This is our last “Coffee Talk” of the summer, and as we’re all about to head (or are already) back to work, I’d love to know what you think about working from home.
Does your company allow you to work from home? Are you working from home full time? Do you feel you’re more productive working from home than from the office? What are your best tips to remain motivated and efficient?
Personally, while working from home saves me from commuting and can feel very cozy (especially when it’s dark and cold out there!), I quickly miss my Team, so unless I’m stuck at home for something very important, I rarely work from home!
What about you? Tell us all about your experience, and share your best tips for making work from home productive! I look forward to reading you
I can do 95% of my job from home, but instead commute almost 3 hrs/ day into work. Why? I don’t know. I’ve tried “pitching” a work from home solution 2X / week and not on Mondays or Fridays to help entice my employer, but it wasn’t well received 2 years ago. I might pitch it again, as we have new leadership that seems a little more progressive.
Although I do like the team interaction, I am so much more productive when I’m working from home. My employer usually gets 10+ hrs/ day from me when I’m home and the Asana tasks start to disappear.
If anyone has any tips to help “sell” the work from home solution, I’d appreciate anything you can share. Many thanks!
Hi Mark, I was in a similar situation a few years back and am now working 2x/week from home. I think what helped was documenting how much more productive I could be at home, based on hours worked and work completed (and quality of work), and documenting things I didn’t get to do/finish in the office due to impromptu meetings and other distractions. I was also able to be flexible with my schedule, so if meetings need to happen at a day I was planning to WFH, I can easily switch days. This may not be an option for everyone, but it helped to “sell” to my org that I wouldn’t hold anything up. And finally, since the culture was more of an in-office one, I take every opportunity to help make everyone comfortable with this arrangement. For example, if someone wants to meet and I’m WFH, I encourage us to get on a call or video call, rather than wait until I’m in the office. I think this slowly helps people see it as a normal thing, and not a barrier to communication/collaboration.
Good luck to you!
Hi Jennifer,
Thanks so much for these helpful tips… I do track my work in Asana, so you’re suggestion gave me an idea to add a custom field called WFH (Y/N) to identify tasks completed at home. That way, when I run my reports I might be able to quantify and illustrate the efficiency of a WFH approach. Communication is always key, and being open about the WFH with colleagues is at first daunting (the “jealousy” factor), it is probably a key to success.
Thanks again!
See ya around the community,
@Mark_Nattress I love the idea of using custom fields to track what tasks you’ve completed from home Hopefully it will help to convince your manager to let you work from home! Keep us posted
@Jennifer_Orr thank you so much for sharing your experience with us, very interesting to see how you were able to advocate for WFH in an in-office culture company!
The company I work for has grown quite a bit in the past year, so we’re actually running a little low on desk space. To help with this, everyone has been actively encouraged to work from home when possible, so I work from home every Tuesday.
I generally love it, for the following reasons:
I can start earlier, because I don’t have to travel to work
It’s a lot quieter - we have an open office at work and sometimes I can’t concentrate because of the noise
I can watch TV or listen to a podcast over lunch
I can listen to music while working
I have a much better selection of snacks at home
I find I’m more productive at home, especially if I’m working on a task that requires that I concentrate. However, I enjoy being with my colleagues, whether it’s to chat or to ask for opinions/advice.
So, once a week is perfect for me. It breaks up Mon-Fri, and it will also allow me to drop off/pick up my daughter when she starts school next week.
I was listening to the Steelcase 360 podcast today and learned of a meta study on working from home. Here’s the link to the full abstract, and you can buy the full report for $12, but the gist of it is:
“Telecommuting had small but mainly beneficial effects on proximal outcomes, such as perceived autonomy and (lower) work-family conflict. Importantly, telecommuting had no generally detrimental effects on the quality of workplace relationships. Telecommuting also had beneficial effects on more distal outcomes, such as job satisfaction, performance, turnover intent, and role stress. These beneficial consequences appeared to be at least partially mediated by perceived autonomy. Also, high-intensity telecommuting (more than 2.5 days a week) accentuated telecommuting’s beneficial effects on work-family conflict but harmed relationships with coworkers.”
I work mostly from home, and usually 2 days a week from a co-working space.
Why from home? Because I get to have breakfast with my wife and kids, have a lunch with them if they are home, and bath my kids at night.
Why from a coworking space? Because that is nice to see people, and not see your family every day all week!
I go to the “office” once a month. I find it very hard to work there, a lot of noise, a meeting takes at least 5 min to get setup and 5 min to leave the room, then you go get a coffee and chat for another 5 to 10 minutes… Overall I can work shorter hours and get much more done. But don’t get me wrong: I like to see my colleagues face to face. Once a month is enough for me
For me, remote work (or partial WFH) is the future. In a few years, nobody will want to spend 1-3 hours per day commuting
I’m really going to try to pitch WFH one day / week to start. And maybe get to 2. My company is very “old school”, but there has been some recent progressives in leadership that might be open to it. Like most pitches, I’ll come with data (my Asana worklog tracker that has a “WFH potential” custom field)
Remote work saves for me 4h per day, I hope our company will remain in such format after a pandemic. I also feel like I’ve become more productive, with fewer distractions and more ability to concentrate on my work
Wow. I have been working in Remote / Hybrid fashion since one year and my professional life couldn’t have been better. Loving every moment of it. I do think that there are certain professions and certain working condition, which allows for someone to work remotely. However, once you start remotely, there is really nothing better way to work.
Hopefully it will help to convince your manager to let you work from home! Keep us posted 
