Jun 11 2006
My personal experience of home working
I consider myself to be very lucky to work from home. Because my medical condition makes it difficult for me to travel at least a couple of times a week and I feel too ill to work for at least a few hours most days only a decade ago I would have probably had to give up work.
However having reached the point in my career where I am now happy to use my skills and experience to support others around the world on their projects home working suits me very well for the following reasons:
- I have a 12 hour window within which to fit in 4 hours of desk work and a couple of hours of research, this is possible on most days even if I am really tired or in a lot of pain
- I work with teams in the UK, Northern Europe, US and Australia so the extended working day is very valuable
- Not only do I spread out my work over a 12 hour period but in between work sessions I do a lot of gentle exercise which would be difficult to do in an office environment
- I often need to rest, read, nap, meditate etc again this would be difficult in an office environment
- The global nature of my work means there really is no office full of people that I work with anyway
- Although my wife also works from home because two of my daughters need to go to hospital regularly there are often times (every week) when I need to pick kids up from school or take them to after school activities
- Work life balance is much improved
- I have a trampoline at home!
Although home working is very convenient, there are definitely some down-sides:
- I miss the casual social interactions, for example the chats that don’t take place when you only ever talk to people on conference calls
- Most people I want to chat with seem to be busy on conference calls all day, somehow when you work from home just chilling out for 10 minutes with a couple of team mates is more difficult than it used to be
- I observe much less the way that other people work, and therefore it’s more difficult to pick up new skills and broaden my experience
- There is some social isolation, even though I get out a lot and meet people a lot, it’s a smaller circle of people
- My work life and my home life are fully integrated, it’s more difficult to switch off, but I am nice and relaxed so there is less need to switch off
I mitigate some of this using tools and processes:
- Blogs and blog comments provide access to a diversity of opinion and discussions
- Podcasts provide a way to connect to a broader set of views in a more social way than just reading, and I can listen to them while walking, swimming, ironing, gardening etc
- Presence and IM provide a relatively un-disruptive way to keep in contact with people
- Lunch time meetings provide a good social connection with the few people who live locally
- I am not addicted to always on email
- I keep my Tablet largely free of all work related activities except reading, and a small amount of reviewing
I have an extended version of this post here
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I think the greatest drawback of working at home is missing the social interaction, meeting new people and having some company. I also work at home and sometimes, it feel terrible. Not getting much activity and exercise makes me lazy and drowsy sometimes and I feel very isolated, from my family and friends.
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My employer has just allowed me to expand from 1 day a week at home to basically unlimited remote capability. My concern is that I will lose the sense of knowing “the pulse” of the company. Much of my work involves strategic planning and getting out ahead of the corporate plans. I suppose I can still participate in meetings but I wonder about the difference in not physically being in the office for those impromptu discussions that occur all the tme.
In all this is a great opportunity. I also have a chronic disease that, while currently in remission, could flare up anytime making a 90 minute (one way) commute very difficult. So I plan to maximize this experience and test it out.
Thanks Steve for sharing your experiences. Hopefully this can work me long term, as well.
Rob
Rob, I think you’re right to worry about this risk. Although if you work for a global company then maybe you will find you get a more global perspective by working from home than you ever could in any particular office.