vent: lost my telecommute benefit

[shaynaatl]

For the past 8 years, we’ve been able to telecommute one day a week. However, our group manager (likely due to pressure from higher ups) has decided to ban telecommuting effectively immediately  Now it will only be allowed if you have a specific reason for that day, such as a home repair. I know it’s only one day a week but it was still a terrific perk to be at home during the workday.

Add to that the fact that we recently moved to a new building that added 5 min/3 miles to my commute. And we are moving from cubicles to an open floor layout in a few months. I still like the job but these changes are definitely hurting morale.

I believe I’ve mentioned here previously that I was considering looking around (been here 10 yrs)- DH thinks these changes should make me more serious about looking.

Is your workplace getting more or less telecommute friendly?

[konapoppy]

Ugh that is annoying. It sounds like they might be going for a cultural shift, but not communicating it clearly.

My current employer is leaning more toward telecommuting, in large part because it is cheaper than renting more office space. In fact, my cube is surrounded by hotel cubes. I am still going in everyday since I am new, but plan to work from home one day per week once I am settled.

[fairygodmother]

ours is getting more and more so; we even have a few 100% remote workers in other states (that's very much a rarity and requires special review and authorization). But, I work in a major metropolitan area and teleworking is a common benefit in my industry. Even our CEO, who once hated the idea, has come to embrace it as it benefits him.

[screwedup]

I work for a start up with 300 people (an 8 year old start up - we're hopefully doing an IPO next year). At any rate, we have an awesome work space in a cool part of ATL. However, NO ONE is allowed to work from home AND we have an open floor plan office. I hate hate hate hate hate those 2 parts of my job. They make me crazy.

[sfy]

More. Our office switched to almost entirely telecommute (we meet once a week for a couple hours) a couple years ago.

I agree with your husband. That open work plan is a deal breaker for me, but besides, it never hurts just to look.

[momof2]

I think this is just a cycle that will go back and forth continuously. Right now, I think many companies are encouraging people to come back to the office and spending money to convert to "open space." The idea is that young millennials need mentoring that they cannot get at home with no manager/coworkers near them.

Of course, in a few years, they will all shift back to "work from home" as they realize that keeping all this space is expensive.

And yes, we were encouraged this year to get back into the office more.

[raangoli]

Before I got to the end of your post I was saying that it's time for a new job.

MH is in an open office environment and he hates it so much. He lives for his one day a week work at home day.

I only just started to work at home once a week but now that I'm back from maternity leave, I may actually increase it to two days and my manager seemed fine with it.

[Wanderista]

My work has moved to being nearly all based on telecommuting. In my primary role, I worked in the office for a couple of years before being moved to telecommuting/flexi-schedule. I've always had good relationships with my managers while telecommuting. I do most of my work in Excel or a database. If it weren't getting done, it would be obvious. We have periodic meetings but my current manager generally does a conference call with me weekly. 

Honestly, I like telecommuting a lot. I like controlling my schedule, eating my lunch whenever I want without worrying that there's a back up at the microwave, and having a quiet, sunny space to concentrate. I was always in windowless cubicles before. I am very self-motivated and I don't need to be in an office. The drawback of telecommuting is being "out of sight, out of mind." Having such flexibility has probably contributed to my being where I am for so long. If I want to move on, I will very likely need to trade this lifestyle in.

I can understand lamenting the loss of telecommuting options. Where I work has embraced it, but this area has famously bad traffic and the office decided to lease less office space. It's much more cost-effective to have us meet in a conference room from time to time and to do all our work online. 

[bostonmichelle]

We've been leaning towards more work from home but I think that's mainly because my boss's hands are tied by the state for monetary compensation to keep us around. We are on a trial for now thru the end of the summer and love it.

In your situation I would definitely explore your options due to the cultural shift.

[noodleoo]

I hate companies that have both an open work space and don't let you telecommute at all. My previous job was like that and it was nuts. I got so much more work done the few days I stayed home (snow days or sick days). The job was completely computer based and my desk was tiny, all I needed was a computer and internet to do my work. The open space was so loud and distracting, everyone wore headphones and listened to music to drown out the people on the phone. So it didn't actually have any type of a "collaborative" environment anyway. It was so dumb. I would definitely start looking.

