Abusing working from home

[GinG]

Work from home here and have done since May 2015.

Initially loved it, now I really struggle mainly due to the interaction with people.

I am a Sales Manager but can and do sales very effectively over email / phone to the bemusement of the company that employ me (they are very much old skool and you need to do 60,000 miles per annum in the car knocking on company doors etc type).

The perks are great, but unsure on the actual hours I work in the day time as I get distracted very easily. However in the space of the time working we have grown the UK side from £0 to around £80,000 - £90,000 per month turnover so I must be doing some work at times!! Not sure if this shows the efficiency of working at home say 4 - 5 hours per day vs the 8 - 12 hours per day in an office.

One of the main reasons of changing career is the working from home part mind, can't see me doing this for the next 30 years!

Working from home however has helped us massively with child care and being able to pop out and do the bits which would usually take time at the weekend is a god send.

Anyway must dash, need to go cut the lawn!

 

[randomshenans]

I'm currently working from home / Sao Paulo. I work 6:30am - 12:30pm on my contract work in the hotel and then my afternoon I spend doing my other work. I am way more effective concentrated like this than I am in the office. Done more this week than I did the last 2 weeks in the office.

 

[AHarvey]

Not sure if this shows the efficiency of working at home say 4 - 5 hours per day vs the 8 - 12 hours per day in an office.

Seen a lot of research saying that most people only work 3-5 hours a day in an 8 hour work day anyway

 

[GinG]

Seen a lot of research saying that most people only work 3-5 hours a day in an 8 hour work day anyway

On target then

 

[Deleted member 651465]

I can work from home but I’ve yet to do it simply because of circumstances at work (big outage).

Saying that, I did jump in the car with my headphones and dial in to a conference call at 4pm just because I didn’t want to be sat in an office till 6pm.

 

[Hellsmk2]

I work 80% home, 20% at client sites. We do have an office, but I've been there less than 10 times in the last three years.

There are some days where I wake up and simply can't be bothered to work that day, but that is compensated by working some crazy hours at other times. A normal working day usually starts around 8am and finishes at 6pm (without a break). That isn't company policy, but it is hard to switch off - can't help but roll out of bed and into the office each day. It's all worth it when I'm not stuck in a traffic jam, and actually get to see my kids before and after school. Also, the flexibility to take a day off here and there is unbeatable. I'll never take a job that isn't home based again.

There have been people who have abused the privilege, but they don't last. If their work is substandard or incomplete/ constantly late, they are gone. However, I can see how when your company only allows one day a week how that would be more widely abused - companies really should go all out or not bother.

[edit] All staff in our company work from home - we have no issues with comms between each other or our clients. However, this is a group of specialists in their respective fields who have the right work ethic and are suited to working from home. I can fully understand that this model does not suit a lot of businesses.

 

[londonbairn]

We allow working from home but I must admit I don't force formal rules on the team. We generally work in an face to face environment and people tend to WFH on a Friday here and there. People from time to time need to sort out home stuff (be it fixing something etc), and we find this element of trust / fostering a positive working environment helps a lot. From time to time I find it beneficial to do what I call "admin", but it is boring and feel left out.

I must admit in the instances I know where people WFH excessively it is more because either they have some personal problems or they don't like their job. In these instances I find it better to try and understand why someone in my team does it.

There is a fine balance with excessive rules and autonomy/trust.

 

[Em3bbs]

I work from home 2 days a week that my work kindly arranged so that I can take my kids to school and pick them up. Also my commute has risen since a couple of years ago from a 3 hour round trip to 4 hours so it's nice I only have to go in three days max.

I have a pretty busy role so if I didn't work on the two days I work from home I'd have to pick up the slack on the other days somehow, so I definitely don't abuse the privilege. I have worked from a pub garden in the past, but now I have to pick the kids up whenever I'm at home that went out of the window!

 

[jaybee]

Bumping this old thread back up to see how people are finding work from home these days, since there seems to have been an even bigger push and shift towards wfh nowadays in IT roles. It's becoming expected now for most candidates that apply for any jobs at my current workplace.

I'm a little bit more in favour of it for my personal role and team, in that I believe we have quite individual "heads down" roles where even if we are in the office, we tend to be working on our own stuff/code more and more and often even put headphones on/in to minimize distractions. Not always....but....a lot of the time. Plus - selfishly - my commute is now dire. We got new management recently and he is big into wfh.

 

[Maccy]

I do one or two days a week from home, main reason is due to lack of space to accommodate everyone in the office.

 

[Semple]

Bumping this old thread back up to see how people are finding work from home these days, since there seems to have been an even bigger push and shift towards wfh nowadays in IT roles. It's becoming expected now for most candidates that apply for any jobs at my current workplace.

