Ask the Business Coach Joyce K. Reynolds is an expert Business Coach who works with CEOs, Sr. Execs, entrepreneurs and countless others providing knowledge, solutions, motivation and support that assist her clientele in successfully meeting workplace challenges. Find out more about Joyce's coaching practice. Working From Home Question: I'm considering asking my boss to let me telecommute. What are some of the advantages and disadvantages of telecommuting? June Answer: Here are a few points that might help you determine if telecommuting is for you. Begin by asking yourself if your job is appropriate for telecommuting. Evaluate your job tasks, the people, the organization and your home-office setting to ascertain whether or not your work could be done efficiently and effectively from an off-site location. Telecommuting requires that you be viewed as having the integrity and professionalism to be a good choice for off-site work. Your supervisor must be comfortable evaluating your performance by results rather than clock time. You must welcome the opportunity to prove yourself in results rather than on-the-job interactions. If these standards are met and a good deal of your work is portable, doesn’t require a lot of face-to-face contact with people in your office or high need for headquarters tools that you can’t easily duplicate in your home environment, there’s a good chance telecommuting could work for you. Working at home requires a good amount of discipline along with an excellent, independent grasp of the work you are required to do. You must put in place all the necessary tools to do your job at home such as a computer and remote-access which means you must be fully computer literate without relying on any kind of office tech support. Be certain that you know your job well enough to keep working without having your supervisor or co-workers nearby. If, on the other hand, you like having social interaction with office colleagues, you may feel lonely or isolated working at home for long stretches of time even if you stay in touch with the office by phone or e-mail.(You may also have to face an uncomfortable change in the attitudes of your non-telecommuting coworkers should they feel that you have been given a privilege which they were not offered.) Off-site work leads to fewer office-related distractions and disruptions but such advantages can be offset by those same issues at home unless you are self-disciplined, motivated and organized. At the office, it's easier to develop appropriate work parameters that tell you when to go back to work after a break or co-worker interaction. As a telecommuter, it’s all up to unsupervised you. You must be able to totally focus on the work to be done and remain undistracted by all the temptations that might occur in your home setting – the kids, waiting chores, the TV, drop-in neighbors - even the refrigerator. So, telecommuting offers the opportunity for greater work/life balance provided you can add in the discipline and standards needed to consistently get the job done on your own. For some, the inability to create appropriate boundaries between work and home is a major pitfall of telecommuting. This can result in not being able to shut down your work, feeling like you are constantly on the job. Today’s technology can certainly magnify that problem allowing you to, literally, be connected 24/7. If you’re susceptible to overwork, having office responsibilities accessible around the clock may be too great a challenge for you. Not only is this a real drawback to telecommuting it can actually lead to reduced productivity or stress-related illness. In short, there are a number of key things you must know or put in place for telecommuting to work successfully for you: Be prepared to dedicate 100% of your attention to your job during working hours ignoring all manner of distractions and potential liberties; Eliminate any possibility that your work at home will be compromised by taking care of children or elders; Establish strict business hours with definite times for starting work, taking breaks and ending your work day; Set clear boundaries so your co-workers know that they can contact you regarding business only during work hours; Develop skills that will allow you to stay in the loop and be totally in sync with the office even though you are not physically there; Heighten your ability to communicate quickly and effectively with your supervisor, office colleagues and clients; Create ways to provide obvious evidence to your supervisor that you are consistently meeting your job goals. Putting these things in place - as you remove the time and stress relative to commuting – will likely result in increased productivity and enhanced morale. In order to protect these benefits and the success of your telecommuting choice, maintain frequent contact with colleagues via telephone and e-mail as you pay close, on-going attention to your attitude. If you find yourself losing touch or notice that you are less productive, increase your level of interaction with your office or reduce the number of days you telecommute. If you feel your overall performance slipping, be prepared to go back to your office. In the final analysis, given the right mindset, motivation and tools, telecommuting can provide significant benefits for both you and your company. Also see: • Ask Joyce your workplace questions • More questions • One-on-one business coaching Disclaimer: The information in this column is intended to provide the reader with general ideas or concepts to be used as part of a broader base of knowledge they collect to determine their own best course of action and solutions most suitable for solving their workplace challenges. The information in this column is not guaranteed to be the appropriate solution for each individual.