when they DO NOT normally work from home, and then taking those days as work from homes days in additional to their normal designated home working day.
8: As above extending holidays by taking additional days as "work from home" when in reality they just want an easy ride for a couple of extra days.
9: Using any travel delay - even minor - as an excuse to work from home
is there no system in place to track it? give them their designated day and that's it, you can throw up a rota on excel to make it clear who is allowed to work from home when.
10: Missing vital events, collaborative efforts and meetings by prioritizing home working first.
11: Major issues occurring with minimal staff on site to be able to speak to someone first hand
people are being allowed to prioritise is the issue here.
12: People having really poor microphones/comms setup at home if at all, causing a lack of communication for any meetings or team conversations for that day.
issue work hardware? or allow people to take their work microphones home. not everyone wants to shell out £80 for a good headset with a decent microphone that they'll rarely use. the same can be said for people unable to run any work specific applications on their personal machines. last company i was in everybody got laptops so it was no issue to take them home if people needed to work from the lab/home/on a business trip etc
13: Response speed during major incidents taking longer
if an issue is bad enough, expect people to have to come in, otherwise it just goes with the territory, if it's that regular an occurrence then less home working time needs to be scheduled to ensure more people are on site (eg one day every 2 weeks rather than 1)
14: People blaming remote connectivity issues on their poor broadband speeds
15: People having powercuts and "broadband" issues seemingly all the time
genuine or no, you're expecting people to use their home resources so it happens, i know plenty of people who live in the sticks with really poor internet/electricity connections.
16: People using work from home to prevent sick days totting up by stating that they will work from home whilst ill. In reality they are in bed doing nothing. i.e. Genuinely ill sometimes.
this seems more to do with the sick policy, people trying to make an effort. its an unpopular opinion in management but i'm very much of the opinion losing 1-2 days then getting a fully functioning employee back is better than losing 1 day then getting a second day where they come in and do basically nothing anyway.

overall it sounds as if the system of working from home needs a lot more tightening up, otherwise you're right- ditching it completely is likely the best option.

as others have said it can be great to allow people a bit of time to work on longer term projects rather than the daily firefight, and any system can be abused. but it needs stricter controls. if your environment and work requires more people in the office then make sure they are.

 

[dowie]

I think it depends on the sort of work you're doing - if project work where you've got stuff to get done by some deadline (or perhaps you've got tasks broken down into weekly sprints) then so long as you're keeping up with your work why does it matter whether you work more hours one day than another - you're not being paid by the hour. Maybe the working from home day is the day you get a shed load of stuff done in a big uninterrupted session, maybe it is a more relaxed day that breaks up the week etc.. it doesn't really matter if you're not an hourly worker you probably work longer than your contracted hours each week regardless. The only thing that really matters is what you deliver.

People not being in the office is a problem for managers/team leaders to deal with - if there is a weekly meeting every Monday that everyone in the team needs to be at then ban working from home on that day and if members of the team need to be in the office to respond to stuff then ensure the working from home days are staggered appropriately. If we're talking about 1 day a week then I don't see there being much of an issue

Main issue as the above poster mentions is simply whether people are able to perform their jobs, if they can and are delivering stuff on time as planned then stuff about how many hours they work etc.. is irrelevant and wingeing. If you start work at 7am on a Wednesday because you've not got a commute and decide to finish at 3pm because it is summer then go off line and enjoy the afternoon then that's up to you tbh.. If you leave the office at 4pm on a Friday because you're on top of everything or perhaps you take a 2 hour lunch in the pub then that's up to you... because in most professional jobs these days you've quite likely not taken your full lunch break for the previous 4 days and/or have worked an hour or two later than required each evening. Ditto to dentist appointments, doctors appointments - perhaps you do have an extra morning or afternoon working from home - again so what? The important thing is simply what you deliver.

 

[A2Z]

Are you really that surprised?

If I could work from home I would do the essentials then spend the rest of the day chilling. If people can get away with it they will keep doing it.

