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August 2016 Moms
jskarr7
member
Work situation...Suggestions/Ideas?
jskarr7
member
I
currently drive an hour to and from work each day (4x/week). Once the baby is born, I don't want to sacrifice
time with my child/raising my child to spend away and commuting. All of my work functions can be done from my home. I have a work
laptop and desktop computer with reliable internet service, a cell phone that
can be used for business, a portable scanner, and access to all my files via
Google Drive. I want to present my employer with a tele-commute arrangement. I would be willing to continue to come in 1-2 days/week and work the other two days/week from home. Has anyone had similar experiences? Any ideas/advice for having this work out? -- because I don't want to quit, but I don't see how it will work unless they can be flexible.
Re: Work situation...Suggestions/Ideas?
That being said, my company is probably not the norm. I'm an exempt/salaried employee, yet they make me use PTO if I miss over an hour on any given day, even though I don't get overtime for working over 40 hours (obviously, because I'm salaried). They treat me like an hourly employee.
If I were your boss, I would want a presentation showing how this benefits ME and the company, so make sure that you don't open with how it benefits you. Talk about how you're losing two productive hours, and how much money the company could save if they allowed more people to work from home. Do your research and go in prepared. Good luck, mama!
My husband was in this situation. He outlined to his employers exactly how this would impact what duties, and set specific days he would come in (Mondays and Wednesdays) so his boss knew when to schedule meetings. The biggest impact was when he printed a book to be sent to the publishers, with corrected annotations (he work in publishing) the mailroom would have to walk over to the printer and pick up the book, rather than him dropping off the book at the mail room. A digital copy was always sent, but a physical back up was required.
He talked to the mailroom before speaking to his boss, got their buy-in and created a process to make it happen when he was working remote (he would email them 15 minutes before he hit print.)
He also set up a home office, with all the same capabilities of at work (scanning, printing etc)
The fact he reasoned out the impact and found solutions prior to bringing it up allowed his supervisor to feel comfortable approving it.
Dear boss,
I have been thinking constantly about my maternity leave and post-maternity leave plans and would like to update you on some conclusions I have come to. I am still unsure how my maternity leave will work out (i.e. if I will take the full 12 weeks or less time; consecutively or gradually coming back to work more often), but I do have a tentative proposal to offer you for my full-time, post-maternity work schedule.
I have always felt strongly about keeping my future children out of daycare or other group childcare programs and would prefer a nanny or family member to watch my children while working. I also feel strongly about raising my children myself (with Kevin) as opposed to letting someone else take on the primary childcare role.
I absolutely love my job at XXX and would hate to lose it, but also have a hard time thinking about leaving my child with someone besides his/her parents for five days of every week. During my time working in XXX, I have found that most of the year (March through November) I find it difficult keeping myself busy for the full 37.5 hours per week. I believe this will continue to be the case in the future, especially since I have organized the office in a more efficient way to complete my work as quickly as possible.
My proposal is to alter my work schedule to allow for my son or daughter to be with his/her parents more often. I would like to shorten my work week to 30 hours and four days per week, working three regular days and Saturdays. I will be willing and able to work an extra day per week during our busiest months of December and January if necessary. This schedule will allow Kevin and me to avoid hiring childcare for more than half of the week and be available to our child’s needs most of the time. We would have an easier time finding childcare, as well, since family members have already agreed to babysit two to three days per week to allow us to keep working.
I understand that working Saturdays may seem to be an issue since our office is not technically open. I understand that I will not be able to receive many phone calls, but much of my work goes beyond talking with cardholders over the phone. I will be able to write letters and emails, process enrollments, terminations and transfers, update addresses, file and scan documents, process deposits and ACH batches, write checks, generate mailings, put together and send enrollment packets, update our website, run reports, and update cardholders’ information through regular monthly verification checks already put into place.
As stated above, my job as benefits coordinator is something I deeply care about and would hate to lose. Please consider this proposal as a compromise to allow me to be the available mother I have always hoped to be, while still working to my full potential here at XXX.
Thank you,
Son #1- 2/15/08
Son #2- 8/18/10
Baby 3 due 8/8/16
I think it's definitely worth an ask. I am an attorney, but an associate, so typically large law firms like you to work physically in the same office location as the partners you work for. My husband took a job in another city, which happened to have a branch location of the law firm. I talked to my immediate boss and basically presented it as "My husband has been working in city X for several months, and his career is in that city. I want to stay with this firm, so I'd like to slowly transition to the other office." I was expecting a lot of push back, but the answer was yes, absolutely, we want to keep you and we can make it work remotely. It helped that I was the only associate doing support work for a very busy partner, and he didn't want to have to go through the trouble of replacing me or using other associates (I had heard of bad prior experiences). Last May, I started working 1 day a week in the new city, 4 in the old, June was 2 days in the new, and so forth, until come late fall, I was only in the old home office 2 days every other week. The travel has been on my dime, but it shows my willingness to do what it takes to make it happen. I also made a strong business development pitch--why me being in the new city was profitable to the firm. After my baby comes, my firm is going to get used to me only being in the home office a couple days a month, but likely not back to back for a while.
So, my application here is (1) ask, because you may be very pleasantly surprised, (2) be willing to keep face time going, and phase in your telecommuting so they get used to it and to reach a happy medium, (3) find and present the argument of why you working from home is actually better for them, (4) keep showing them that when you say you will work from home and be available, they will never have to doubt that availability. For instance, instead of you not being in the office until after you drop baby off, or leaving early to pick up baby, you can stretch your work availability. Or, we all know young kids have sick days and doctor appts--the less commute for those mean greater work availability. Or, maybe you're in a market where it'd be really good for recruiting or their image to say they allow telecommuting.
Good luck!