Comments on: The Home Office

By: Brian

Brian — Sat, 23 Aug 2008 22:07:15 +0000

@ Russ:

Absolutely – sounds like you have a great setup. Flexibility is key.

Thanks for the comment – hope your experience only gets better!

By: Russ

Russ — Sat, 23 Aug 2008 17:46:21 +0000

I work from home about 80% of the time. Within a one year period, I went from having a boss and 15 coworkers in the same office as me to having a boss in Malaysia, one coworker in the Netherlands and one coworker in London. After a couple of months it hit me that my one hour morning commute wasn’t buying me a whole lot since all my meetings and interaction was over the phone and I spent most of the day working alone anyway. Add the one hour commute back home each day and that’s one full work day each week spent sitting behind the wheel.

I also have some early meetings because of the time difference. Seven AM is not uncommon and I have even attended a couple of 10pm, 2am and 3am meetings. Having my office here at the house makes being part of a global organization a whole lot easier and saves me a huge chunk of time each week. Throw in scheduling flexibility and gas savings and it’s a no-brainer for me.

By: Brian

Brian — Thu, 21 Aug 2008 16:31:31 +0000

@ Jay – I definitely understand. I’m hopeful our pilot will drive a shift in the company as a whole. Flex scheduling and telecommuting are just part of the bigger picture, which I think must include at least a partial shift towards Results-Only-Work-Environment (ROWE).

While I’m not sure Results-Only is the answer, I do think a variation of it might be the holy grail for companies looking at the inevitable baby boom retirement and recruitment of the next generation of workers, who want more than the normal 8-5…

As one of my good friends always says, “I want to work to live, not live to work.”

By: Jay Fleischman

Jay Fleischman — Thu, 21 Aug 2008 15:13:06 +0000

Good luck getting your employer to make your new situation a permanent one. Most bosses are reluctant to allow people to work from outside of the office until they see the rise in productivity. Keep at it!