Reply to: Skiving?

[scooterscot]

My work requires concentration peace and quiet, I get this working at home whereas in the office task take 2-3 times longer.

Working patterns change hugely when working at home. I spend so much time in the morning a few hours for lunch / gym every other day and possibly work into the evening later than I should.

That said, I might be billing hours but that's not how my client measures progress. We agree to milestones so they could not care less about my working pattern. If I think a milestone is not going to be met I'll let the client know weeks in advance...

[Platypus]

I'll bite. If you don't walk/cycle to work, make a case to support that.

I've heard the argument that people at home have the heating on during the day (in winter anyway), therefore not as green as you might think

[d000hg]

WFH is not necessarily greener.

I'll bite. If you don't walk/cycle to work, make a case to support that.

Damn busted..

YouTube - Dambusters main theme

[VectraMan]

Some managers do seem to have a problem with it and as Platypus said see it as bums on seats in the office rather than the output therof.

That doesn't really fit in with the likes of us being paid per hour/per day. Certainly when I used to work at home 2 days per week for a client, I'd feel a little guilty writing 7 1/2 hours on the timesheet because even though I'd get a day's worth of work done i'd probably get it done in half the day. At least on the "bum on seat" days I'd be physically there for the time.

Most of us should be above that sort of thing, but in truth if you're reliant on getting a timesheet signed by a manager you can understand why the manager might want to know that you were actually working.

[norrahe]

I did work with one manager who told his team he didn't trust us to work from home.

Some managers do seem to have a problem with it and as Platypus said see it as bums on seats in the office rather than the output therof.
I've had some managers who've told me to work from home and only require me in the office when we have a meeting and others who e-mail or ring every half hour as they don't trust you.

I did tell one micro manager to stop e-mailing and calling me constantly as he was preventing me from getting any work done.

I have no problem with anyone on my team working from home, as long as the work gets done.

You often find that you'll have an average days work done by lunchtime when working from home, or in my case mid morning as I don't have the 2hr commute in.

[Mich the Tester]

Damn busted..

Jolly good show! Bombs away!

[MaryPoppins]

Damn busted..

Ha. Oh in that case, me too then Halo.

[Halo Jones]

I think it means working with one hand down the front of your pants.

Damn busted..

[Mich the Tester]

not sure what worinking is.

I think it means working with one hand down the front of your pants.

[MaryPoppins]

Today I am worinking from home & I will achive as little as normal

Me too. Cept working, not sure what worinking is.

[Halo Jones]

Today I am worinking from home & I will achive as little as normal

[Tingles]

Nice forward-looking article from the BBC there. While much of the world is actively promoting home-work as more civilised (not to mention Green ) and the way of the future, they try to undo this by reinforcing what petty middle-aged line-managers already think. "Work from home", they smirk, "maybe you should leave your web-cam on so we can check you're not down the pub".

WFH is not necessarily greener.

[kandr]

I would love to work from home, I wouldn't have to keep up the pretence of working. If I have work to do I would get it done ASAP and chill the rest of the day, without having to Alt-Tab all day.

[Platypus]

I often feel that managers need to think about measuring outputs (work done) rather than inputs (hours sat at desk) before they wonder if working from home is a skive.

The article isn't as bad as I feared. Apart from:

Gauging lost productivity due to events such as adverse weather is tricky.

tut tut the BBC

[Mich the Tester]

Nice forward-looking article from the BBC there. While much of the world is actively promoting home-work as more civilised (not to mention Green ) and the way of the future, they try to undo this by reinforcing what petty middle-aged line-managers already think. "Work from home", they smirk, "maybe you should leave your web-cam on so we can check you're not down the pub".

That's precisely the problem. Personally I find it very easy to manage people who are working at home. I agree a set of tasks and products for them to deliver and a time and date, ask them to send an email at 1630 every day with progress report for each task and to call me if they have any problems. As long as you select the right people for the job, it works well as there are no coffee machine or water cooler discussions and progress reports don´t involve long winded small talk.

But then, I´ve only ever been a manager in projects or an interim manager, where my reponsibility is to get the job done and not to piss around with all sorts of office regulations. As long as someone does the work agreed, I don´t really care how much or little time he´s used to do it. Line managers seem to work from a position of distrust which just can't work if you're leading a team that's spread across multiple locations.