 

[Slam62]

Surely you are allocated tasks and expected to do them with in a certain time and to a certain standard. If you do not do this your manager should pick up on it.
Where and when doesn't really matter as long as you meet the business requirements.
In this day and age there are plenty of ways to communicate remotely and working from home can result in fewer distractions than in the office.
Anyway everything in moderation and meet your objectives, if you want to suck up to your boss do more.
The OP work place seems a bit immature to me.

 

[Slam62]

Are you really that surprised?

If I could work from home I would do the essentials then spend the rest of the day chilling. If people can get away with it they will keep doing it.

So you have no ambition, no integrity and your performance is not monitored in work at all.
Not sure I'd want you in my team.

 

[A2Z]

So you have no ambition, no integrity and your performance is not monitored in work at all.
Not sure I'd want you in my team.

What does ambition have to do with being able to have an easy day once a week? If the company are willing to make it possible, it's their own fault for not ensuring performance standards.

 

[dowie]

What does ambition have to do with being able to have an easy day once a week? If the company are willing to make it possible, it's their own fault for not ensuring performance standards.

Well if someone did that and didn't perform as well as their peers, some of whom may be super productive on their day working from home and others may not make use of it and stay in the office 5 days a week... then if they were in my team their performance review would be mediocre but just about keeping them floating, their pay rise would be inflation and their bonus would be a token amount (or perhaps even zero) as I don't need to worry about retaining them but I definitely do want to use more of that finite pool of cash to reward others.

In fact part of it would depend on the sort of work the team is doing - if there was a backlog of low priority/boring maintenance tasks then the guy who wants to slack off and doesn't meet deadlines so well can get those dumped on him, he can get the token pay rises and I'd be less bothered about him being lazy as someone needs to do the grunt work others don't like. On the other hand if the team is working on a brand new project, no maintenance, no production support just pure project work then you don't want someone like that around at all - the performance review that would have been borderline then becomes a bad one as you can't afford the missed deadlines with this sort of work so you stick that person on a PIP for 6 months, give them a chance to improve or get rid.

 

[Participant]

Our team and manager successfully work from home all the time, as we're professionals and we behave and treat each other like adults (at work anyway ).

If you don't trust certain people to work from home responsibly, get rid of them in favour of people you do.

 

[x-st]

Are you really that surprised?

If I could work from home I would do the essentials then spend the rest of the day chilling. If people can get away with it they will keep doing it.

I'm surprised that those who are allowed work from home days don't feel more pressure to perform than in the office. I'd personally be petrified that my colleagues/managers would think exactly what you imply (thus leading to point 5 in the OP)

 

[m4rmite]

I occasionally work from home after a stock take, entering and comparing counted vs theoretical stock levels.
All i can say is i get about 3 times the work done than if i was in the office.

This is mainly down to the fact that staff can't be arsed to check the computer system for info and it's easier to pester me, this is proved when i'm on holiday and the world doesn't stop spinning. Upon my return i ask how things went and they say " oh we check the system for info".
As it's in my own interest to get work done i guess it's not an issue.

However we have sales staff who are known to do bugger all but claim to be working.

 

[ultralaser]

It really needs to be thought through and I think that's the OP's problem. Some key principles for me are:
[1] It needs to be a privilege, I.e. it can be revoked at anytime, and their must be an approval mechanisms that exists prior to any home working being approved.
[2] They need to understand the same level of commitment and delivery is expected when they operate from home.
[3] You need to put in place excellent communication solutions, mandate their use.
[4] You should have in place clear mechanisms to deal with illness, time tracking and emergency situations.
[5] You need to be constantly reviewing the performance of each individual that is doing home working, this is especially important

If you get the process, policy and performance monitoring correctly setup, home working can be an extremely effective tool , sounds like your management team suck @OP.

 

[HangTime]

I'll deal with the specific points first:

I work in IT and we have a policy which is basically that you can work from home generally 1 day per week when appropriate and at the managers discretion. Usually this is granted after passing probation and you negotiate your selected day of the week based on your personal preference vs business requirements.

