Understanding Your Employee Benefits: The Decision to Work from Home

Understanding Your Employee Benefits: The Decision to Work from Home

As you make the nearly hour-long commute home from your job at your company’s downtown office, you think about today’s announcement with some excitement. The director of human resources introduced a new company policy that permits employees to apply to telecommute. The company is doing well and is hiring new workers. As a result, management recently reviewed company policies and practices to accommodate the needs of the growing workforce. The company is looking to save some facility costs and also respond to employee requests for more flexible work options. The company will allow people in certain positions, including yours, to work from home either full time or a just a few days each week.

With high gas prices, daily parking expenses, and the logistics challenges that the two hours a day you spend commuting causes, you see this as a great opportunity. You have two children, and, although they are in school full time, it is almost impossible for you to attend your children’s special events at school without taking a full day off and using one of your limited vacation days. Further, when your children get sick, you have to use a sick day to stay at home taking care of them and not working.

The new company policy states that employees who telecommute must use their own computers and provide evidence that they have a safe and quiet work environment. The company will provide you with any other work supplies that you need. All of the information you need to do your job is available to you via an online connection, so the transition to working at home should be fairly easy. You already have an office at home with a computer, so you could begin telecommuting as soon as your request is approved.

It seems like the perfect solution to your daily challenges, but you worry about how telecommuting will affect your career. You’ve heard from others that old adage, “out of sight, out of mind” and have concerns about your chances for future promotions if you aren’t in the239office every day. Further, you have high productivity expectations and you consider whether working at home alone will allow you to work harder, as you would not have the typical office distractions, or whether you would be distracted by work that needs to be done around the house. You also think that you might feel somewhat isolated, as you generally are a social person and enjoy seeing your coworkers each day. As you consider some of the negatives of telecommuting, your excitement wears off, and you aren’t sure what you should do.

1. Should you apply to telecommute? If so, should you pursue a part-time or full-time work-at-home arrangement?

2. If you do telecommute, what can you do to make sure that the arrangement does not negatively impact your career? Are there any other concerns you should have?