So what did I do? I went “against” the company policy and had each of my team members work at least 1 day a week from home, now they’re up to 2-3 days depending on the week (humorous part is during the summer they’re in the office more cause it’s more quiet than home cause their kids are out for the summer lol)
So we’re still a “work from office” company but I run our team how I want and surprise - zero attrition in 3 years on my team, we meet most of our commitments, developer happiness/engagement is up on my team, our time to first response for production issues is great and all because of a mutual understanding that regardless of the “rules” I’ll take care of my guys/gals.
It's great for them, but it kills morale in the rest of the company as people in my wife's department kill themselves to come in day after day (despite good/bad weather, missing personal commitments, etc), while they notice empty desks in the dept. down the hall. Makes for some miserable workers.
When I took the role (I’m on the product side, my counterpart is the Engineering lead but we run it together) I made it clear that I’m only taking this role if they let me run the teams the way I want to run them, within reason.
My view on what you’ve described is that my directives are to improve sales, stability and the trajectory of the company.
It is not my job to worry about what other teams or tracks or departments think of how I run my teams. For the first few months, it was very rough because I did get a lot of that passive aggressive bullshit from people.
I told them the exact conversations I had with the respective leadership individual and encouraged them to go have a conversation if they were willing to put themselves in the same situation as me.
None of them did and over time I grew thicker skin, plus stopped caring about what they thought as it was working fine.
There’s about five more teams in the product/analytics/engineering realm that operate the same way I do now and it has been a culture change.
I’d imagine in the next 9-12 months we’ll revisit the policy company wide.
But I’ll say this, I’m not sure it was the right call from the overall morale of the company but it turned our team from the butt of jokes into the leading example so it was the right call for our team.
The last company I worked for was basically “remote only if there was no other way” but the office policy was “if you need to be out for family events, doctors appointments, kids things at school, etc it’s totally fine”
And it was great.
OTOH, I also worked for an investment bank and there it was made clear, in my first day, that different people work different schedules so don’t assume productivity is sitting in your chair 9-5. I think it all comes from communication and clear expectations.
We had a tough situation my workplace to get this going. Once a framework is available and all the legals are checked, it went smoothly.
Off the top of my head.
* Ensure that your workplace is a physically safe place. ie enough lighting, correct furnishing etc.
* The data you are working with is protected adequately. ie A separate room with lockable door and window.
* The infrastructure is adequate. ie internet, electricity, water and toileting.
* Insurable if something goes wrong.
* How your work time is measured. This is particular important if your industry is covered by union rules.
https://www.osha.gov/enforcement/directives/cpl-02-00-125
"OSHA will not conduct inspections of employees' home offices.
OSHA will not hold employers liable for employees' home offices, and does not expect employers to inspect the home offices of their employees.
If OSHA receives a complaint about a home office, the complainant will be advised of OSHA's policy. If an employee makes a specific request, OSHA may informally let employers know of complaints about home office conditions, but will not follow-up with the employer or employee."
What I can't speak to is what sort of legal presence the company set up in the remote employee state of residence. (An office may not be needed but some sort of legal paperwork may be.)
Now on to your question - We haven’t had any issues here with the HR policies and OH&S so far.
Each of the team members is in the same state as the office so no additional burden there for taxes.
Has that been your experience? I love working remote but even at a remote-focused company, I feel there are things I miss out on since I'm not onsite in one of the offices.
When I worked remote it was at all-remote jobs. My office jobs have typically had a pretty "standard" policy around how much remote / work from home people can do, and that makes it viable. You definitely do miss out on some things on the days you work from home, though, so it's one of those things you kind of have to decide how much you can afford to take.
Shoot me an email (address is in my profile) if you'd like to chat more.
The East Bay commuters in my office make as much as I do and could live in SF if they wanted. They made a choice to be homeowners, have more space, get access to better schools, etc. but it is still a choice.
As far as flexibility goes, I prefer remote work. I'm OK with office work is the commute is short. But I hate 100% flexibility. I do appreciate the ability to make exceptions to the norm as needed, but if everyone is 100% flexible, I find that is just makes you unsure where people are going to be each day, and doesn't really focus the working habits into one mold or the other. Either way can work, but the least productive teams I've ever been on have been mixed between remote and office.
I think you might be surprised how many people truly want to give up 40 of their best hours a week at all. Reality is that most people need to work for an income, which, as you’ve laid out for remote work, allows them to do things that they want to do with their lives. I know many people who would quit working today if their rent was paid, food guaranteed to be on the table, and they could travel a little or pursue some other hobbies.
My manager let me work from home as needed during that time. Just having the power to make the decision gave me satisfaction. I used it when I needed it but went in otherwise.
But I know there are also a lot of people who love their work and would want “work to do” whether they needed money or not.