Unfortunately over time, it has become very slack and so "flexible" to the point it is arguably abused by some and there is a fear that it will be ruined by these individuals where it will be stopped entirely. Some of the issues we face with it are:

1: People not asking for permission and just working from home when they feel like it - I think as long as everyone is comfortable with the concept then asking permission for every day becomes an unnecessary overhead
2: People giving extremely poor excuses for working from home - I don't think an excuse is required, unless it is a detriment to team working
3: People not doing much work when working from home and disappearing/going quiet for long periods - disappearing or going quiet happens a lot in the office too, sometimes I might only be at my desk for perhaps 1-2 hours when in the office
4: People not communicating as much from home - if this happens then steps should be taken to mitigate it
5: People communicating/doing too much from home (possibly trying too hard to ensure they are viewed as doing enough work) - I know what you mean (sending / replying to emails even if not really necessary etc), but it isn't the worst problem in the world
6: People feeling they cannot leave their computer in case they are skyped/emailed with something urgent and appear to be slacking off when not available instantly. - this is a bit of a worry I have when I go to the kitchen / toilet, I usually make sure I take a phone handset so I can answer any incoming calls
7: People strategically booking appointments for days when they DO NOT normally work from home, and then taking those days as work from homes days in additional to their normal designated home working day. - poor form I generally try to co-ordinate WFH days with appointments, but may not always be feasible
8: As above extending holidays by taking additional days as "work from home" when in reality they just want an easy ride for a couple of extra days. - I don't think this is really any different from #3, if they are slackers then the issue is with them WFH in general, not the fact it is tacked on to a holiday
9: Using any travel delay - even minor - as an excuse to work from home - it happens, but as with #2, I think if people are needing 'excuses' to WFH then I would question what the culture around WFH is like at your organisation - to me if someone is WFH then that just means they are working from home, not that they have given a suitably good excuse to WFH
10: Missing vital events, collaborative efforts and meetings by prioritizing home working first. - again poor form but perhaps an education piece is needed here, personally I do the opposite and move my WFH day around when I think it would be beneficial to be in the office; some weeks that means I will not WFH at all
11: Major issues occurring with minimal staff on site to be able to speak to someone first hand - management should ensure sufficient on site support is in place
12: People having really poor microphones/comms setup at home if at all, causing a lack of communication for any meetings or team conversations for that day. - make it a requirement of WFH, minimum requirement being a telephone
13: Response speed during major incidents taking longer - see #11
14: People blaming remote connectivity issues on their poor broadband speeds - if it is happening regularly with specific individuals then ask them to do something about it (either improve connectivity or cease WFH)
15: People having powercuts and "broadband" issues seemingly all the time - as above
16: People using work from home to prevent sick days totting up by stating that they will work from home whilst ill. In reality they are in bed doing nothing. i.e. Genuinely ill sometimes. - I think this is a growing problem, more so with contractors because they get paid nothing if off sick

More generally, my organisation is similar although typically WFH is capped at 2 days, sometimes people might WFH more though.
Within my team there is a bit of a mix, some WFH set days, some mix and match, some WFH only on rare occasions (maybe 1 day every couple of months). I am fairly relaxed about it although it can make scheduling meetings a bit more tricky in cases where I want everyone in the office - but to be honest flexible working hours is more of a problem in that regard.

One of the more flawed typical complaints I've seen levelled at WFH is similar to your point #3, in that it almost implicitly assumes that people in the office are readily available and that people WFH should be available every second of their working hours. People are not available all the time irrespective of their location, when people are in the office they still go to the kitchen, toilet, attend meetings, chat to people at their desk etc. I'd estimate I'm more accessible for IM / email when WFH than when I'm in the office, because I'll typically have 4+ hours of meetings in the latter instance.

As I alluded to above it sounds like your organisation hasn't matured the WFH culture enough yet; a truly mature culture would not be thinking in terms of people needing to justify WFH with an excuse you deem worthy, it should be at a stage where WFH and office working are very fluid with the priority being around maintaining productivity rather than focusing on 'entitlement' and similar. I remember in a previous job someone once questioned why I was WFH because I lived within walking distance of the office. On the flipside my new office is over two hours away from my home and some people find it a bit strange I don't demand to WFH two days a week. Yet to me that shouldn't be a major factor, it's not like WFH should automatically scale with distance from the office.

