Persuading the boss for a pass to work from home can be a tough nut to crack. Their instinct will almost instinctively force a ‘no’ from their lips but if they took the time to think about it for a little bit longer they might just find that having you working from home more often is a solution that just might benefit everyone.
You’ve got one shot to persuade the boss that remote working is the forward way of doing business and that rather than losing work, allowing the team more control and a level of flexibility is going to instill a fresh, harder-working workforce. In this blog we take a look at some of the strong arguments you can put forward that just might make your case for you and give you back some control over your work/life balance.
Flexibility is a Good Thing
If your boss has an old-fashioned way of looking at work as a 9 to 5 routine that must be stuck to, even in that doesn’t mean your staff are working particularly hard, then you have your job cut out. Start with presenting them with the evidence that flexible working doesn’t mean unreasonable hours. It might just mean starting and finishing a half-hour later as you finish off the school run. It means sticking, broadly speaking, to the core hours of your business, just with a little flexibility either side. You might start early and finish on time, with an extended break in the middle to walk the dog but you’re there, you’re available and you’re motivated.
Show your boss the studies that reveal remote workers are more motivated, more enthusiastic about their jobs and often get their tasks completed sooner and at the high standard you’d expect.
You might also want to flag up the benefit of having a totally quiet home office space that cuts out the chatter of office life and allows you to concentrate on difficult tasks such as having to find top custom elearning content providers, for example. Couple this with the very strong possibility that they might save money from cutting down on their office bills and you might just have a winning case.
The Tech Viewpoint
Your boss might be worried about how you would stay connected in a truly remote workforce and the great news is that there’s plenty of software out there that will help keep teams connected, even when they’re not on the same site. Take Asana, a collaborative, task-oriented software package that keeps everyone on track. There’s also Skype of course and instant messaging software.
Yes, you might still need to meet up once a month for a face-to-face catch-up but that need to have everyone in the same room, all the time is a thing of the past.
Your boss needs to know that remote working helps everyone and isn’t just an excuse for their team to stay in their pajamas all day. Homeworking is a tangible business concept and one that will become all the more popular in the future. It’s time to get with the times.
