Would You Forfeit a Raise to Work From Home? 107
harryk asks: "There seems to have been a fair amount of talk about new jobs, telecommuting, and fair pay recently, so I pose this question: Would you forfeit some or all of a potential raise to work from home? My company is notoroisly bad about giving decent raises so I have been contemplating offering an alternative to receiving a raise, or a reduced raise with an expense reimbursement for telecommuting? What are your thoughts?"
I would forfeit my raise for the last 2 years! (Score:1, Insightful)
As Scott Adams once wrote (Score:5, Insightful)
There are jobs out there that offer decent raises along with the ability to telecommute. If you current employer doesn't see the value in keeping his employees happy, then that's his tough luck.
BTW: no one is going to give you anything. You have to negotiate it. If you don't have good negotiating skills, well, maybe that's what you need to work on.
No, not at all. (Score:5, Insightful)
Remember that you're going to have to have your books, files, and possibly more computers at home, running up the power bill, causing wear and tear and taking up space. Think hard before you do this.
not compensation (Score:4, Insightful)
Your creative thinking is a good start. I'm not sure that working from home equals fair compensation...but this comes down to how much it's really worth to you.
It does cut down on certain costs (commuting can really add up) and you can get your phone and broadband expensed, however, it may increment your electric bill slightly (almost a non-issue). The nice thing about it is that it usually saves your employer some money. Many municipalities offer tax breaks for companies who allow you to WaH. Furthermore, they can save on real estate costs.
Have you worked from home before? Many people I've worked with have found that it's more difficult to work from home (especially when it comes down to motivation). Furthermore, the same people generally found working at home depressing, since they're rarely able to get out of the house at all.
FWIW, other creative compensation packages that I've heard of (where an employeer doesn't have sufficient cash) involve stock options, or dividing salary into market rate and taking the remainder and putting it into extra vacation time.
No way. (Score:4, Insightful)
Working from home simply means family comes first more often.
I work from home (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:I work from home (Score:3, Insightful)
That being said if you really want to work from home and you really don't want to change jobs and the only way your boss will let you do it is to take a cut or a lesser raise, then do it I guess, but know that your boss is an assclown.
One foot out the door.. why not both? (Score:3, Insightful)
If you're thinking like that, then working from home is a good test to see if you have the discipline needed to run your own business without taking much of the risk.
But be aware that not everyone is capable of running their own venture, nor working productively when they're not supervised. You may or may not be one of these types of people that can benefit from such an environment.
Personally, I think that working from home should basically be phased into sub-contracting, because that's basically the direction in which people are going, and it makes more sense. If you employ someone, you need to be able to control them and regulate their time and productivity. Telecommuting is more like sub-contracting, where people are paid for their productivity and not the amount of time they're punched in. The half-way idea of employees "telecommuting" in my opinion is a bad idea for the employer. It's better for them to just cut the person loose and subcontract with them. In these cases the employee can usually have his cake and eat it too.. make more money, be autonomous, and have more control over his time. However, it may not be as "secure", but in reality, job security is a farce anyway.
Not all telecommuting is flexible (Score:5, Insightful)
Not saying that every telecommuting situation is like this - like I said, I spend four years in a situation much like you describe. But don't assume that telecommuting implies anything relaxed about the work environment.
(BTW, if anyone needs a top-flight, alpha geek UNIX geek with programming and network skills and over 10 years UNIX and linux experience, who HAS to telecommute because he lives in the middle of nowhere, send me an email. :)
worth it to me (Score:3, Insightful)
And you need to decide if working at home is right for you. It is for me, but as some other posters have mentioned, some people have a hard time with motivation, distractions or whatever if they're not in an office environment. It can be very easy to slide back and forth between 'home' and 'work' if you're at home, but you need to need to keep the two separated. I've heard of some work at home people doing things like walking around the block to start work, and walking back around the block to interrupt work, so that there's a distinct line between the two.
All that said, keep in mind that it's probably a wash or even cheaper for your company to have you work at home. There's additional telephone and 'net costs (be sure they pay for those), but that's one less office space they need, too.
Re:No, not at all. (Score:3, Insightful)
I never want to work from home! (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:No, not at all. (Score:5, Insightful)
If the managers don't see you, they don't think of you nearly as often. While this may not seem like a bad thing at times, it has one major downfall. If they don't think about you, they also don't think about your contributions to the company.
This is bad because when the time to cut people comes around, you aren't seen as being necessary (what does that guy do, anyway?). The same also applies to future raises and promotions...
Re:Not all telecommuting is flexible (Score:3, Insightful)
While my job wouldn't differ much if I worked in an office, I have to do all of the business-running bullshit associated with being your own boss.
I deal with clients on a day-to-day basis regarding the simple fact that they have not paid me yet. This alone is enough to make one go mad, as it's something I should have to do, but yet I do. Clients are told up-front what my rates and fees are, and when they don't pay, I withhold delivery. It's a game I like to play which I would hope gets the message across, yet doesn't.
Them: "Where's Project X?"
Me: "Right here. Please send me my money."
Them: "Alright. One minute."
One week later:
Them: "Where's Project X? It's a week late?"