In my opinion, off the top of my head, here are what I would consider the key success factors for WFH, in no particular order:

1) Basic mechanics / technology support i.e. good communications vehicles via IM, screen sharing, voice, ideally seamless desktop integration etc.
2) Universal trust between management, staff and colleagues. This isn't always easy to build/maintain as it can depend a bit on individuals. The key thing I want to get across is that trust is multi-way, even if management trust their staff, it may be causing resentment amongst other team members if they have distrust
3) Bake it into the way meetings etc are setup, make it normal to engage remote employees rather than 'xyz is WFH that day, do we really need him for this meeting?'. Have conference bridge (or whatever) readily accessible for everyone to host remote meetings
4) Encourage staff to learn about what environments they find most productive for different types of work. For example, I find WFH good for document writing due to not getting distracted listening to random conversations. However I find it less effective in situations where I would benefit from bouncing ideas off people.
5) Make it available to everyone initially rather than just those with an excuse, but do consider how to handle abuse (see #7)
6) Remember that employees having remote access does not mean they are obligated to work additional hours
7) Have some sort of strategy for dealing with abuse but give people the benefit of the doubt initially
8) Accept the fact that having everyone in the office at the same time isn't always feasible. This may mean for example people missing out on social events - you can't please everyone

 

[Caged]

If you're not the line manager of any of these people then as frustrating as things might be, it's not your problem to solve. People who do nothing when they work from home most likely do nothing when they're in the office as well. If your company has a management structure where people's contributions can only be judged based on how often they are seen to be in the office then you have far bigger problems than some people abusing WFH opportunities.

For example, it wouldn't be unreasonable to have a policy in place that if you cannot get connected to the Internet then you need to get into the office instead. If the people working from home don't have a way of being contacted outside of email (e.g. no company mobile, no softphone that ensures they can still participate in ring groups etc.) then I am not even sure why the company is trying to do WFH. If their response to a few individuals abusing a policy is to remove it from everybody then again, this reflects poorly on their management abilities.

People having WFH days rather than taking sick leave when genuinely ill could be a problem with your sickness policy, and the lack of communication options for remote workers is really something IT should be on top of - have you got a conferencing platform that everybody has access to? Have IT tested and qualified USB headsets that can be recommended staff who work remotely? It does sound like some people are abusing WFH from your post, but it also sounds like the rest of the company is barely functional.

 

[FortuitousFluke]

Unless it was a particularly good offer I don't think I'd take a job that didn't allow me one day p/w flexible working. In many ways I'm more productive from home, certainly if we're talking head down get on with it style tasks, and being able to do that once a week is worth the loss of communication in my opinion. Equally from a work life balance perspective it gives me one day mid week off the bike to recover from the commute, and allows me more flexibility to get stuff done in my personal life, for example I got my suit dry cleaned on my lunch last week, and will be dropping the car into the garage before work this week, and throughout the day when I need a break I'll shove some washing on or put the bins out etc.

I think a lot of it is down to the office really, I'm public sector at the moment and flexible working is pretty embedded in the culture, people don't tend to take the mickey too much.

 

[Ayahuasca]

Simply down to poor management if people are getting away with all of that, I don't understand how you could doss off that much and not get pulled up on it. Must be barely any work that actually needs doing.

 

[Gaijin]

As others of said - a practice like this needs a policy as a foundation to prevent abuse.

Key points being:

1. It's a privilege and not a right (although good luck if it's written into contracts)
2. Needs to work on a permission basis
3. Absolutely relies on reliable connections/infrastructure etc. at home. If the power fails then you come in.
   
4. Days with important meetings etc. are off limits
5. Measurable productivity - ensure that expectations are clear.
6. 1 day a week is an arbitrary amount. In my opinion it should be deliberately vague.

If it was with me, i'd work with HR to put something in place that is fair, but manageable.