Darina Loakman.com

Last week I posted about an initiative in the Australian Navy to allow working from home. Sounded great didn’t it?

Teleworking or eworking is on the increase - we all know that, we hear it all the time, we see surveys about it.

Almost half (47%) of Ireland’s senior managers in small and medium sized enterprises (SMEs)
work from home at least one day a month according to the latest teleworking survey by O2 Ireland. 29% work from home four days a month or more.

And we all know someone who does it. But it always seems to be someone else doesn’t it. Whether it’s the Australian Navy or the neighbour down the road !

Why can’t I telework with my job, - even one or two days a week would be a help?

This is a 3 part post. We’ll have a look at some of the ways you can approach your employer
about home-working. We’ll also look at some of the objections you might get and how to handle them.

If your company doesn’t have a home-working policy or flexible working program, there is no
point moaning about it, it’s up to you to initiate the conversation. BUT…before you even start to approach them you need to make sure the ground work is in place.

Lets look at 5 things to consider

1. Are you a good worker? Might seem like a basic question, but employers are less likely to be accomodating to clock watchers and those they constantly have to pick up over their level or standard of work. Remember home-based working is not an entitlement (yet !) it’s a concession by your employer, so make sure you are in a strong position before you approach them.

2. Can your job be done a couple of hours or a couple of days from home? With the technologies available to us these days there are very few office based jobs that can’t accomodate at least a little bit of home-based and flexible working. Obviously if you are a nurse or a teacher etc.. not much point in working from home is there !! but we are talking here about office or on the road type jobs. Not the the type of job where it’s
necessary to be in a specific place all the time. So make a list of the tasks and duties
that you feel you could do from home even on a temporary or part-time basis.

3. Do you have a workspace? - Your employer is not going to be happy if you say “oh yeah we’ve a great big kitchen table that’ll do !” Would you be happy if someone came to you with that proposal? You need to create a separate workspace with no distractions and with access to all of the technology and tools you’ll need. No point in having to run to a different room to answer the phone.

4. Do you think you can cut it working from home ! - It can be very isolating. If you are the type who needs constant interaction with your colleagues, or gossips with Linda from accounts at the watercooler. Are you going to be happy working on your own from home? or are you going to spend so much time on the phone catching up with office gossip or crying about how you miss everyone, that you don’t actually get any work done !

5. Do you have adequate childcare in place. You may think “oh that’s great I’ll save on creche fees a couple of days a week” but your employer is not going to be happy if they contact you and hear the baby crying in the background or worse till an important client gets a 3 year old answering the phone to them ! If you are working from home for an employer you need to keep the same level of childcare that you would if you were still in the office. Remember you are still at work ! You are just in a different location and hopefully one that means you can pick your child up 10 minutes after you’ve finished workrather than 2 hours after traffic

Next time we’ll look at some of the ways to approach your employer and present your case.

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rgds

darina