How many work from home?

SixPapaCharlie

SixPapaCharlie

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And are employees of a company?

My company lets us work from home 2-3 days a week and I am starting to wonder how common it is. I came into the office today. it is 9:20 on a Thursday and there are 3 people here in a room that seats around 300

I am starting to wonder if the office is even necessary anymore.
Our servers are in a co-location so other than raiding Laura's candy drawer I am not sure there is a reason to be here. 2 hours in the car a day that is eliminated when WFH.

If you are an employee of a company do you have a WFH policy? Curious how common it is getting. Wondering if we we'll soon see companies that have no common building at all.
 
I've been working for a fortune 5 company from home for the last 12 years. My immediate team of 7 all work from home spread across the US. Of the ~100 people supporting my product ( sales, install, support, engineering ) only about 20 work from a office in Barrington, IL. A lot of our development work in done in Bangalore, India so we know how to work remotely. I do miss having a office to go to a couple days a week but I'm not willing to relocate to Chicago to get that.
 
I worked from home on and off when I worked as a consultant. Any time that I was not at a client site I "worked from home". It is in quotes because sometimes we would go to the beach and I would work from the hotel room while the family enjoyed the beach.
Heck I only saw an office twice at my last employer. Once during interviews and once during the 2 day onboarding visit. I did not see the office again after that.
No work from home at my current employer.
When I look back over what I have done a theme occurs. When I did IT work & IT consulting I could work from home.
When I did engineering work I could not.
Different industries. Different attitudes.
 
Yeah, I am I.T. that may be a big part of it but I manage people which I guess is weird to do remotely.

With my company it is sort of like everyone is allowed to work from home but also means when the calls come in at 3AM, everyone is expected to be able to put in some effort then too.

Used to be REAL bad. all night all the time. Things have settled a bit. During those times I was doing a lot of "Working from home" in quotes. Work all night so laptop by the pool during the day. Only way to keep from going crazy.
 
I was a full time employee of a big corp for my entire career. Since '95 I'd been working from home off and on. From 2005 to 2011, more home than not despite the office being an easy commute. I went years without stepping foot inside the place except to workout at the gym. Policies were in place and they evolved. Accounting practices can play a part too - on site work impacts budgets more than off site.

Not sure it is a good way to 'get ahead' but I spent the first half of my career doing that in the office and on the road. Nor is it necessarily easy to do well.

It's a great way to build a plane and transition into retirement.
 
I typically go in a couple of times per week, depending on what's going on, but work from home otherwise...at home right now. I'm the odd man out, however, as the vast majority of our staff do go into the office M-F. My role is IT, the company itself is part of the financial industry.
 
I work from home and have done so full time for a little over three years. I also travel a lot. About 4 months out of the year. So I actually do a lot of networking. I also stop by the main office a few times a year. About half of my work group is spread across the US.

My main colleagues are in KC, AZ, FL, MA, WA, DC and TX. The Internet and collaborative tools make working together easy peasy. The hard part is time zone management. With the amount of international travel we all do that gets even more complicated. But I see most of the people I work closet with once a month at some location around the world.

I am highly connected to the Internet and of course have learned how to work from anywhere. The hardest past of not having an office is managing distractions. I do have a work habit. I have found that each day I do need to shower and dress. Just falling out of bed does not cut it for me. I get up before 6am, hit the gym, then shower, dress, have my coffee and start work. Lunch time is rigorous at 11:30am. I do shut down my computer at 5pm and go into 'remote' mode if I have to work. That means I drop out of the corporate network and move around, use another computer (The travel one) and try to not do emails and other things. I fail at that a lot.

I also found that I have to ensure that I get up out of the office at least once a day and go for a walk. Without that I will work straight through the day with hardly moving more than 10 feet. Which is just not healthy.

There are good points. Like when I really jet lagged I can go take a 30 minute nap and no one cares!!!

I can run an errand and I do so!

If never drive in the snow! Although I do sympathy snow days for my colleague that do have to drive. YOu know, we're a team!
 
I'm in IT and WFH 2-3 days/week. The 2 days I go in the office is empty typically, but I do appreciate the benefit of a little face time. It goes a long way but man is WFH awesome. It allows me to keep current on PoA !!
 
