Comments on: Should Businesses Allow Employees to Work from Home?

By: Nospingirl

Nospingirl — Sun, 16 May 2010 13:34:51 +0000

How much money does an employer save per hour having employees work from home as opposed to working inhouse? Does anyone out there know?

By: Anonymous

Anonymous — Fri, 10 Oct 2008 15:03:41 +0000

I work for a small business and my boss has asked me to work from home with my personal computer and equipment. Should I ask for additional compensation other than my salary

By: ispf

ispf — Fri, 11 May 2007 17:35:31 +0000

I work for a big corp, and my role is developing s/w. Here, in the Austin branch, working from home is allowed. However, I have noticed that the only folks who take advantage of this are those whose families are *not* in Austin. Every month they work from home for a week or so, so they can spend some time with their families. The rest of the month they are all here.

I think the reason why people prefer not to work from home is that (a) our group is fairly new (b) everyone want “visibility” and (c) some times it is necessary to be in the lab physically.

By: Art Dinkin

Art Dinkin — Thu, 10 May 2007 21:17:53 +0000

When my wife was pregnant with our second child, we decided it was no longer worth it for her to keep working. After daycare expenses and taxes, the remaining income was no longer significant to us. So she told her employer that she would either leave or she would only come the office 3 days a week. She kept the same responsibilities but two days a week she works from home while parenting.

It has only been a few weeks since she has come off maternity leave, but so far that arrangement is working out well.

By: Ben

Ben — Wed, 09 May 2007 05:15:08 +0000

Sounds from this small sampling that my hunch may be true about California. Both Lazy Man & Chicky had more lax telecommuting rules out West.

I agree that there could be potential distractions at home but for people who are able to stay focused I think they could actually be more productive at home. No one stopping by the cube with annoying questions or additional requests.

I couldn’t do my job from home 5 days a week but one or two would be awesome, maybe I should move to California.

By: Lazy Man and Money

Lazy Man and Money — Mon, 07 May 2007 19:39:12 +0000

I work for a small company in California and it seems like there’s just a culture that makes working at home more common. I don’t know if your company allows it because of gas or traffic, but it could very well be that if they don’t, the employees will go work for someone else who is offering the perk.

By: Q at $1 Million to My Name

Q at $1 Million to My Name — Mon, 07 May 2007 19:19:12 +0000

VPN makes it all possible. I had a laptop at a previous job – on the last day of the month, I would run month-end reports from bed at home. Nice!

I have to say that I would have a difficult time motivating myself if I worked from home. Parts of my job also involve interaction with fellow employees. It’s just not an option for me at this time.

By: MyOwnMillions

MyOwnMillions — Mon, 07 May 2007 18:55:08 +0000

I’m a sales person and chose to work at the office. There are things that just cannot be done outside of work.

There are people that works from home though (all sales people). Everyone else works in the office.

By: broknowrchlatr

broknowrchlatr — Mon, 07 May 2007 18:54:53 +0000

I am on the other side of the situation. My boss is in another state and allows me to set the policy for my team. I run a development team int he midwest. I like to be able to quickly bounce ideas off the team as do they. I designated that on Thurdsays, we can work from home. But, if there is a big meeting or soemthing, everyong has to be in the office.

If there is bad weather that would slow the drive in to work, I call them up and say that they can work from home. The reason I do not allow more of it is that, frankly, the team performs better in the office. They don’t slack off at home (that I know of) but the performance is just not as good.

By: Jeremy

Jeremy — Mon, 07 May 2007 12:05:30 +0000

It is funny, at my employer I am actually labeled as a “work at home” employee, yet the policy is to not regularly allow work from home. Like you, they give us a laptop and VPN, but it is more or less to be able to work while off-site, not just at home.

It is strange because I don’t even have co-workers or a company office to use. I’m primarily stationed at the company we provide our services for and they are gracious enough to provide me an empty office to work in. Our home office is in New York, over 1500 miles away and I only get to meet with my superiors once or twice a year.

I could do 90% of my job from anywhere with an internet connection and my laptop, but there is one key component that I couldn’t do, and that is meeting with their employees face to face for meetings and holding my regular retirement seminars. But aside from that I really wish I could spend more time working from home and just route phone calls to my cell.

Ahh well, I can’t complain. It just sucks driving all the way into “work” when there are no appointments or anything on the books and I could do everything just as easily from home.