Probably the biggest gap is that most people (have to) choose work based on pay, rather than choosing based on what they enjoy spending their time on.
Yup that's all I want.
I want to be in the office for many things, and I wouldn't want to do them remotely. Important meetings, and discussions, just getting to know people, I want to be there.
et other times home to get some life tasks done easier (kids), or just hunker down and pound out some work for a while.
My love for remote work isn't "remote only" but a lot of news stories about "remote" really mix the ideas and "remote often" and "remote only" are very very different ideas for me.
I really don't want a job that's partially remote. I enjoy working 100% remote. Work/life balance really depends on discipline. I turn everything off at around 5pm, unless there is an emergency.
Managers also need to know how to manage remote employees. I've run into issues where a manager doesn't know how to effectively communicate over email/skype, etc, and it results in miscommunications.
In the end, an office worked better for me, but I agree the commute sucks. Since I didn’t have one at all for years, I’m very conscious of all the lost time in transit each week, even though my commute is pretty short by local standards (~25’).
I was remote for a couple of years from home, traveled around Asia for a year (while still remote), and got an office when I got back (7 years ago).
"Since I didn’t have one at all for years, I’m very conscious of all the lost time in transit each week, even though my commute is pretty short by local standards (~25’)."
It's more than just that. While I did enjoy having coworkers to socialize with, I realized it wasted lots of time during the day. I can get things done with virtually no interruptions and it's great. I regularly meet people through meetup groups in my area, so I still get to socialize. Just not at work (aside from Webex meetings/phone calls).
I get to have breakfast and lunch with my family every day, which also means I can help out with the kids.
I get more sleep, since I don't need to spend half an hour in the car (and when I do go into the office, I have to get up earlier, because traffic).
I think the key to having this work well, especially when you have kids, is to have a separate room setup as a home office, so you can close the door and be in work mode. I know it might be a luxury that not everyone can afford, but personally I wouldn't work remotely without it.
I usually have the mindset to be in everyday of the week 9-5 and that’s how I start my week.
But realistically, as the week progress, life gets in the way, I stay late one day in the office, wake up a bit late, etc. So by end of week I am always getting in around 10:30 or just working from home. Also, as honest as I can be, I deliver much more and don’t see my job as a burden/stressor if they grant me this autonomy. It is funny but my wife much rather have me 9-5 because I work less hours this way.
Our HQ is outside DC and most new hires (at least one my product) are local. But, we have great flexibility - we can work from home on demand from day 1. And we regularly let employees go permanently remote when their personal situations change.
Prospective employees are always glad to hear that's one of the perks working here. Especially those that come from government contracts, where being on-site with a client is generally preferred, if not required.
Is there a policy that defines it? Is there a limit?
Would love to hear your experience as I'm doing some research into this right now.
Younger employees (college hire to 3 years or so) tend to be hired locally, with increasing levels of work-from-home allowed as time goes on, but we're flexible from day 1 in terms of "work from home to let in the plumber" type stuff. Generally, after a few months, we'll allow regularly scheduled work-from-home for "I need T/Th to do day care runs" stuff. And several a year go full-time remote, usually to flee DC real estate prices and traffic.
Mid-career employees, we'll hire remote from day 1.
With 1/3 of my product's staff in Bangalore, we have to be good at remote work anyway, so there's little, if any, cost to allowing US-based employees to work wherever they want.
The solution is to rent an office for yourself, or you can work from co-working hubs if you're more on the extrovert side. Even without kids having a separate work space helps a lot in keeping the work/life balance in check.
When I was younger I was full-time remote for more than five years, and at the time I enjoyed it. There was some difficulty separating work from life when it all happened in one apartment, but overall it was a good fit.
Then I had kids, and that distinction became much harder. Little children have a really hard time understanding that mom or dad is right there in the other room but can’t play now. At that point moving to an office job became a really nice change.
As a hiring manager, what I’ve found is that there aren’t so many people who truly want to work from home all the time. Rather, what most people want is flexibility and compromise. For example:
- “I want to work from home on Tuesdays and Thursdays so I can easily pick my kids up from pre-school over my lunch break.”
- “I want to live in (insert almost any city here) where I grew up and have roots, but there aren’t many good jobs.” Or the similar variation, “I want to live in (place that is very cheap or pretty or both)...”
- “My wife and I want to be able to visit both sides of our family that live far away, and the logistics would be a lot easier if I could work remotely for a week here and there to make that work, rather than need 3 extra weeks of vacation.”
The best thing about remote is that all that flexibility and freedom is just built into the job, and in my experience it’s easier to find a full-remote job than an office job with comparable flexibility. The downside is you don’t get the fun and energizing environment of working with neat, smart people in person, nor the work/life separation that many people find very helpful.
I think most people’s stated preference just reflects which one of those is more important to them in their present circumstances.