Weekly Tip: A Work at Home Day

The newest CEO of Yahoo, Marissa Mayer, stopped the long time practice of employees working from home within a few months of joining the company. A high-tech company forcing their workers to come into the office instead of using the at-distance work tools that are available was sacrilege. Her studies of productivity proved what most bosses have believed for a long time; employees who work from home get less done. Is that always true? I don’t think so, but I do believe there are some rules to follow that make a difference for when you take a day to work from home.

• Produce – When you work from home, you need to produce an outcome significant enough that it requires you not to be at the office. Writing a proposal, completing a contract, developing a plan or completing the annual reviews. There has to be a project that you COMPLETE and being isolated helps. That’s the reason you took the day to work from home.

• Communicate – Let your boss know when you are working from home, why, and what you will get done before you start working from home.

• Don’t break trust – When your kids say they are going to be one place and you find out they are somewhere else, that’s a life lesson for them with consequences. Same thing for working at home, you need to be working. Running errands, cleaning your house while on the conference call, inaccessible when you are supposed to be available are all trust-breakers.

Mobility tools create an opportunity for productivity from home. However, working from home requires a little more management of perception and productivity if the privilege is to be given.