SixPapaCharlie said:
Yeah, I am I.T. that may be a big part of it but I manage people which I guess is weird to do remotely.
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I'm IT industry as well. And yeah, managing remotely can be weird squared. I can honestly say I was managed remotely better than I managed others remotely.
 
We don't allow telecommuting on a regular basis (we make occasional exceptions in certain circumstances) but the nature of our work generally requires teams to interact with each other on a face to face basis, where video conferencing or phone calls don't work nearly as well.

I think it's probably fine for certain types of work where individuals can work autonomously and the deliverables are either piece meal, schedule or readiness driven (e.g. IT support.)
 
eman1200 said:
WFH awesome. It allows me to keep current on PoA !!
Click to expand...

I am pretty sure this is why I was given 2 monitors.

999960685239.jpg
 
I've worked from home full time for almost 10 years now. I worked for a small company that was hurting for money and sending me home to work saved them office space rent, since I was the only full time employee at the time. As that company endured even more financial hardships, I took a job with our largest customer doing essentially the exact same job, but with a more stable company. Since they knew I'd been (successfully) working from home for so long, there was never a question of where I'd work at the new place.
 
work from home....interesting concept. but not in my world. Federal rules don't allow it.

guess i need to find a new job.
 
SixPapaCharlie said:
I am pretty sure this is why I was given 2 monitors.

999960685239.jpg
Click to expand...

This is typically me too...SSMS and POA...that's me right now actually.

I work for a large healthcare corporation that's owned by an even larger healthcare corporation. We have WFH 2 days a week, but a lot of the jobs in our parent company are 100% WFH.
 
I don't work from home but I only have to go in 3 times a month ! Twice if it's in a month with a vacation.
 
I'm WFH today. We generally get one day a week, but that isn't typical of the company.
 
Can't really "work" from home as a replacement for day to day - but I do have enough of the LAX infrastructure available remotely to keep me from coming back in every time we have a power interruption, or a contractor goes "aw*****"
 
I get to work from home 5pm - 8am M-F and all day Sat and Sunday unless I'm in the office during that time.

My regular shift is at the office M-F 8am-5pm....I'm IT as well
 
I am right now! But that's because the water pump let go on my wife's BMW and I had to take care of getting it back home. It also took out the fan and radiator. Yay. :mad2:
 
Sac Arrow said:
We don't allow telecommuting on a regular basis (we make occasional exceptions in certain circumstances) but the nature of our work generally requires teams to interact with each other on a face to face basis, where video conferencing or phone calls don't work nearly as well.

I think it's probably fine for certain types of work where individuals can work autonomously and the deliverables are either piece meal, schedule or readiness driven (e.g. IT support.)
Click to expand...
I am not sure of your type of work so I cannot comment on what works or does not work for you.

But let me just say that this isn't the 1980s anymore. Phone and video conferencing is old technology.

The collaborative tools for online group work have change a lot. We often use voice, video, online white boards, ability to edit documents, etc. all the while with each person working remotely. There is a little learning curve but it can be done. The key is for people to be open to learning new ways to interact. That can be hard if you have only been exposed to in person group work. But it is changing. The younger people have learned this early on. Often times school classes are done in online collaboration.

BTW the next big thing in online collaboration is augmented reality applications. Stand-by, that will be the next big thing in a lot of area. You are already seeing the infant applications and devices now.
 
When I first starting working from home 12 years ago I would get up , shower and dress for work so I could get my head in the game so to speak. after 4 or 5 years I developed enough work habits to stop doing that, now I roll out of bed and start working and shower at lunch. My work involves working with customers that are scattered over the entire east coast and I'd be doing the same thing in a office so it does not make sense to be in a office. My team is pretty much all the same way. We joke about not being able to use webcams as we would all be in PJs before lunch. The biggest downside to working from home is trying to stop working at a reasonable time and trying to avoid responding to emails in the evening as my work office is also my personal office.
 
6PC already knows this, but I don't get to WFH. I run a non-profit counseling agency, so during the day, I have to be available to answer phones and schedule appointments. That being said, there is some flexibility just because I'm the boss and can come in late or something if I need to. And our kids can come to work with me and hang out in the play therapy room before clients come if we are short on childcare. So not too many complaints about the situation.
 
