The "Working from Home" line

[joedplumber]

So I found out today at the office that there are certain people, not in my department, that work from home every Friday. I also heard that a few of them pretty much treat as if they have a 4 day work week. I was talking to one of the persons and they told me that "work from home" means two things

1) be available to field phone calls and emails
2) get your work done and don't miss deadlines

Some of them even use it as a long weekend and work from the passenger seat on a Friday while they travel to their vacation destination.

I'm actually not upset about this more than I am jealous. Anyone else have the same office policy or do you think this is just abuse?

 

[cabanafrau]

My husband has worked from home anywhere from two to three days per week for several years now. All it means is he spends the time he normally would commuting getting more work done. If his work wasn't getting done or if he wasn't logged into the network and participating with his colleagues in the chats and projects it would be noticed. His colleagues are all over the country and around the world. When he reports to his official office locations he still isn't even in the same state with anyone else he actually works with, simply in the same physical office with other employees on other teams in other departments.

 

[morgan98]

Ok, I'll play along...

Below are a few random thoughts:

1. I would say it depends on the job and the responsibilities as to whether or not it is abuse. Are they working longer than normal days the four days they are in the office so Friday can be a lighter work day?
2. While working from home is more and more common, some places of employment (not mine) would not let someone work from home EVERY SINGLE FRIDAY as that does seem a bit suspicious. But for example, my brother has worked for companies that limit who can and how often someone can have Friday as a work from home day.

I'm sure I will have more...

I have been trying to work from home more myself as I do not have a direct reporting responsibility in the office in which I sit. However, my days are flexible and vary depending on how many meetings I have and should some be attended in person, etc.

 

[Kitty 34]

Two of my sons can "work from home" here and there. Youngest DS would have a problem with that because I really don't think he has a runway at his home he's currently renting as he's recently moved to be an ATC at the Indianapolis airport.

 

[LSUmiss]

So I found out today at the office that there are certain people, not in my department, that work from home every Friday. I also heard that a few of them pretty much treat as if they have a 4 day work week. I was talking to one of the persons and they told me that "work from home" means two things

1) be available to field phone calls and emails
2) get your work done and don't miss deadlines

Some of them even use it as a long weekend and work from the passenger seat on a Friday while they travel to their vacation destination.

I'm actually not upset about this more than I am jealous. Anyone else have the same office policy or do you think this is just abuse?

No but there is absolutely no reason that I couldn’t work from home so it bugs me that they won’t let us.

 

[tex1989]

Working from home is quite normal where I work. People do it all the time. Some groups have 9-80's as do I. That means you work 9 hour days M-Th and on the Fridays you do work it is 8 hours off every other Friday. There are groups that just work from home every Friday. Many positions are "Global Roles" and report to someone in London, Singapore or somewhere else. They work from home all the time because a lot of calls align with another place and they have to be up at 4:00 AM for the call. In our roles though it is very apparent if you are not doing your job regardless of where you work from. It is a fast paced day to day logistical atmoshpere and you cannot, not do your job. Days I work from home, I start earlier and therefore get to end earlier. Beyond that I am checking e-mails and taking phone calls nights and weekends so the amount of time in the office or that we work is never an issue. I am not trying to make it sound bad but the reality is I work in a profession where people are highly paid and overall compensation is very good so there is a feeling that you have to perform to maintain so we have very few if any employees that take advantage of the situation.

 

[kdonnel]

I have always worked in an industry that allows for flexible work hours since we are not customer facing. As long as you get all your work done before the due date you can shift your start and end times by several hours every day.

We are a distributed team with people working in the pacific, central, and eastern timezones so we are also expected to be flexible with team meetings that might not occur at ideal times for your particular time zone. If i know I have a 7pm meeting I just shift my schedule that day to start 2-3 hours later.

We also have an official work from home on Wednesdays policy as well and you are encouraged to schedule those things that would take you away from the office for an hour or two like doctors, dentist, or car appointments on Wednesday.

 

[AgentMama]

My company has a pretty flexible work from home policy and I have definitely been that passenger in a car working while traveling. You can tell who does and does not abuse the policy here. As long as people meet their deadlines and are responsive when appropriate, I don't have an issue with it. Is there an opportunity for you to work from home?

 

[DawnM]

My husband works from home 3 days per week. He goes in 2 days. He works more than 40 hours per week most weeks. But they truly don't care if it is done on exactly M-F, it just has to be done on or before the due date. He sometimes takes Friday "off" and either adjusts his other days to work more, or does a little bit on Sat and a little on Sun. It doesn't matter.

 

[Mackenzie Click-Mickelson]

I would think it's how the company and/or boss handles things.

When at the insurance company working from home didn't change a thing in terms of responsibilities. You still had to be hooked up to the phone for 8 hours each day and you would be taking incoming calls. Some had chat vs phone but same concept. They did not get any opportunity to do anything else because that was not in their job position

My husband on the rare days he works from home (weather related or network at the office related or other obligations related) his responsibilities don't change either. A conference call still occurs even if he's at the house or in the office, etc FWIW my husband even on vacation has been known to answer a phone call or two if it's been determined it's important. If it's not it can wait. Same goes for e-mail. He'll still check his e-mail every now and then even on vacation fielding for things that might be really important.

