WFH permanently after pandemic

[floofycroissant]

Has anyone done this successfully?

I've being working from home successfully since March. I'd like to relocate somewhere cheaper to live and continue to do so. I also am likely to be part of a company wide redundancy next spring.

I'm worried I'll ask and they'll say no, any tips on how best to make my case?

You need to entirely reinforce the benefits to your employer of you working from home: they don’t particularly care about what’s easiest or best for you, so don’t begin your pitch on those terms. Can you show quantitative evidence that you’ve been more productive at home? Improved the business / increased revenues / hit more targets / improved processes? Can you save them money by working from home? Would you accept a paycut? Reduce your hours because you’d be so much more efficient at home you can do what used to be 40 hours work in 30?

To be honest, I think WFH long term is going to really badly impact women - because it will end up being mostly women who want to do it to fit around childcare and school hours. There’s a lot of research which concludes that employees who aren’t seen in the office aren’t perceived to be as hard workers as those who are and are more likely to be passed over for promotions and picked on when it comes to redundancy time.

I can't agree with Comtesse enough. It's one thing when the entire office is WFH but the instant my two managing partners are back, I'll be putting in face-time - at least the days that they are in (we're talking about the whole company going to a 3 day office week with 2 days WFH in future).

I've been that one WFH person in a team, and it's terrifying how quickly you are out of sight, out of mind for staffing and promotion.

The pandemic has not ended yet, so for us the question has not yet arisen, though there is definitely a move to end five days a week in the office post pandemic. A group at work are considering what ground rules may be needed, and how to help people adjust.

Interesting... I have recently done an intro to negotiation course on linked in learning that focuses on making your pitch and negotiating working at home as an example. I wonder if you have access to that! That will help you a great deal.

Thing is, there clearly are no prospects for me. In a roundabout. So my options are to just sit where I am, waiting to be made redundant in March/April.

Sadly @ComtesseDeSpair I don't really have anything like that to back me up. I was furloughed twice this year and have spent the rest of the time chasing my tail. I am hoping to complete to large pieces of work in December. That might help.

I am job hunting in the meanwhile, please don't get me wrong.

I'm tempted to just leave it until the last minute of the move. As I don't see us returning to the office anytime soon.