How To Convince Your Boss To Let You Work From Home
In this day and age, with communication being to easy through mobile technologies, it makes sense to work out of the office.
If you are able to do your job from home, why can’t you? What is the benefit of traveling upwards of an hour each day, through stressful traffic, to enter the distraction-full environment that most offices are?
Tim Ferriss has written a book called The 4-Hour Work Week and writes a lot of good articles at his blog. Earlier this year he was interviewed by Yahoo Travel to answer these questions:
- What are the biggest misconceptions people have about work, and making time for travel?
- So what is the best way to negotiate your way into a mobile work lifestyle?
- Many people often can’t stop thinking about work minutiae, even when they’re far away from the traditional office setting. How do you get your mind, and not just your body, out of the office?
Something that I’ve been working by the last year is similar to what Tim mentions. The fact that I can live very comfortably, and leisurely, if I work for a day-to-day income rather than a retirement income makes more sense for me.
Freeing yourself from the daily grind – [Yahoo]
The 4-Hour Work Week Blog – [TimFerriss]
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Comments
Irene says on April 24th, 2007 at 12:32 am
I am not sure if businesses today will accept that kind of idea. The idea of being able to work at home because the boss trusts you will be unfair for other employees.
Craig Childs says on April 24th, 2007 at 1:26 am
Indeed, I can’t see it working for many or most jobs. However, if you can, there are probably more reasons you should than not.
Tim Ferriss says on April 24th, 2007 at 2:20 am
Thanks for the discussion, all! Remote work is more flexible — and inevitable — than you might think. I’ve actually be asked to speak at a number of companies (PayPal, DivX, and others) about how to help employees cut out the minutiae and focus on performance over presence. Innovators like BestBuy, which has more than 3,000 people at headquarters on a Results-Only-Work-Environment (ROWE), is setting a standard that other companies like Google are using to attract the best employees.
Once you are able to make a business case for flexible work times and locations, and once you demonstrate increased output, it is surprisingly possible to negotiate remote work in most companies, beginning at a one-time event, then once-per-week, then complete freedom of time and place.
It just takes some good planning and presentation.
Cheers!
Tim
http://www.fourhourworkweek.com
Les says on April 24th, 2007 at 1:33 pm
The biggest roadblock to telecommuting is hanging onto an Industrial Age mentality in the Information Age. Back when industry ruled people had to be present to work assembly lines and had to be present in meetings to see visuals and demonstrations. Now that information rules and can be accessed from practically anywhere one’s physical presence isn’t necessary up to 90% of the time. The old management philosophy that productivity requires presence is very antiquated and isn’t really rooted in reality. The same technology that enables people to work from anywhere also allows people to screw off from anywhere…and it’s just as present in the office as at home.
As far as fairness either apply it to all employees or make it a reward for productivity. Not everyone gets promoted, just those who show results…so why would telecommuting be any less fair?
John says on April 24th, 2007 at 10:21 pm
This means trust in every aspect. It would be risky to trust, especially new employees. They could be having someone do their job or even not doing it at all.