The only way to convince the boss to allow work from home is to provide metrics that you’re MORE PRODUCTIVE from home.
The problem as I see it is not a productivity issue, per se, but a synergistic issue.
An individual worker can claim to be more productive at home, but look a little deeper at what's really going on.
From the article:
I miss the chance to finish household tasks between my meetings...I suspect that many people spread out their workday into smaller increments with personal time scattered throughout. They may be present at a meeting and then disappear for an hour to pick the kids up at school. They may fix dinner for the family and then get back to work at 9:00pm until midnight and say they were more productive at home.
However (at least when I was a coder), there were people who came to me for mentoring, for help with a nasty problem, or just looking for an idea to get started. I might get a call from someone in another part of the world who has a question about a presentation I gave at the last information sharing session. Those people expected me to be present during the core "business hours." If I'm not there, they lose the opportunity to grow, or to be productive themselves when they struggle for longer because I (or someone like me) wasn't there when they needed the support.
That's the synergy that comes from a team all being on the field at the same time, and that disappears when everybody who's working from home thinks that it is their time to schedule for their own personal convenience, "as long as they get their work done."
Everybody goes back to being siloed.
-PJ
My wife’s boss told her she could work from home whenever she wanted, her productivity remained as constant and in some cases better working from home during covid. They went back to the office in 2021 and at times she would work from home during bad weather situations. When gas prices spiked she was allowed to work from home three days a week.
This is all coming to the end as her boss has taken another job and they are kicking her upstairs to his position looks like.
The boss should be the one capturing metrics. If the trust and reputation is there, the worker will not need to prove anything. If it’s not, then that person shouldn’t be remote.