Working from Home Policies

Filed in archive General on July 19, 2007

Just when you thought all you had to do is approach your boss to let you to telecommute, there are actually some policies that you'll be required if ever you get to convince the bigwigs to give you more flexibility working at home. Be ready for policies that "might" be implemented if ever you choose to work at home. LinkedIn users who were or are currently telecommuting shared the work-at-home arrangements they were able to negotiate for:
"From a technical point of view, every company that I've worked for or with and that did offer telecommuting did so via a VPN connection to the office over the user's home broadband connection (since broadband connections became wildly available; before that, it was dial-in access).

Equipment-wise, the choice is/was usually either a remote desktop software used from people's home PCs or a company-provided PC. A lot of people seem to prefer the former as finding space for yet another PC can be a problem. Nevertheless, both seem to work fine.

As to guidelines, I always preferred to keep it simple, using the 'is the work getting done' as the main guideline. If someone requires a lot of supervision in the office, they're usually not that good a candidate for telecommuting, but once they are familiar with the work I found giving them a chance is the best policy. If it doesn't work out then you probably have to revoke the perk but in my experience, this hasn't happened yet.

Even if you're only putting up minimal guidelines, I think it is important to make telecommuting optional as some people find that working from home isn't for them. There may be too much disruption there, someone digging up the road outside the house, the dog wanting attention all the time etc...

Also, tools I found useful (apart from having people's phone numbers, preferably work-sponsored cellphones to lower people's potential reluctance to pick up the phone if and when necessary) are some kind of IM tool to facilitate the informal, walking-over-to-people's desks type communication and some sort of shared electronic whiteboard. Although I'd say the latter is probably only useful if your team members regularly use a whiteboard in the office." - Timo Geusch, Consultant