Then there's some people I know where the policies were "get your work done in the expected time frame" and that's all they cared about.

I don't think it's abuse unless it goes against whatever the company and/or boss has laid forth. I also think hourly vs salaried can make a difference.

 

[iivye]

My previous job we were allowed to work from home with permission. I only did it on snow days and I quickly learned that I am not a good work from home person. I found myself doing laundry, cleaning, and watching tv instead of getting my work done. I'm sure there were people that took advantage of it but it never affected me so I didn't care. My new job doesn't offer the option at all.

 

[ImDMous]

We're allowed to work from home if needed, a few people have standing every Friday working from home. As long as your work is getting done and you're available for questions or if there's an emergency, I don't think there's a problem. We have remote workers who are always at home or coffee shops/Panera/where ever there's wifi. I think it would only be a problem if your productivity went down every time you worked from home.

 

[firefly_ris]

I agree with others, I think it depends on the type of job, type of work, etc.

13 years ago I was a web dev for a government contractor, and I kept the job when I moved out of state and it became a work-from-home job... the thing with that was, I was on a salary, and some weeks the work was very, very sparse (meaning like... zero things assigned the entire week). I just needed to be responsive to emails basically. I'll never forget, it was so slow one week that my husband and I actually went and took a day trip up to Toronto on some random weekday, and I got a call from my boss when I was at the CN Tower that I HAD to answer and I got all kinds of roaming charges. But I was getting paid to do nothing basically, heh... the next year the company lost their re-bid, can't imagine why...

I'm currently a freelancer/independent contractor so I don't have any actual set days or times that I work -- I just have project deadlines. I have multiple clients, and I don't have child care so some weeks work is very sparse/quiet, then other weeks I'm on and off all day and then do another shift from like 8pm until 2am for 2 weeks straight to meet an incoming deadline (this week being one of those... I'm procrastinating as we speak!!). There is definitely a pull for me to do non-work things, especially when the kids are at school... I often find myself procrastinating and getting laundry and dishes done. Sometimes it helps to just leave the house and go work at a coffee shop for a while!

 

[Christine]

I work for the federal government and our agency allows telework up to 2 days a week *if* your supervisor deems your work fit for doing at home. If so, we are required to request approval, state what our work hours will be for the day, transfer our work phones to our home phones, and be available to respond within a 15 minute window (barring lunch time). I also submit a generalized work plan for the day. At the end of the day, I send my supervisor a "log off" email that states everything I processed that day and it must be "auditable." So if I processed financial documents in the system, I have to actually list out the document numbers in case they need to be spot checked. These are government requirements to ensure that work is being accomplished while at home. Our agency takes them seriously and enforces them, but not everyone does.

 

[Scifidiner]

I'm working from home right now...

 

[sam_gordon]

We have one person that works from home a couple days a week. IMO, it depends on your job responsibility and what your bosses say.

If you can do your work from home (not every job can, even in the same building) AND the bosses are okay with you doing so, why not? Sure, you may not focus all of your attention on your work at home, but not everyone is focusing all of their attention on the job when they're at the job. They're on the Dis, shopping, making vacation plans, taking smoke breaks, getting a drink, etc.

I'm sure some people abuse it, but again, as long as they get the work done, so be it. It's up to the company to regulate it.

During the summer months, our GM has let our sales staff take Fridays off. BUT, they work longer hours M-Th in order to make up the time. Some people in other departments are jealous, but they get told they're free to apply for those positions whenever they open. Funny, most of the complainers never do.

 

[superme80]

They just closed my husband's office, so he is working from home. His job is basically 24 hrs because one of the offices he deals with is on the other side of the world. He is notorious for answering emails at 12:30 am. Sometimes he will sleep in until 9 am, but he is usually working 8:30 am-6 pm. When he had an office, he worked from home most mornings. He was actually working. My dad worked from home in the mid 90s. He was actually working. I had to be quiet and not talk to him. It sucked.

 

[mjkacmom]

DH worked from home almost daily for the past year. It meant he didn’t have to put on a button down and drive 1/2 hour to the office. It also meant if there were breaks in his day, he could run an errand. His workload wasn’t lowered, but he could get stuff done at 7 am and take an hour during the day to get a haircut orgo to lunch. He had to sign in on his computer on a regular basis, and a lot of his day consists of conference calls, some of which he might take at a soccer field (it’s common to see parents leave the bleachers to take calls).

New management came in and are trying to get his team back in the office (all over the country), DH doesn’t mind much because his office is only 30 minutes away. His boss now has to fly into a satellite office for the week. He did work from home today, he’s at the grocery store right now.

 

[Hisgirl]

Wow, I've never seen 'work from home' as a slack day. My spouse works from home when he can and it's a day of conference calls, answering emails and producing documents and it starts at 7am and usually ends at 6. The only difference is when the dogs bark, the associates hear it and he can get up and raid the frig.

Anyone who sees working from home as a chance to slack off are the very people who ruin it for those who don't.

 

[Mackenzie Click-Mickelson]

our GM has let our sales staff take Fridays off. BUT, they work longer hours M-Th in order to make up the time.

For a time a couple years ago my husband worked 4 10s...except on Friday when he was supposed to be off he would nearly every Friday still go into the office for a least a few hours..kinda defeated the purpose lol