Me: "It was ready last week. Where's my money?"
Them: "One sec."
Etc, etc.
Out of site, Out of mind (Score:3, Insightful)
Well, should be pretty simple (Score:4, Insightful)
I personally commute round trip 90 miles per day, so the auto costs for me EVERY DAY are (in theory) on the order of $50. Now I drive an inexpensive, efficient and reliable four cylinder Honda Accord, so my costs are probably a lot less than average. For example I typically average nearly 35 miles/gallon. But it's safe to say I spend $25 every day I commute.
So right of the bat if given a choice of a $50 per week or telecommuting three days, I'd be better off telecommuting three days.
Next, consider my time. I work about eight to nine hours per day and spend two hours commuting. That means 11 hours of my day are devoted to work, nearly 20% of which are spent in the car. So looked at hourly, each day I telecommute, the cost to me (hour wise) is 20% less, which is like an hourly raise of 25%.
So again, for me with my long commute and a hypothetical three day a week arrangement, I save six hours out of 55 devoted to work, which is a 11% reduction in hour. Per hour, this is the equivalent of 12% raise, plus at least $75 per week for cost savings.
Re:Already done it. (Score:1, Insightful)
Wow that's dumb. Why didn't you just buy your own monitor with the raise?
Higher Pay != Higher Standard of Living (Score:3, Insightful)
My current employer has no real dress code. We rarely see clients, so shorts, shirt and sandals are the dress code for the developers. Goals are more important than hours, and working from home is not an issue as long as the work gets done.
Now that the economy is picking up I am getting contacted by recruiters for jobs paying 150% to 200% of what I am making now but I am staying right where I am at. I have even received a couple of soft offers based on phone interviews, but I am not leaving.
I would say that you should not take less pay. When you tell an employer you will take a pay cut it is like telling them that you are worth less. I might make the "no raise, work from home" deal, but I don't think I would take the pay cut deal. HR managers (and many managers in general) just are not that insightful.
If you do end up getting to work from home, make sure to actual work from home. I know a guy who got fired when he started working from home. At the office he was getting work done. As soon as he went home he didn't get anything done. If you have anyone else at home I would recommend making sure you have an office (spare bedroom, etc) where you are physically seperated. Especially if you have kids at home!
Re:not compensation (Score:4, Insightful)
I think it depends on how productive and disciplined you are.
Personally, when I'm working at the office, I goof off a lot. I read slashdot. I check out stuff at wikipedia. I browse amazon and on and on. But I'm also very productive, and can work like a dog when there's something time-sensitive to work on. I did the same when I telecommuted 2 days a week from a mile away. I did the same when I telecommuted full-time from 8 time zones away. And I've never had anything but glowing praise for my productivity.
The discipline to put the work away (mentally, too!) and relax in your free time is important, too. There's a much lower barrier to work when all your work stuff is in the next room, and you can just walk over to your computer/files/whatever. Taking a look at "one little thing" or reading "a couple of emails" can quickly turn into several hours of work.
And even if you're not actually doing work, just being in the same environment all the time can lead to blurring the lines between your professional and private lives. It can lead to having your work be at the edge of thought all the time, creeping into your thoughts any time you're not actively doing something else.
-Esme
There's a good solution to this. (Score:4, Insightful)
bladesjester raises a good point. As an answer, I'll point to my own current job [codesourcery.com], where I and everyone else telecommutes. Including the boss.
This raises its own unique problems of visibility and communications. (We're comfortable with our solutions, which I won't yammer about here. But these problems did need to be addressed, and they won't go away on their own; if your company tries something like this, you will need to actively tackle them.) If solved, though, telecommuting makes for a very nice visibility levelling field.
Re:No! (Score:3, Insightful)
Sure, any employee is dispensable. But my point was: why make it easy? Why write the rationale yourself? For example: in my job, I am needed on site, to rewire the LAN, screw things into the racks, unjam the printer. That's stuff that you can't do over the phone--and if they offered me a job that I could telecommute from, I don't think I'd take it.
I have also done my damnedest to build confidence in the value of having my skills onsite--maybe not enough to save my job, but it'd help if my users were polled on the decision before it was made. And some of my users are indeed important enough that they would be able to influence that decision.
Re:Not all telecommuting is flexible (Score:3, Insightful)
The working from home lifestyle *is* great. As you said, you get more sleep, you can eat when you want, and more importantly what you want (my lunch usually consists of steak and vegitables, my big meal of the day). I love the freedom to go out to a store or get to the bank during regular banking hours. I'm under the impression a lot of stores are geared towards either people with no job, or people who work from home, simply because they're only open 9-5.
Additionally, I live on the West coast, and deal with a lot of people in EST (Ontario and the US East coast in general), so I'm at work for 6AM and effectively can end at 2, which gives me an afternoon to enjoy however I want. Remember, I'm *AT* work at 6 because I live at work. I don't have to get up to start commuting at 6. Not to mention since I deal with clients through Internet mediums, I don't really even have to be sitting at my desk all day. I can be in another room and hear an IM alert, and come by to check.
Yes! (Score:2, Insightful)