[mrsjuleshs]

We have a few that are 100% telecommute and about 5-6 more who do so throughout the week. Obviously, if we lose power in the building or if we have sick kids, we can work from home. My job can't 100% be done from home unfortunately. We are a cube farm where even the GM has a cube. There are a few office and obviously the CFO has his own.

[theblissisback]

I think I've worked more in open plan work spaces vs cubes. I *hate* cubes.

Granted, I work with creative agencies so I think the open floor plan works well.

And we have to option to telecommute. One company I worked for is 100% remote employees all over the world. It was awesome. I guess perks of working on digital platforms that can log in anywhere.

If you're not a fan, start looking around. See what other opportunities are available.

[genet313]

Ugh, sucks that you lost the benefit.  It definitely seems to trend away from the norm.

I'm a corporate lawyer and have always been spoiled and have always had an office, and been alone in my office for the past 7 years.  I could NEVER work in open plan. Although maybe it would keep me off GBCN more?  Maybe. Probably not.  

In any event, my small law firm is notoriously anti-WFH and I don't see it changing. I have no idea why - I conduct 95% of my business over the phone and I can count on two hands, maybe one, how many times I've seen clients in the office/in person.  There is zero need for me to be in the office, so why they reject WFH proposals, I don't know.  We're short on office space as it is.  

That said, when I need to work from home, I just do it and let them know.  I feel reasonably confident in my job security and if they want to fire me over it, knock yourselves out.  It's completely petty and silly.

[drloretta]

That sucks. I would definitely start looking.

My company has gotten more and more telecommuter friendly over the years. I now WFH FT, and I'm not the only one

DH's work gives him a hard time about it. If he WFH due to weather, he can only do it for one day. So if we have a blizzard he's screwed

[steamboat185]

That sucks. My old company allowed us to WFH 100% of the time and then we were bought out and had to go back in the office 100% of the time. It was such a tough transition. WFH at least part time is such a nice benefit. I hope you can find something better soon.

[dr.girlfriend]

That sucks. I REALLY value my one WFH day a week.

[egishere]

I WFH FT but am a special case lol they closed our office here and most people got laid off but they kept me. It's been a year and I do miss being in an office around people. I would love to WFH twice a week. There are a few other people in the company that WFH but generally everyone is in the office. They were going to roll out a program where people could do it twice a week with manager approval and HR was the test group but then we started a huge company-wide project so they took it away until that is over like two years from now.

[moolarkey]

I hate the open work floor plan. I used to have a very private office, in our new arrangement it is still fairly private but I've heard that in about a year we'll move to an open office floor plan. I can work from home occasionally, I worked from our boat for 2 days last week but mostly our management has decided we need to work in the office. The reason for the open plan is to encourage collaboration, what it encourages is noise and a lot of chatting but not working. We recently terminated 4 staff, in my division, that were full-time remotes. I was told our company policy is now, no remotes. Uhmm no. 2 VPS just hired quite a few remotes. OK then... our VPs policy is no remotes. Uhmmmm no. This woman no one can stand lives a state away, that's pretty remote. crickets. I would work from home everyday if I could.

[pinkdutchtulips]

I've never worked at a firm where telecommuting was even an option ... all if the firm's I've worked at have banned it.

[insominac]

We work from home on Fridays and I love it. It was a definite selling point of the job.

We have an modified open floor plan (desks in a large room, but we have dividers for privacy - and I'm not a big fan. It's hard to write and I hate being around people all the time.

[olivesyou]

We are trying to go Agile, which scares me that we won't be able to WFH as often or as flexibly as I'd like.

[juliej]

Jul 7, 2016 12:29:46 GMT -5 olivesyou said:

We are trying to go Agile, which scares me that we won't be able to WFH as often or as flexibly as I'd like.