I'll be working at home a good bit starting in a few weeks. Our emerging medical device company has finally emerged and now I will be in Sales (we have a new type of brachytherapy source). So I need to learn a new job on my own.

I can't get diddly squat done in the office because everyone comes to me with questions or problems I used to take care of in my old role.
 
You two.............. *shucks


young love
 
I've worked from home most of my adult life, even before it was "allowed." Once I built up good client lists and started generating good revenue, I would just gradually stop showing up at the office except for meetings and such. I never said anything about it. I'd just stop showing up.

I always had jobs where I served clients in the field, anyway, so there really wasn't much point to starting and ending every day in the office. I deposited checks from clients when I happened to pass by a branch of the company's bank, and faxed the paperwork in from home.

Believe it or not, not a single boss ever said a word about it. As long as my production was where they wanted it, they really didn't care. The key was getting the production up first. Once you're producing and the clients like you, nothing else really matters. Besides, the company actually benefited because they didn't have to pay for my deadhead driving time to and from the office.

-Rich
 
RJM62 said:
I've worked from home most of my adult life, even before it was "allowed." Once I built up good client lists and started generating good revenue, I would just gradually stop showing up at the office except for meetings and such. I never said anything about it. I'd just stop showing up.

I always had jobs where I served clients in the field, anyway, so there really wasn't much point to starting and ending every day in the office. I deposited checks from clients when I happened to pass by a branch of the company's bank, and faxed the paperwork in from home.

Believe it or not, not a single boss ever said a word about it. As long as my production was where they wanted it, they really didn't care. The key was getting the production up first. Once you're producing and the clients like you, nothing else really matters. Besides, the company actually benefited because they didn't have to pay for my deadhead driving time to and from the office.

-Rich
Click to expand...
That is good!

In the early 2000's I had a boss that thought if you were not in the office you were not working. Scary thought in a technology research organization where your main product is wireless data delivery. He even made us come in for late night conference calls. It was a happy day when he retired.
 
Hmmm, been on both sides.
16 years as a GM plant engineer so ' ya had to be there'

35 years as the only doc in a small town so my work day was 14 + hours and my office was where I spent most of them - it was like being at home other than sleeping. My boss was the wife - and she was there also.

Now a farmer and home is my workplace. Scouted fields this morning. Went to the tractor dealer for parts. Ran back to meet a seed salesman at one of the farms. Mowed the lawn at the home farm (two more to go) and now at 3:55PM just goofing off.
Well, actually looking at a large vaccum layup on a boat thull I'm going to do probably Saturday.
Also watching for 4PM (EST) so I can call LightSpeed and order a couple of new headsets on their trade up program. One minute to go.

taa taa
 
Worked from home for over 10 years. Took me about 2 years to realize how to cut the work day off. Finally decided that when I walked out of the office at the end of the day and closed the door, the closed door meant the work day is over. Didn't open the door until the following morning.
 
I am now in a WFH pilot group at my company. Once a week for 4 weeks. It is so nice I'm considering finding a job that would allow it full time.

Sent from my Nexus 7 using Tapatalk
 
My last contract gig was remote. Most of the other project team members were in CA, TX, or overseas. My current perm job lets me wfh a few days a week. Comes in handy since I have a 1:45 hour commute each way. My fiancee will be staying on with her current employer (in AZ) after she moves up here in August.
 
Don't I wish! I've been in manufacturing since 1989, first with a small foreign company, then moved to the Fortune 50, promoted and transferred to cold country, switched Fortune companies to go partway back, and just started at another small startup with great promise.

I'm an engineer, ranging from Production Support to R&D (both process development and new product development) to Division Engineering and now in Quality. Work From Home does not exist.

Ya'll enjoy it while it lasts, and do some for me! Today was 0700-1930, but at least it's only a 5-minute drive each way.
 
Have W'd FH the past 9 years in an IT role managing end user technical services, helpdesk and deskside support. I live in Utah and work for a company in Calif. i travel to Calif once a month for a week but otherwise work from home the rest of the time. I can work from anywhere that has a good internet connection using video conferencing and VoIP telephone services.
 
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