Employees working from home

[Rebeccak971]

Hi Everyone,

I'm new to this forum and hoping that some of you could offer some advice about teleworking/working from home...

I work for a small advertising agency in Australia and in a couple of months I'll be having a baby :) I would really like to work from home after the baby is born.

My boss is living in the dark ages and seems to be scared by the idea of me working from home (teleworking hasn't really caught on here in Australia like it seems to have in the US).

Does anyone have any advice or know of any www resourses i could use to try to convince my boss that my working from home has the potential to work well for all parties..? Any advice would be much appreciated!

Thanks,
Bek

[Ned]

Just bring your baby into the office with you, and he'll get the idea in short order. :D

Seriously, I've got nothing...

[Andi Creffield]

http://www.taylorsprint.com/baby.jpg

Could be a good start in life..

[PrintDriver]

If your boss is in the dark ages, what kind of server/network/internet system do you already have at work. A little info on that can help us point you in the right direction.

[Drazan]

If you VNC into your computer at work, your boss can turn on the monitor and "watch" you work. Unfortunately the lag time may not work for processing. But once done with projects you can virtually log them back to your work computer and set to print/file/send email/ etc.

There's other options and other types of connections available as well. Especially if you have a good work server and network system at the office.

[Drazan]

PS congrats on the baby to be!

[Rebeccak971]

Thanks for your replies everone!

Drazen this VNC thing sounds interesting. I'll have to do a bit of research and see if its a viable (economic) option for our business. We've got a small ethernet set up with broadband internet (but internet speeds still leave a lot to be desired in Australia). My boss would indeed love the idea of being about to watch everything I was doing on my computer screen in the office.

I presented my boss with a lengthy "Work from Home Proposal" about a month ago, and since then there still hasn't been even a mention of my working arrangements after the baby, and there's only a few weeks until I go on maternity leave.

So at the moment I'm trying to prepare myself for ANY objections that she may have. Got the equipment, security, backup and accountablity issues covered, but I've kinda got the feeling that she's worried that I'm going to fake a work injury at home and sue her or something!

Just all very frustrating because she never had kids and doesn't really seem to want to help me out. Thankfully, new laws have just been passed in Australia that mean that employers have to offer flexible working arrangements for parents! So she'll either have to let me work from home or at least cut back my hours to part time.

Okay, time to go investigate my VNC options!

Thanks a lot for all your help!

[Rebeccak971]

Drazen, I just set up a VNC here in my office between my computer and another one! Pretty cool! Thanks for the tip, I think my boss may go for it!

Bek

[Ned]

Better to have a webcam watching you work. That way, the boss can't see when you're posting on GDF instead of working. :D (Except for those unexplainable chuckles and smiles.)

[Rebeccak971]

Ahh yes already got that covered. Got two macs at home... One shall be alocated to work, one to surf the net and talk about my boss on forums.. :)

[Ned]

One shall be alocated to work, one to surf the net and talk about my boss on forums.. :)

Be careful about that, Rebecca... These forums are spidered, you know... :)

[Six]

We tried telecommuting thanks to Katrina flooding our office. In fact we became a virtual agency for several months. We had people spread over four states. Frankly, we had mixed results. I believe it can work, but you will have to make compromises. In our case, our designers work as a team. There may be only one person assigned to the project, but almost always all participate in critiques and bull pen sessions. We find we explore more options and get better designs as a result. That aspect of our work became very difficult while disbursed. We lost most of that interaction, and my designers complained about it. Sure, we were able to email designs and have conference calls, even setting up a conference call where there were seven of us on the line but it just wasn't the same. (Talk about a meeting hard to manage!) Adding video to the conference calls probably would help a lot, but only a few of us were equipped for that at the time.

I have two other staff members who are in the office only one or two days a week. One is an AE and all her clients are out of town - east coast to the west coast - so she often works after we close, because the left coast is still open for business. The other is accounting. They both need less interaction with the team, so it is much less of a problem and even an advantage for them.

Bottom line, if you need encouragement and interaction, telecommuting may not work very well. Maybe an arrangement where you are in the office one or two days or half days a week will satisfy your boss and your needs, or maybe add something like iChat and iSight would help?

Six

[Rebeccak971]

Thanks for your input Six...great to have people to talk to about this, its been stessing me out big time...

As you mentioned, and my friends have raised the issue of me being isolated at home...our company is actually really small. I'm one of two designers. And to tell you the truth, there really isn't a lot of collaboration and critiques that goes on between the two of us as it is. This is my first graphic design position after finishing university, and the idea of working from home is all the more appealing because of the fact that I'm not really enjoying working here anyway. I'm 23, and the rest of the people here are all in their 50s, and its not really the fun and dynamic studio environment that I was hoping for. I work really well by myself, and enjoy having my own space, so I really hope my boss comes around to the idea of me teleworking...

I think the "trust issues" are the main thing that my boss is worried about. She probably thinks that i'll sit around doing nothing all day. (by the way i've been posting on this forum in the early morning here in Australia before I start work, so no comments about slacking during working hours everyone :) ) Six, I think using iChat/iSight and VNC would probably help quell her fears about not being able to physically watch over me. But she also seems to be really concerned about the Occupational Saftey issues with me working out of the office.

Six, did your business put any measures in place to ensure that all the employees were "covered" legally if they had an accident outside the business premises? I realise the laws about this sort of thing probably differ greatly in the US to in Aus...

Anyway, today is the day of reckoning! I'm going to ask my boss for a response to the 16 page "Work from Home Proposal" that i gave her over a month ago, and have had absolutely no response to...

[greyghost]

OK, you have to look at this from a boss' perspective.

