Just because you like your job doesn’t mean you like all the strings attached.
Morning traffic, office politics, and distracting noises plague every office worker.
That’s why more and more employees are switching to working remotely. Some work entirely from home, and others divide their time between the office and the home.
If you love your job but hate the hassle of the office, we have the answer that will make your work experience bliss from here on out.
All you have to do is follow these 5 easy steps.
1. Decide what you want your schedule to be
Do you want to work from home once a week? Twice a week? Which days are the most convenient to work from home?
Make sure to consider why you want to be home on some days over others. If you want to be home on Fridays so you have a long weekend, you’ll likely be in the wrong mindset to be productive on those days.
Keep in mind how your proposition will come across to your boss.
If you ask to work from home on Tuesdays or Thursdays, it’s going to look a lot less like you are looking for days off than if you ask for Fridays at home.
Even if you want to work remotely 100% of the time, it’s a good idea to think of just one or two days that you would like to work from home and why, because employers are much more likely to start by granting you a single day a week than all week at home.
2. Compile support for why you should work remotely
You know the benefits of working remotely for yourself—assigning your own hours, saving time and money on commuting, avoiding office politics—but you have to think of benefits for your employer.
For your employer to grant your request, there has to be a clear benefit for the company, not just for you.
It could help to tell your boss that a study from last year recorded that employees are 20-25% more productive at home than at the office.
You can also cite the fact that it will allow you to take on more personal responsibility in your work, lowering the amount of time your employer is required to spend managing you.
Really think about how remote work can help your company and have that list ready for when you talk to your boss about it.
3. Discuss a trial period with your boss
If you eventually want to work entirely from home, suggest starting with two days off a week.
Once you’ve proved that you are more productive from home, you can ask to extend your remote work to three days, then four days a week, until eventually you are a completely remote employee.
If you want to work from home once or twice a week, make sure you have clear reasons why you suggest the specific days that you do.
Maybe you request Mondays because it’s the only day of the week that no meetings are ever scheduled.
Perhaps you suggest Tuesdays because those are the days when all of your work is done on the computer, and thus would be easiest to translate to working from home.
Whatever day(s) you choose, make sure to have support for why.
4. Be productive on your remote workdays
During the trial period especially, make sure that your days at home are the most productive days you have.
You can even try being slightly less productive than usual at the office to make the difference between your home and office performance clearer.
This will ensure that when it comes time to review the success of the remote work trial, your employer will see the clear benefits of making the change permanent.
5. Show your findings to your boss
After a few weeks, bring up the trial with your boss.
Cite how much more productive you were at home than at work and give specific examples of tasks you completed thanks to the remote setup.
Speak with confidence and make sure your reasoning is for the good of the company.
Be polite but firm in your request to make the change permanent.
As long as you’ve followed all the steps leading up to this, there’s no way your employer can refuse!
