Managers/HR types or indeed anyone what are your thoughts on requests to work from home ?

[rookiemater]

I manage a small team and for various reasons it is likely that I will be getting flexible working requests in to work from home.

Technically much of the work we do can be done from home, so that part isn't an issue. However some of the team have heavy family commitments and I would suspect, though I would find it hard to prove, that if they were to work from home they probably wouldn't be doing a full week. Don't flame me on this please, I have good reasons for having suspicions, which I don't want to go into here.

I also feel that as I work p/t I have made a financial sacrifice to achieve work/life balance and working from home is slightly cheating because getting more time, without taking a cut in salary.

The other side of me feels that people can work more productively when they are supported in their working arrangements and are more likely to go the extra mile when required.

What do others think ?

Some people are more dilligent than others and I do have a fear that people will work less hours as a result. Ideally I would prefer if they did what you said which is doing a full day, just from home rather than the office, as that way it is easier to control and be sure that people are working their contracted hours.

I like the idea of one day in a fortnight with 2 days notice, that seems nice and fair.

I think it totally depends on the individual. Some people will work well at home and others will be distracted by whatever. Surely it should be relatively easy to monitor production to make sure they're working properly.

It should be easy but our jobs are quite technical and sometimes things take a lot longer/shorter than anticipated. It's a fair comment though, perhaps I should ask the individuals how they will prove to me that they are doing their hours/getting through the workload, and put some of the onus on them.

As long as it's fair to the others who don't have family committments...

But I know that when I work from home, I probably work more hours as I'm very conscious of not taking liberties.

It's nice to know that Mumsnetters are all so conscientious

If they put in a flexible working application, can I trial it or does it have to be a permanent change ?

Oooooh - tricky question. If one approves a flexible working application, it is a permanent change to the terms and conditions of employment.

Could you do a trial basis first?

I think that there are a couple of things here. Firstly, working from home alone means that there is theoretically less distraction and no meetings etc which can eat into the day and therefore to do a little less direct work may more mean getting through less that one would when in the office.

Secondly, there needs to be a need to monitor what they are doing. I work from home, I only work 2 days a week but I have to submit my hours each month with a breakdown of what I have done and because of the nature of the job a certain amount of paperwork which I wouldn't be able to produce if I hadn't put the hours in.

I feel very conscious that as I work from home it's very easy for my boss to assume that I am not putting in the hours so I make an extra effort to ensure that I absolutely do work my hours so that there is no way that I can be caught out. It does, I think make a difference that my role is homebased and all of us in this position are based from home with regular team meet ups

Ok terrible grammar. What I meant was that working from home for slightly less hours may not mean that one gets through less work than they would working a full day as there will be no meetings or office distractions

Does it make any difference to you when the work is completed? Do they need to be available to take calls?

I work from home (technically) on a Tuesday morning but sometimes I don't physically carry out the work then. Sometimes I do the hours later in the week, maybe at the weekend or evening. There are often very good business reasons for this.

We do get a certain amount of ad hoc work which we sometimes have to respond to on the same day so I would prefer it to be done in standard working hours.

Maybe my view is clouded at the minute. There are some performance & integrity issues and I feel rightly or wrongly, that working from home should be regarded as a privilidge (please excluse spelling am home due to horrendous post laparoscopy period)to be earned by building up trust.Probably hideously old fashioned of me.

We do get a certain amount of ad hoc work which we sometimes have to respond to on the same day so I would prefer it to be done in standard working hours.

Maybe my view is clouded at the minute. There are some performance & integrity issues and I feel rightly or wrongly, that working from home should be regarded as a privilidge (please excluse spelling am home due to horrendous post laparoscopy period)to be earned by building up trust.Probably hideously old fashioned of me.

Is it the kind of job (like a call centre) where they are essentially being paid to wor a certain number of hours? Or is it project based, so they are being paid to do a piece of work in whatever time it takes them?

I manage a team of 10 - am always perfectly happy to agree to requests to work from home whether or not child care related as long as the work is done. But we are project-based so if someone is slacking off at home for a day it doesn't matter so much to me as long as the work is completed in time.

