100% WFH job?

[Redrubberducky]

What is it like? What are the challenges involved? I’m interviewing for one now but can’t tell if I’d love it or hate it.

I love it. No commute so saves time/cost. I can work in comfortable clothes all day, slippers and hot water bottle if it's cold. If I've got a cold where I'm well enough to work I can carry on without infecting colleagues. Loads more positives.

Downside for me is because there's no commute or time I must be finished to catch a train it's easy to start work earlier and finish later and sometimes work can take over the day. Need to maintain home/work boundaries.

My job is 100% work from home and I love it . There is option of occasionally going into the office if you want but no one does. My DH is also wfh so we do have each other and always have lunch together but I can understand why other people would find it lonely. My team and I are always on teams to each other throughout the day .

I love it. Pro's: no commute, own environment, no 'office' clothes, no distractions.
Con's: no informal work chat to ask how to do things, no socialising, using own heating. Depends on job and how you like to work

I love it too. Massively improved quality of life - no stressy busy mornings getting toddler DD out the door to nursery because I have a train to catch, we can take our time because a ten-minute late drop-off doesn't matter. I can have laundry loads running while I'm working; I'm around for deliveries and tradesmen (kitchen renos) and I don't spend a fortune crammed in like sardines on crap, delayed trains.

I don't think I'd go back more than a day or two a week to an office now.

Pros - you get so much time back because you don't have to commute, can shove the washing in on a tea break, can clean on your lunch hour, can pick up a prescription on your lunch break etc. I find it less stressful and don't get the Sunday night blues anymore, probably because I actually get a weekend and they are no longer taken up doing chores. Less office politics. It can often be more flexible e.g. if you need to nip to the docs it will be close by so you can make up the time much more quickly.

Cons - it can be lonely and my house is freezing. Occasionally messages can be misinterpreted so you might feel someone is being snippy with you when they aren't. They might just be concise.

Cons I also struggle to concentrate in virtual meetings.

Oh yes and pros are definitely comfy shoes and clothes and not panicking if you don't find time for a shower until the evening rather than the morning.

ive done it for over 10 years.

I would have to be desperate to agree to any other work arrangement.

I love it for all the reasons listed above.

However in a previous office-based job I met some really close friends who I would spend a lot of time with outside of work too. Maybe that was an unusually lucky situation but I do feel I’m missing out on that a bit.

Pros

• save money, time & stress of commute
• like being round the corner from DC school rather than in central London, makes going to sports day / nativity easy
• like being at home as can be in for deliveries, workmen. Can shove a load of washing on so reduces weekend chores
• can concentrate better, no noisy colleagues
• save money on clothes & lunches & coffees
• can go for countryside walk / run at lunch

cons

• can be lonely
• miss the vibrancy of being in London
• Miss the opportunity to wear my nice clothes!! May sound silly but getting to accustomed to slobby clothes really affected my self esteem

overall WFH enables me to work very flexibility- but my job is something that doesn’t have rigid core hours, so I could be offline during business hours then work in the evening to compensate. I think I would find WFH less valuable if I HAD to be online constantly 9-5

i have two very small children:-

Pros:-
-it’s really flexible. I have used my lunches to take my kids for their vaccinations etc. Can get the shopping delivered, walk the dog.
-saves money on commute and time - I tend to cook and clean in my commute time.
-basically I’m more available and flexible for my family if the kids are ill I just have them home and it doesn’t disrupt me to the extent it would if I was in an office

Cons:-
-i miss being able to confer with colleagues, sometimes I’ll want to run something by a colleague and it’s much more difficult to approach them
-I often feel quite isolated. I think Id feel less like this if I still had my hobbies which were v social, but the kids are too young to do that each or most days.
-my boss hasn’t intergrated me well, I still don’t think she understands my capabilities or knows my capacity and my career has really stagnated.

I prefer going into the office. 2 days at home hybrid is perfect for me. Bet many people would like hybrid 3 days at home. 2 in the office. Or 1 day in the office. Would you like that?

I work from home permanently. Work is fine, no commute, or spending money in coffee shops etc. The only issue is that sometimes I don't leave the house for days at a time. When a trip to Costco is looked firward to as an exciting evening out, I think I may be doing something wrong 🤣

dh does it, I do hybrid

hybrid is perfect for me, wfh is perfect for my dh but he gets no work banter, no work social events, no work “friends” as such and if it wasn’t for school runs he might not leave the house for days at a time. I don’t think that’s very good for his mental health

if you otherwise have a full life though it could be great

I love working at home and would not now go back to being office-based. The only downsides I have found are a) not having fresh air and exercise built into my day (so I have to make the effort to go out) and b) increased heating and lighting costs.

As a full time working mum it has massively widened up available opportunities and destressed my weekends significantly as others have said.

However, i choose to go in one day a week or fortnight for my mental health and to get dressed up. If i dont for a couple of weeks i can feel myself going downhill a bit. I begin to misread emails and feel a bit isolated and cut off.

I like to meet someones eye and laugh, or compliment someone on their outfit etc etc it really is the small things. Walking over to the sandwich shop with a colleague. Those human touches. They matter to me.

Some companies do wfh really well though. So ask how they support their new starters remotely and how they do personal development and team building and you will get a gist for if they are good at it.