How to Sell Your Boss on Telecommuting

In my post Reader Profile: Steve, Steve said this about his current working situation:

One of my most important financial (and quality of life) moves was when I informed a supervisor that instead of a pay raise, I wanted to telecommute.  I thought it would be a tough sell, but the reply was basically “you had me at no pay raise…”.  I realized later the sell was already made by years of dependable good work and being a good value.  I moved to a rural area to be near family and away from city life, which I had never liked.  I bought an older 4 bedroom house on 2 acres for $150K in a fantastic school district.  Using “high cost city” average pay to buy “low cost area” average expenses leaves quite a bit of leeway.  I eventually built enough contacts to start my own consulting business.  This allowed me more control over my hours (the long days were getting to my health) and has greatly renewed my interest in my work.

This comment received the following response from a reader:

Steve - Your idea of proposing telecommuting is an interesting one to me. I may have to try that at some point. I would love to live in my hometown 2,000 miles away and still be able to have my job, and my employer does have a history of allowing for that, to people who have proven they are valuable, which I believe I have. All in all, I am very impressed with your financial situation.

So imagine this: you can keep your current job (and your current salary) and move wherever you like -- to a lower cost-of-living city (saving you thousands of dollars each year), to a place near family and friends, or to a warmer/better climate location. Sounds pretty good, huh? But just how do you actually make this happen? Here is Steve's response:

Plan on how to show you can do your job without physically being there (best one being a "trial period" in which you just work from home and don't actually move) and show what's in it for your employer ("instead of a raise" that you deserved is a nice straight forward one). Then think about what you would do if you did move and eventually lost your job (would you move back? are there other opportunities in the new town, etc?). Then DO IT!

To me, the keys to making this work are probably:

• The job you are doing has to be able to be done remotely (kind of goes without saying.) You can crunch numbers and distribute them to others from afar, but it's hard to be a nurse from home. ;-)
• You need to be at least a good performer (if not excellent.) IMO, most employers won't want marginal performers off-site because 1) they don't "deserve" the perk and 2) they need to be supervised. On the other hand, employers want to retain good/exceptional workers and telecommuting may be one way to do this. Here's a real-life example of a good performer getting an unusual work request granted: an FMF reader switches from full to part-time work.  
• The company needs to be open to the idea. Let's face it, many companies don't allow telecommuting for one reason or another. The most common reason seems to be "if we did it for you, we have to do it for others."
• It helps if you give something back to them. Some examples: you could forego a pay bump, you could pay for all the equipment/services it takes to set you up remotely, you could take an extra project that the company wants you to take, and so on. If you do something for the organization/your boss, they/he is more likely to grant your request.

Anyone out there actually made the move to telecommuting? If so, is the list above correct? Or are there other tips that should be followed? Please share your advice with the rest of us.

Comments

[Jodie]

My company has 4 employees who live in 3 states. Technology allows us to live apart *and* not travel a lot to meet our clients (nationwide). Our main way of communicating is gotomeeting.com. Everyone can gather, talk, view someone's computer screen, and even take over keyboard & mouse control of someone's computer. This service has significantly changed our work situation - all we need is a computer and a good internet connection.

[jbhk]

My company basically allows employees to request for being a telecommute worker. However, it would not approve if you just want to save time and gas to drive an hour to work. Usually it is a state-to-state request. Approval is granted by the manager and the director. Of course, if you have a good proposal and a good performance will help your chance, but you can already apply just because your spouse gets a job somewhere else and you need to move with him/her.

We have offices in almost every state and usually close to main city, so the telecommute means you can work in those offices (not at home), rather than in the main headquarter. The company will fly you back to the headquarter at least once a year for the yearly performance review.

From the company's perspective, it really doesn't cost it a lot extra money to have an employee to work, for example, in Texas, instead of Illinois, because both properties are company owned, all equipments and furniture are setup already. With today's technology, meeting with everyone in the world is not a problem at all.

[Jon]

I inadvertently made the move to telecommuting about 8 weeks ago when I injured my back on the job lifting some servers. Pain in my left leg left me unable to work the clutch on my vehicle to drive to work, and it would have been inadvisable, anyway, due to the amount of narcotics the doctor prescribed, so I began working from home via laptop and teleconferences. It's worked out very well, and the only time I've missed has been this week when I went in for surgery. Should be able to return to "light duty" telecommuting on Monday. So, when the time comes that I want to move to a more congenial climate and telecommute, it ought to be a really easy sell.

[Keith]

I have worked from home for well over a year and really enjoy it. I save an hour a day in driving time and about two gallons of gas per day. Occassionally I have to go into the office for training but more and more of those are being done over the computer/phone via WebEx. When work-at-home became a talking point about 2 years ago, I put my name in the hat. They at first said it would be a six month rotation but after six months they dropped the rotation bit and I am now indefiently work-from-home. I don't have to commute, I don't have to be in a cube, I don't get exposed to other peoples sicknesses. The only negative is that I do learn somethings when I am around other people doing the same work. On another subject, my pay has flattened out and if I am going to ever see an increase, it will likely have to be with another company who may not allow for telecommuting. But since I have done this successfully maybe other places would see that I have the responsibility level needed to do it again.

[Everyday Tips]

I started telecommuting 2 days a week 16 years ago. I was the first one to try it, so I felt a lot of pressure to make it work so that the door would be open for others. A couple years later, I proposed working exclusively from home, and they agreed.

Now, my circumstances were a little different. I had a skill set that was hard to find, so it was an easy sell. (The economy was different then, and they knew that they had to try and retain the employees they had.) Plus, I had been a good performer for many years and had a great relationship with my manager.

My advice is similar to Steve's: be a great employee who is very flexible first and foremost. Maybe offer to ease into it to prove it can be done effectively. Then, make sure you are always available when telecommuting. You never want your fellow employees to think you might actually be at the gym or something instead of working.

[jim]

Another possible benefit to the employer is that they could potentially save on office space. Sometimes thats a sunk cost and one less employee may not make a direct cost savings. But they could use your office for something else or if they get more people telecommuting then maybe they can downsize the office space and cut their building lease costs. If nothing else they save a little $ by not having you in the building cause you're not using their electricity, water, etc. Won't be a big difference, but won't hurt to mention cause it will offset any costs to set you up remote.

Your company has to be open to the idea for it to work and most bigger companies already have policies that are usually pretty well defined.

[Sunil from The Extra Money Blog]

when i was working, i was able to negotiate Fridays off initially, and later thu and fri, and later the full week every other week, and then all week with travel on an as needed basis. it is possible in my experience, and the points above are essentially to "hit" to be successfully able to be to execute on it.

[guinness416]

I know a couple of people (albeit for different employers) who've done this but it's a real career dead end in my line of work - you really can't manage people properly or work in a team that meets regularly or do anything client facing if you're sitting in your kitchen miles away. The people I know who've done it successfully have been doing low level support work on a contract basis - overflow stuff when the main office is swamped - and have only telecommuted for a while, when kids are young or whatever. My own employer would never hear of it. But that's just my field.