In fact, I am currently working from home waiting for a plumber but am being highly unproductive. But I've got a deadline and will meet it as I'll probably work this evening.

I would expect people working from home to a) be available on the phone whenever I needed to speak to them, b) respond to any urgent stuff that day and c) make sure that they don't decide to work from home on a day they really should be in the office e.g. a team meeting unless it was an emergency. Apart from those rules, I'm fairly flexible.

rookimater, have a look at this which has some great resources for helping you manage flexible workers.

Key thing is to remember that work is not a place, it is an output. So long as the homework can work productively is shouldn't matter.

It can't be for childcare reasons though, and I'd go as far as saying there should be a robust business case for enabling homeworking.

I don't think you are being old-fashioned or unreasonable to be concerned rookie, especially if there are already performance and integrity issues.

Working from home can work very well, but it does require a higher degree of trust I think.

It is fine and normal for a flexible working arrangement to be done on a trial basis agreed by the employee and employer. That way if it's not working, you can revert back, and it gives the employee a chance to prove it does work.

It's also fine, and in fact to be recommended, to ask about childcare arrangements if they will be working from home. You shouldn't be afraid to require information about separate childcare so that you know they will in fact be working for the hours specified, if it's important they do the work in those hours, not trying to take care of a child simultaneously.

Oh, and also, it may not be very PC to acknowledge that some people do indeed take the p^£* when working from home, but it is true. In fact in my book there is working from home, and 'working from home'. Two different things! Which is why trust is so important.

In my workplace we had to go through a formal process, where if you were applying to work from home or any other sort of flexible working on a regular basis you had to make in effect a business case. Basically you had to say why you needed it, how you were going to manage it, and how you were going to make sure there would be no negative effect on the workplace, colleagues etc (even better if you could think of a positive impact). It would quite often be time limited. In this context it is reasonable for the manager to ask whether the employee had a quiet space, how they would manage distractions etc.

Personally I found it better to be flexible on occasion, when a team member asked if a particular piece of work could be done at home (less distraction theory) or had a particular need to be at home (plumbers etc) when we could agree which piece of work could be done. In practice if it was a hard working member of the team I would ask less questions, because a) I'd trust them, and b) they had as it were credit in the bank.

I have had problems with regular working from home patterns because it is very easy to take them for granted (I have found this personally) and then start to get into very bad habits. For example I had one team member who lived a long commute away, and negotiated a compressed nine day fortnight, with the other Friday working from home. After a while she let slip that she never in fact worked on Fridays, and whilst she felt that she worked incredibly hard, and made up the time, I had productivity issues. Once you have given the flexible working it is much harder to get back to "normal" working without the person become very aggrieved, and if the issue is not big enough to get into formal procedures it is very difficult to resolve.

Yes, there is definitely a difference between working from home and shirking from home! And unless negotiated up front as part of the contract it is a privilege and not a right.

I have a team of 8 and three are based remotely; one in another office and two from home. My boss suspects they are swinging the lead, I don't, but it is so much harder to prove than if they were here. It is not a situation I would choose if I could avoid it.

Technology can help, though; one of my peers has a team who are all based in one of our other offices and they make a lot of use of webcams and headsets to have 'virtual' face-to-face meetings, and that seems to work well. I am thinking about doing it with my guys too.

I have one guy who, years ago in a different role, agreed one day a week WFH and doesn't seem to understand that in his current (promoted) role this simply doesn't work. I have had to have my boss lay down the law.

At the same time, I am unlikely to refuse any request for flexible working that involves a reduction in hours - in fact out of five staff members across the wider team, 4 are men and all are working flexibly to help with family commitments, which I think is a very positive step.

Definitely don't let them out of your sight if you don't trust them. And involve your HR department so you aren't the bad guy on your own.

Thanks folks. Glad to know I'm not being unnecessarily harsh and also that it is perfectly reasonable to go for a trial period if I do go for anything.

One thing that may need to be considered is what are the health and safety issues that may be raised.

Obviously in an office environment, risk assessments will have been done, but check with H/R as far as the potential ramifications of employees working at home and whether the company may be liable, or whether a disclaimer is enough etc.