What is your companies attitude to home working? Is it the done thing to agree a day to work from home if your commute is a bit of a monster? Or is such talk a sweetener in the interview but frowned on in reality?

They don’t really give a shit where I am as long as I do the work. I’m officially London based, but generally only here 2-3 days a week at most.

Edit: non IT, but FTSE 100 company, and same for all employees really

I work from home everyday with the occasional day once every 3 months in the office.

Doesn’t make me any less productive, if anything makes me more productive and more likely to work past the normal working hours.

Are you talking about IT sector ? I’m not in IT but FYI my prior large company employer frowned upon home working they viewed it as a skive. My current smaller employer is much more flexible but I am one of the partners so I made the policy.

Role dependent, but generally no problem with it. Every 6 weeks or so everyone technical gets together in the office anyway to catch up and talk about planned stuff, so it’s not like we never see each other. Most of us do work for customers on site but when we don’t need to be there’s no compulsion to be in the office if you’re just writing up docs or similar. Some people live far enough away that they’d not come in, some close enough that most days not on site they spend in the office.

We use Lync (given that’s what the company does!) so anywhere we’re online we can get our calls, easily see who’s online, screen share, etc. No reliance on a desk phone – hardly any of us have them. Any reasonably forward-looking company is providing ways to let their employees work effectively from outside the regular office.

Tricky discussing it with a prospective employer, but if you definitely don’t want to work for a company with a big commute that needs you there 5 days a week then no harm in discussing at interview. May be worth asking more generally about home working (inc how many existing people do) before talking about what you’re looking for.

Five posts and forty minutes in and no Mitchell and Webb. What’s wrong with this place?

It really depends on the position. I think that it usually works if you are happier and can remain motivated. Hopefully forward looking companies can see this.

I work from home 2-3days a week on average but I don’t have to ask anyone!

As long as the work gets done they don’t care. I’ve worked from home for ten years with trips into office as required every few weeks/months

Home, office it makes no difference to me or my company. My boss is completely flexible as long he can see I’m productive, if anything I get more done at home anyway as I save the two hour commute.

home, office, customer site, company has no real interest, as long as job is done and its entirely down to me where I work. We’ve long since moved to an almost completely dispersed workforce, working from anywhere.
Although I’ve become very used to the flexibility (which is fantastic), I don’t consider working from home in the long term a good thing, or particularly healthy, based on my own experiences.
The biggest benefit to me is autonomy to make my own decisions based on various circumstances, and avoidance of commuting insanity.

(IT project manager for large multinational)

oh well….

[video]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=co_DNpTMKXk[/video]

The guys that work from home a lot, is your work largely solo and independent? Or are you leading teams (or teams of teams) and delivering through others?

Current place wfh is kind of frowned on, that’s not a problem as it is really close to home so I prefer to be in the office. However if it was a 4 hour commute I’m sure I would change my opinion .

Are you all permies too? Or any contractors?

Permie, analyst/programmer for a manufacturing company. 4 days a week WFH, one day in office for regular meetings. 45-90 minute commute depending on traffic.

I’m based from home unless I have to do customer visits. Proper set up but then again we don’t have an office (it’s the bosses loft conversion)
Previously in a massive company with security implications it was allowed if you got it right though I had a boss who didn’t think it was possible to work properly from home so he wouldn’t allow it – until he had to.

It all depends on your job, human interactions and the remote infrastructure. If you can go 3 days without speaking to another human being then probably easy to do!

I’m in IT sales, now contracted from home since my original office closed, but spend a lot of time with clients or in our head office which is about an hour away when internal meetings take place. Company’s attitude is as long as the work is done then it’s not an issue. Home based contract is great for saving on travel too as everything is expensed. Personally I’d go mad if I had to speak every day at home though.

I could easily do a day a week from home. It’s really good to have a day where you can just storm emails and documentation. Feels so much better once it’s all nailed away. It’s also good to get away from the constant hassle in the office.

But my company has a policy of no home working. Every request has to have good justification. It gets easier as you get up the tree but it’s still hard work.

That said, I’m working from home tomorrow. 😉

If your a manager, leader of a team you need to be in that office. I run my own biz now but when I didn’t the only time I spent working at home was in the evenings and weekends.

Nope, I don’t get that either.

Obviously it depends on the team but if your team is a group of professionals they can get on with pretty much everything by themselves. They don’t need managing and if an executive decisions is required then phone or email.

I’d say any company that doesn’t allow home working, has a trust issue in senior mansgement.

I’d trust all my guys to just get one with things. One or two of them sometimes need some steering but if the rest are there then they’ll help and make the right choice.

My bosses approach is as long as one of is in there’s a hand on the tiller, so to speak.

Good management can manage a good team from a distance. If you can’t then you probably have the wrong guys working for you or you need to sharpen up your management skills.