Much as we do not want to admit it, women are looked down upon as employees the MOMENT they start having kids. Why? because their attentions are now divided. They have a crying infant that demands their attention 24 hours a day. They are percieved as having a harder time focusing, they are not as efficient... even though, before they had the kid, they could multitask and do more than their male counterpart could (hush guys, it's true).

Now, take that into account of at the same time, asking your boss to let you stay at home. With your baby. Who, like it or not, is going to cry all hours of the day demanding attention. Even business hours. Who wants to call an employee to hear screaming child in the background? How professional does that sound to your employer? How is your employer supposed to get the idea that you have TIME to work?

I am not saying this to be cruel. But, you have to look at our jaded society and how children are considered an inconvenience. People without children are hired more readily than people who do, especially women.

I've thought for a moment that I might have the ideal situation, self-employed at home, to have a kid around. Well, no, not true at all. When I take a good hard look at it, when am I going to get work done? While the baby is napping? When do I sleep? How do I handle being on the phone with an important client and realizing Junior is putting a key into an electrical socket? For myself, it won't work.

[Six]

Rebeccak971,

Yes, we have safety issues to be concerned about for people who work at home. SPAR is actually the smallest corporate element (seven people) in a huge multi-company group. The main business of the parent company is distilled spirits at the distillery level or market distribution level. We were originally created to service those companies but we have grown to be a stand-alone agency since the beginnings now 50 years ago. That means any decisions concerning telecommuting must be reviewed by human resources for the group, and safety issues are discussed.

As a boss myself, I understand your boss' concerns about productivity. It comes down to a trust factor, and there may not be enough of a track record between you two to satisfy that. But I believe there are ways a boss can monitor that from a distance.

Since Katrina and the loss of our in-office servers (they couldn't swim), we have moved agency operations online. All our jobs reside on a server in Canada now, and we can access them from anywhere we can get internet service. This is our emergency system that will allow us to continue to operate virtually if we have to evacuate again. It has also become our day-by-day agency operations system in "normal" times. And it has given me a way to monitor activity of my individual employees because I can see their day-by-day progress on jobs. For example, I know exactly when they log in. They also receive assignments through the system, including due dates, which they must sign-off on when accomplished. This maybe isn't something you could convince your company to adopt, but it shows the virtual office process can be made to work, if you want to make the changes and sometimes compromises necessary.

Good luck with your presentation.

Six

[frankster]

How soon after having the baby do you have to start working again? The age of your baby has a huge impact on the quality and quantity of work you'll be capable if you are planning on caring for your child at the same time.

I'm at home with two kids now (one just turned 2 and one 7 months old) Up until they start crawling you're likely to find it relatively easy to fit in the usual work hours as the littlies sleep a whole lot during the day and when you put them down and leave them for 5 minutes they are in the same place when you go back. Even then you'll have to be able to survive on very little sleep. Once they are mobile you will only be able to work when they are asleep. I tend to work most when the kids have gone to bed, which may be a huge problem if you are expected to be working during office hours.

Needless to say when they get to the talking climbing all over the flippin place stage then you need to have eyes in yer ass.

Really hope it works for you. I had a similar situation with my old boss and ended up going freelance after he let me down badly.

[Soccer37]

Maybe this article will help. I just recently came across it and thought it couldnt hurt to post it. http://www.creativepublic.com/proposal-work-arrangement.php

[balou]

I have a friend with 3 kids, 3, 5 and 7. She has been working at home as a designer for a printer since #2 kiddo was born. She does most of her work at night when the kids are sleeping. She also does have to be available for phone calls for changes and what not during business hours. She finds it near impossible to put full-time hours in and still sleep.

[Rebeccak971]

Thanks so much for all of your input everyone...

FYI, I approached my boss (the artistic director/owner of the business) yesterday to talk about my working arrangements after the baby (and gauge her reaction to the written proposal I gave her) but she has brushed me off for another two weeks until our general manager (who is also my boss's brother) gets back from vacation...

Argh, this whole situtation is made more infuriating by the fact that I'm the only non family member in the company, and everyone else is is able to have flexibility in their working hours/family commitments, but its a big deal for those leniencies to extend to me...

Frankster/GreyGhost, I totally realise that it's not going to be easy working at home with a newborn, and I'm planning on having family and other in home carers come to my house to help me out, so that I do have the time (and sanity) to concentrate on my work. I've talked about it to other mums, and i think that at least for the first few months, it should work out fine. As soon as the baby starts to do less sleeping and needs 24 hour attention, I'll have to come up with a new plan...As you mentioned, it would be great if later on I could work at night when the kiddy is sleeping, but technically according to Australia's work safety laws, if I were to work outside "normal" working hours, and had an accident at home, I wouldn't be covered by workers compensation...suffice to say that my boss would freak out about that...so i wont be mentioning that idea to her.

ATTENTION MOMMYS OUT THERE....One thing my boss did ask me was how long i wanted to take maternity leave for after the baby (before I start working again, whether at home or in the office)...I indicated that if I am allowed to work from home, I'll probably be ready to start working about 6 weeks after the baby arrives. (my midwife told me that this is about the time that you start feeling yourself again, and you and the baby start getting settled into more of a routine with sleeping, feeding etc). My boss (who i might add has never had kids) told me that I was under estimating how much work a baby is, and that she thought I would need at least 12 weeks of rest at home before I start working from home...

Any advice from moms about how long I may need off work after the baby??

Thanks again for everyone's opinions, all very helpfull! :)

[greyghost]

Well, I say if your boss is willing to give you 12 weeks, TAKE IT. No, I have never had a baby. And while you are young you may bounce back pretty quick. But, well, see what the mommies on the board say.