Top 5 Tips on Teleworking

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Comment by Kitty Wooley on June 6, 2010 at 12:03am

This is great advice. Steve, the only thing I'd do differently - and this may be a function of the employer organization's culture - is give more frequent updates to the boss. Everybody, I'm just amazed at how useful your posts are - thanks!

Comment by Gina Robson on June 3, 2010 at 9:26am

More tips: wake up at the usual time and follow the usual morning routine (right down to packing breakfast and lunch). Once ready for work, I would use the extra time that would have been spent commuting to putter around the house - laundry, housework, putting dinner in the slow cooker, etc. This minimized the temptation to be distracted once I actually started working and allowed me to start my day at the usual time.

Keeping the same hours at home as when I was in the office meant that I was still accessible when people expected and were used to being able to contact me.

If your telecommuting workspace allows, shut the office door or otherwise separate yourself from the "home" space. This tells family that you are working right now. It also helps minimize the noise as Henry mentioned.

And of course, being dressed for the office meant video conferences weren't embarassing, and allowed for quick response on the (rare) occasion when I was asked to come into the office that day...

I also took the phone with me everywhere, but if a call came at an "inopportune" time, I simply told the caller I would have to call them back in a few minutes, which I did.

When I needed to "lock up" the laptop accessing certain databases remotely, I put an out of office message on my e-mail and let colleagues available through IM know. This way, if they needed to reach me, they knew not to do it online, added transparency to what I was doing at home (and even helped bolster an argument with IT to improve remote access).

Comment by Andrew Krzmarzick on June 2, 2010 at 9:28am

More Tips:

Get out of the house - there have been weeks where I never went out of the house for days! It's okay (necessary?) to go to a coffee shop or another location to get a change of scenery if you work from home full-time.

Separate work from home - my biggest issue as a teleworker is knowing when to shut it down and go 'home'...fortunately I my home office is downstairs and separate from the rest of the living area, so I can make a clean break. Lately, I have been trying to leave the laptop downstairs to honor family time. If I don't, it feels like work beckons just a few feet away.

Great discussion forum around "Are you really working when not in the office? Prove It" that addresses some of the issues below around unrealistic expectations.

Comment by Nichole Henley on June 2, 2010 at 8:34am

haha!! I always felt weird when working from home and had to take the phone with me to the bathroom... whether it was implied or not, I always felt guilty if I missed a phone call or let it ring too many times!!!

Comment by Scott Horvath on June 2, 2010 at 5:14am

That's why there needs to be a better educational move for managers and supervisors around teleworking, how expectations are different from traditional "in office," and the benefits and disadvantages of teleworking. Without that type of continuous education, perceptions of the teleworker will not change for a VERY long time.

Comment by GovLoop on June 1, 2010 at 10:29pm

I agree on answering the phone but that killed me. People definitely were upset when I didn't answer the phone exactly when they called - and I could have been on a call, doing work, getting lunch, etc. Was a hard trick...

Comment by Scott Horvath on June 1, 2010 at 8:57pm

I don't believe answering the phone at every waking moment is something that should be done. Do you do this at work now? Are you ALWAYS at your desk for every minute of the day? Don't you go to the bathroom, walk around the office and have periodic chit-chat, go off to meetings for an hour or two hours at a time? You're not always accessible in your own office...yet your manager doesn't seem to have a problem with that. Why? Because it's the assumption that if you're in the office, you're doing work...even if they can't see you.

Why should teleworking be any different? There's bathroom breaks, meetings (on the phone or remotely), etc. Chit-chatting IS different because you're coworkers aren't there at your home and chit-chatting in the office still allows the boss to grab you at a moments notice. But I don't agree that you should take the phone everywhere you go. There needs to be some set of reasonable expectations.

Comment by ChrisDu4 on June 1, 2010 at 2:59pm

I find that I'm more productive when I make sure I shower and dress, even if I'm working from home all day. Keeps me reminded I'm actually WORKING and not fucking about.

Comment by Henry Brown on June 1, 2010 at 2:42pm

a gotcha: is make sure when you are talking to someone on the phone there are NOT distracting background noise (dogs barking, kids yelling/crying, daytime television noise, etc.)

In my case, as more and more video conferencing comes into play, I need to insure that I have changed out of my workout clothes and am at least somewhat presentable when on the web-cam.

Comment by Nichole Henley on June 1, 2010 at 2:00pm

If possible, keep reasonable office hours when teleworking. Just because you can start at 5am and leave the office at 1pm doesn't mean other work after 1pm will just have to wait. You still have to be a teamplayer- even if it is in a virtual world.

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