I'm a little bit more in favour of it for my personal role and team, in that I believe we have quite individual "heads down" roles where even if we are in the office, we tend to be working on our own stuff/code more and more and often even put headphones on/in to minimize distractions. Not always....but....a lot of the time. Plus - selfishly - my commute is now dire. We got new management recently and he is big into wfh.

As per my previous post, I've now fully shifted to Wfh. We'll actually I lie, my company opened up a new office near where I live, so I do pop in there once a week, but none of my team are based there.

Overall everything is going fine, I've not noticed any drop in productivity levels, infact I'm probably more productive as most people in offices tend to have quite a number of tea/coffee breaks. I would say it's definitely a saving on my waistline the office now has some food or treats in on pretty much a daily basis.

I've now gone through a few different managers and none have had any issues with my performance etc.

So to reflect on your OP, it's not necessarily the WFH policy that's the issue, it sounds like you just have unreliable staff.

 

[DarkHorizon472]

Bumping this old thread back up to see how people are finding work from home these days, since there seems to have been an even bigger push and shift towards wfh nowadays in IT roles. It's becoming expected now for most candidates that apply for any jobs at my current workplace.

I'm a little bit more in favour of it for my personal role and team, in that I believe we have quite individual "heads down" roles where even if we are in the office, we tend to be working on our own stuff/code more and more and often even put headphones on/in to minimize distractions. Not always....but....a lot of the time. Plus - selfishly - my commute is now dire. We got new management recently and he is big into wfh.

It’s down to the job role being suitable and having the right people who can do it without watching six hours a day of judge Judy.

 

[Beerbaron]

The company i work for built a new office to combine what was 3 offices. The council restricted the size of the car park which was allowed to be built so we are actively told to work from home now.

 

[Andybtsn]

I've managed guys who can WFH for over 7 years now. There's a lot of give and take in the field I work in, employees aren't expected to work over the standard 37.5 hours a week, but will. With this in mind, if they have child care issues/house problems/docs appointments etc other motives to WFH then I would happily accept. I have a keen eye for people taking the **** too and nowadays you have sufficient technology for reporting on employee's output so it's easy to see if they're taking the mick.

People can of course do more at home. I have done it over my career and generally you tend to avoid breaks and you don't have people to distract you and more is achieved. I did it over a 2 month period once when I was injured, I don't know how people can do this consistently, I just couldn't appreciate home life after spending every day there.

 

[dowie]

Bumping this old thread back up to see how people are finding work from home these days, since there seems to have been an even bigger push and shift towards wfh nowadays in IT roles. It's becoming expected now for most candidates that apply for any jobs at my current workplace.

Not sure on the phrasing of the above - do you mean it is expected by the companies or that candidates expect it to be offered?

I'm not sure the situation has changed much over 2 years but I have heard of some companies forcing it - namely places that use hot desking.

With employees working from home 1 day a week you only need at most 80% of the office space you'd otherwise use.

I'm not sure I'd like that sort of approach as I'd prefer to have my own desk/area to work in etc.. etc..

 

[jaybee]

Expected by the candidate that they will be able to WFH. Yes, many use hot desking. I'm at a different place to when I posted the OP and people don't take the mick and work hard even from home. Better place.

 

[malachi]

My current role has an WFH policy for one day a week because I'm closer to the data center than the office. But I rather come into the office and physically talk to people.

 

[Basher]

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.

People with ambition don't want 'an easy day at work' - they want it to be difficult and constantly challenged.

 

[Ayahuasca]

People with ambition don't want 'an easy day at work' - they want it too be difficult and constantly challenged.

This, there’s a difference between being allowed one day a week at home to respond to emails or calls in case **** hits the fan, and actually getting on with your role as you would in the office.

As I believe I’ve said previously in this thread, being more productive at home is mostly down to what your role is, if you need long periods of concentration then it’s usually better to be at home unless you have your own office at work.

 

[MissChief]

Were having a similar issue with my new job. The team is half in London who all have laptops and are supposed to be available to take a call if needed but you’d be lucky if we take 10-12 calls a day and they’re usually short. Because they have laptops they can work from home but when they do they can’t take calls.

Then there’s us, without laptops. We use Wyse terminals so can’t work from home. We’ve raised this issue and been told they have no plans to issue us laptops so we can’t work from home. Although it doesn’t happen often when they do work from home everyone else needs to pick up their calls, but again maybe an extra 2-3 each. Compared to having back to back calls previously it’s great and there’s still work to be done in between but we do feel a little aggrieved that they have the option, which they do use, whereas we don’t.