kindof Flexible working - working from home

pinkmexican

When I return to work to enable me to work my full hours it would make sense for me to be able to work from home for max 2 days per week. How on earth do I phrase the request. I also can't specify a set 2 days per week as OH's shifts are a 5 week rotation (so not even monthly). I can list the dates until 2012, but that looked kind of silly in my first draft.

I have been allowed to work at home before when I have had appointments etc, but it was always just I would ask and it was approved as I have to sort out childcare now, I need to get this approved in advance. Am I best to just ask or start with the flexible working type letter. My job is completely doable from home and I mainly work with colleagues who are rarely in the office, so for them it would make no difference where I was based. It would also help when I have massive projects as I do tend to get interrupted by colleagues and have had to work on these things at home before now so I can concentrate - BUT I do not want to say that as it implies that I struggle to concentrate.

It doesn't help that I have not worked for this person before as my current manager is on maternity leave.

That might be a bit rambly and make no sense, but any advice is appreciated.

Thank you

buglawton

Put in a polite but firm request. You did not mention if the reason is to cover child monitoring etc, govt has supposedly recently stated to encourage employers to offer this:
Let staff work from home: employers told - Telegraph.co.uk
(You might want to Google what happened to this promise from
Norman Baker, the Liberal Democrats’ transport minister)

In my environment, the colleagues that have got WFH 'deals' are the ones with the skills leverage to demand it + clearly willing to move employers if it is not offered.

System

I would not think they would look on it favourably as the reason you want to work from home is to look after your child at the same time to save on childcare.

Working from home where it can be seen as a cost saving/green measure is fair enough but this.....?

pinkmexican

Sorry, didn't explain that I would only be looking after my child during my lunch hour and after work. But if I was at work I wouldn't get home intime to take over his child care. So would have to leave at least an hour early to get there intime to take over.

Thanks.

SarEl

I would agree with the "polite" - forget the "firm"! You have no right to work from home to meet your childcare requirements. You are working from home, not looking after your children at home and fitting some work around this. And you certainly aren't going to be putting a very convincing argument around wanting to keep changing your days because of the OH's shift patterns.

Plus arguing that you get disrupted by colleagues when working at the office is not really convincing me, never mind your employer - you may not have noticed, but children are very disruptive!

SarEl

pinkmexican wrote: »

Sorry, didn't explain that I would only be looking after my child during my lunch hour and after work. But if I was at work I wouldn't get home intime to take over his child care. So would have to leave at least an hour early to get there intime to take over.

Thanks.

Our posts crossed - but this may still be impossible to achieve this level of flexibility. Flexible working includes a range of options - inlcuding reducing your working hours. You may have to compromise here - I would still recommend polite rather than firm. You have no right to demand anything.

heretolearn_2

You can ask, but they don't have to, and it's going to depend on how flexible generally they are, and how much they need you, to be honest.

You need to put in an application for flexible working officially - you can google up the info on this. Then you need to think about the business case to put across - advantages, and disadvantages and how the disadvantages can be dealt with. Don't try and say there won't be any disadvantages or refuse to acknowledge them seriously (as one person did who requested flexible working from us, and then got their application refused for that reason).

So..think about what equipment/investment will be needed, the cost, and how it will be managed. Do you need a remote link to your work PC? How will this be kept secure? How will you take phone calls? How will you phone work/clients etc..

What advantages might there be for the company? Is it literally the only way you can return to work for them? If so, then they won't need to recruit/train a new person. But of course, if they say no, then you'd be out of a job altogether so be careful about not sounding as if it's this or else!

Make sure it's clear to them that at no time will your work hours at home coincide with your childcare time.

We've set someone up in the past to work from home sometimes due to health issues, it worked well on both sides, but it takes a lot of trust on the employers part.

SarEl

Add insurance liabilities to the list - both the employer (they still have liabilities if you work from home on a regular basis which are not the case if it is occasional ) and yours - your household insurance may have something to say about regular home working.

buglawton

You might ask for a reduction in your home insurance premium since the house is occupied more often!

lucylucky

SPAM reported

chocsessential

Where is the spam?