Home Working

I work from home roughly 3/5ths of my working week. I find I get more done by having distractions round me. As odd as that sounds.
 
Mr Jack said:
I work from home four days a week, currently. I like it, and I find it very productive most of the time. One piece of advice: when you get up in the morning, have breakfast, a cup of coffee, a shower and get dressed before you start work. It's too easy to slack through the first couple of hours if you start work in your dressing gown.
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Totally agree with this. WFHing is superb, but you need to be disciplined to make it work else it turns into a bit of a farce which sadly is what's happening with my department.

With everyone in the office (team of 8) we generally get through 50 odd tickets a day, but of late we've suffered a massive drop in morale and as as result the office is pretty much empty Monday and Friday and the only sign of people is an email with "WFH" in the subject title from the collegue. Unsurprisingly, we close considerably less than 50 tickets on Mondays and Fridays recently...

It's a shame, because this very handy priviledge is going to disappear because people are extracting the wee-wee. Secondary to a productivity and concentration standpoint I also find it really handy for personal appointments at lunch and home deliveries. My doctors and bank etc.. are 5 minutes away from the house whereas they're 25-30 from work.
 
I also work from home sometimes, but due to the nature of my role my boss prefers me in the office most of the time. To be honest, there is nothing I can't do from home that I could at work really. The money saved in petrol and unnecessary food and drink at work is massive and I get more done anyway.
 
You're not wrong there.

As is attending conference calls in your boxers, performing acceptance testing from the kitchen whilst you make scrambled eggs on toast and only having to endure inane banter from the cat instead of witless coworkers. Bonus indeed.
 
With a decent home office, seperated from the other normal 'housey' functions, then i'd probably be fine.

I do a bit of work from home (moreso catchup work) and it tends to take me a bit longer than it would than if I was in the office. Although saying that... some stuff I can get done a lot faster due to not being distracted!

As others have said.. the novelty would wear off pretty damn fast in my opinion... much prefer being in an office enviroment with other people :p
 
I do field support based from home, and assorted other crap when I'm not out on site, eg. telephone and email support and occasionally the odd bit of development or documentation.

The company I work for is pretty good in some ways, so long as stuff gets done they don't care how, this means on the weeks where lots of site visits come in, I can be doing stupid hours of a day on site, drive to the next job, overnight stay, next job etc. and on weeks where it's quieter I quite legitimately stay in bed, at 9am the Blackberry changes profile to one that will wake me up if there's an email, but other than that I'll stay in bed to close to midday and if there is actually work to do might end up working until 7 or 8, depends. My GF works 11-7 anyway so we have the mornings available.

It also means that if there's other stuff to be done, anything from putting tax on the car to shopping to just spending the daylight hours actually working on the car when it's warm and light then I can do, just do the work in the evening, if there is any.

I get bugger all towards my heating bills though :(
 
We have the option to work from home from time to time available to us with team leader approval. It can be very useful if you are expecting a delivery or a repairman. It also can be useful if you are unwell in a way which causes difficulty to travel in but doesn't affect you otherwise, (I worked from home for most of 2007 as I was having sciatic nerve issues which affected my ability to sit down properly. The ability to work from home meant I could just get on with the job instead of having to try and take months off). Work will may for broadband for VPN access but it has to be 2MB from BT and most of us are on faster than that so don't claim.

Some people take the you know what but most people I work with tend to get more done at home than when in the office due to less distractions. I redirect my office phone to my company mobile and most of the people I deal with are not on the same site as me anyway so most of my communication is over email so quite often people don't know you are working from home unless you tell them. It's nice to be able to do phone conferences with the phone on speaker as well.

As well as possible H&S requirements you should also check how this may impact upon your insurance as well.
 
I work from home occassionally , its nice sometimes but I always need someone to sort things out in the office so I'm constantly calling to get them to check something/pack something which can be a bit of a pain at times.

I like being in the office and not sitting at home on my own, although a couple of my colleagues get a bit annoying with asking stupid questions etc :p
 
[TW]Fox;13553334 said:
I'm not sure why stinking your house out and smelling like a tramp is considered a bonus :p
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Smoking at your desk was great in a way, but I smoked so much more rather than when I have to pop outside for a cig at the office. Could easily go through 20-30 when working at home , compared to 10 when in the office :eek:

I'm glad I've kicked that habit now :)
 
I can work in the office or at home and I much prefer working in the office.

The reasons are that I just find it too difficult to get into my stride as there are so many distractions. I also miss interaction and office banter, when at home I feel like a hermit.

It is handy for the odd days when you have someone coming around to fix something or you're expecting a parcel though.
 
I would love to work at home full time, as it is I can do one day or two a week now, but rarely do as work still don't like it.
 
I'm a fully home based worker and I love it. There are a few things you really need to do to ensure you can nicely separate work and leasure time though.

Most important is to have a single room decked out as your office - preferably not used for anything else - this allows you to relax when you close the door at the end of the day, you've left work; if you don't do this, the temptation to 'just to half an hour on that big project I need to get finished' gets too much and you end up spending more of you free time working that you did when you commuted. You also tend to get more done when shut away from distractions (watching daytime telly whilst 'working' on your laptop, or working from bed). Proper office furniture is also a must - it has to be comfortable as you're spending a full working day in it.

Educating wife/S.O. that just because you are home doesn't mean you aren't working is also essential, otherwise (as others have said) it's assumed you can do odd chores which end up turning into huge lists of things that need doing. My wife still thinks that I live the life of riley at home each day doing nothing much, which couldn't be further from the truth!

The last thing is to make sure you still get people contact outside of your domestic setup - go to the pub with friends, take part in sport/other activities - otherwise you'll get cabin fever. Putting in an appearance at the office is also important as teleworkers can often be 'overlooked' as they aren't seen about even if they are completing projects successfully.

All in all, I wouldn't trade my home working in for anything, it's great that I spend the morning with my son before he goes to the childminder (wife leaves at 6:30a.m. as she teaches 16 miles away and likes to get in early to do planning work) and the flexibility it affords is fantastic.

Just think, if more people telecomuted the country grinding to a halt with the snow wouldn't have affected the economy so badly! Less cars on the road would also be good so that the rush hour become less of a nightmare for people who, for whatever reason, cannot work from home.
 
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Done it for years, worked 2 years FT from home. Now do 2 days a week.

Splits the week up nicely and saves petrol, also means you can have a nicer dinner. People that say you can slack off, you cant really as you have set stuff to do surely, its weird when you first do it but after a whiel it just becomes the same as normal work really, you need no distractions though and your own office helps.
 
I’ve done it, you must have a dedicated home office and not the kitchen table. No disturbances, distractions and some discipline are the keys to making a success of it.
 
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