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I think one of the best things in life is working from home. Even before I went off on my own, I had a home office for my previous corporate jobs.

I currently have 3 girls at home, but I probably worked more from home than I could ever have done at the office.

Many people with children at home will be scared into the office by the prospect of those children interrupting important business. Let me be the one to expose that lie: I don’t care how many children you have, they will interrupt less than your co-workers in the average office!

While there are many upsides to working from home, there is one significant downside: You won’t be promoted.

Let’s talk about the reasons for this and, perhaps, what you can do about it.



MY EXPERIENCE WITH TELECOMMUTING AND PROMOTIONS

I was discussing this whole “telecommuters won’t be promoted” theme in an e-mail discussion group recently. Here is my answer to why it happens:

I’ve seen (and experienced) this myself back when I was still employable. (Working for myself has made me unwilling to put up with a lot of corporate nonsense, hence making me unemployable.)

The keys are:

1) Most managers have no idea how to manage a remote employee - so they mostly don’t.

2) The remote employees either sink or swim on their own.

3) The managers spend a lot of time on the phone (or in regular meetings) with the non-performing remote employees, in the end knowing them “too well” to recommend them for promotion.

4) The manager knows very little about the other remote employees (other than they get the job done on time), so he doesn’t get to know them.

5) The manager knows that his local cubicle-dweller, at very least, has some level of personal hygiene, can interact with others at the office well, and generally does what is asked of him.

6) When asked for a recommendation for promotion, the lower risk answer is the cubicle-dweller who he knows, even if said cubicle-dweller is much *less* productive than the remote employee. At least s/he is less likely to “go postal” if s/he has to be around people all day.

The only caveat to this is organizations (such as HP) where there is a very high level of telecommuting. In such a case, most or all of the employees reporting to a manager telecommute, so the playing field is level again.

I guess the lesson here is, for the success of the company, make sure either none or most of a manager’s employees are telecommuting.

Dan

—–
Daniel R. Sweet
Owner / Author / Chief Cook-And-Bottle-Washer
FRACAT.com - Free Resume and Career Toolbox
LinkedIn Profile: https://www.linkedin.com/in/danielrsweet

HOW TO TELECOMMUTE AND GET PROMOTIONS

There are a few things that you can do if you are a telecommuter to offset the “no promotion” mindset of many managers. However, they all require more time and work from you.

If you’re willing to put in the extra time and work to telecommute, here’s what to do:

• Keep Your Manager Informed - It’s a huge pain in the butt, but you need to be very proactive about making sure that your manager knows what you’re up to and what you’re accomplishing.

  In other words, make sure s/he is getting constant reinforcement that “Dan is working hard and accomplishing a lot”. If your name is Dan, that is.

• Show Yourself - No, I don’t mean accidentally sending a webcam video of yourself to the whole office. I mean actually showing up at the office. Regularly.

  Let people know what you look like. Bring doughnuts one morning. Basically, you’re politicking here; making sure that people know your name and face, shaking hands, kissing babies….

• Socialize After Hours - I really hated this part, frankly. I’m already married, so I’m not going to be out picking up chicks. And if I was going to go drink all night, I could probably have thought of people I’d rather do it with.

  That being said, this is the best way to get to know everyone (and have them get to know you). So, whenever you have the opportunity, go out with the folks at the office and have a good time.

• Have “Progress Sessions” Regularly With Your Boss - Everyoe should be very clear as to what their goals are in the company with their boss. It is much more important for telecommuters, however.

  Sit down with your boss and determine what the things that you need to be doing are. See what he thinks is required to get the next promotion and make it to the next level. Then write it down on paper and review it (along with your accomplishments) regularly - once a month or so.

If you can do all of this extra work, you can both work from home and get promoted.


Enjoy the Search!

Dan
—–
Daniel R. Sweet
Owner / Author / Chief Cook-And-Bottle-Washer
FRACAT.com - Free Resume and Career Toolbox
LinkedIn Profile: https://www.linkedin.com/in/danielrsweet
Call Me On Jaxter: http://www.jaxtr.com/fracat


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This entry was posted on Tuesday, April 3rd, 2007 at 7:16 am and is filed under Dan Ramblings, Interesting Articles. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.