Eh, at my last job we were Agile, and pretty much everyone was remote. And my husband's been on Agile dev teams for years and they've been completely distributed. He just spends a lot of time on Google Hangouts.

[womet]

My office is growing like crazy and we are running out of space for the new hires. So we are almost all doubled up in offices and are strongly encouraged to telework. It's really amazing to see this from the US gov't.

[SJ]

My small firm has no telecommuting option. We work on the road when traveling for business, but other than that we are in our offices from 7am-4pm every single day M-F.

[yentl]

I could probably have a larger portion of my work be telecommuting if I wanted. To be honest, I prefer to work at the office. I like the separation of spaces. I used to work from home a lot more and had a much harder time setting boundaries with my schedule, etc.

[Wanderista]

Drawback of working from home - If the database that we work in fails and I need to work in it then it's unpaid leave time. That usually wasn't a problem because they would typically be able to fix it in an hour. In the last month or two, it has been crashing more. They had to close the virtual office for maintenance for a day and a half in June on short notice. It crashed about a week ago but I didn't need it for what I was doing. 

Right now? The virtual office database has been down since 4 pm yesterday. Grr ...

Get your shit together, Virtual Office. 

[juliej]

Jul 8, 2016 12:18:50 GMT -5 Wanderista said:

Drawback of working from home - If the database that we work in fails and I need to work in it then it's unpaid leave time. That usually wasn't a problem because they would typically be able to fix it in an hour. In the last month or two, it has been crashing more. They had to close the virtual office for maintenance for a day and a half in June on short notice. It crashed about a week ago but I didn't need it for what I was doing. 

Right now? The virtual office database has been down since 4 pm yesterday. Grr ...

Get your shit together, Virtual Office. 

For a couple of weeks this spring, it seemed like there were a lot more developers in our office than usual. It was nice, if a bit weird. Then one day, suddenly – it was back to lots of empty desks. Turned out the VPN had been busted.

[Wanderista]

Jul 8, 2016 12:30:08 GMT -5 juliej said:

Jul 8, 2016 12:18:50 GMT -5 Wanderista said:

Drawback of working from home - If the database that we work in fails and I need to work in it then it's unpaid leave time. That usually wasn't a problem because they would typically be able to fix it in an hour. In the last month or two, it has been crashing more. They had to close the virtual office for maintenance for a day and a half in June on short notice. It crashed about a week ago but I didn't need it for what I was doing. 

Right now? The virtual office database has been down since 4 pm yesterday. Grr ...

Get your shit together, Virtual Office. 

For a couple of weeks this spring, it seemed like there were a lot more developers in our office than usual. It was nice, if a bit weird. Then one day, suddenly – it was back to lots of empty desks. Turned out the VPN had been busted.

I don't want to "like" your office VPN breaking but, yes, a virtual office is only as good as the IT infrastructure to support it. This also means that home fluctuations in Wifi can be a problem. Mine works great now but it was a major source of stress when I lived somewhere with less reliable wifi. I would want to pull my hair out any time that it bugged out. I had contingency plans for that but it was annoying. 

The upside is that I can take my work with me to a lot of places and have "working holidays" with ease. I do this when visiting relatives.

[gumi]

Jul 7, 2016 14:27:50 GMT -5 juliej said:

Jul 7, 2016 12:29:46 GMT -5 olivesyou said:

We are trying to go Agile, which scares me that we won't be able to WFH as often or as flexibly as I'd like.

Eh, at my last job we were Agile, and pretty much everyone was remote. And my husband's been on Agile dev teams for years and they've been completely distributed. He just spends a lot of time on Google Hangouts.

I work two part-time jobs in parallel (software development), one 100% remotely and one 100% in the office.

The one remotely is agile in the sense that it is not waterfall.  But its a small company and they don't do all the tedious planning, and grooming, and silly sprint retrospectives. The one in the office is serious (or at least trying to be) agile, with three hour sprint planning meetings and PBIs under PBIs under PBIs.

Honestly, I think it impacts project managers the most.  Sometimes my manager spends all day in meetings. That is like his entire job. Meetings.

And, I like an open floor plan