Dont Quit Your Day Job! Convincing Your Boss To Let You Telecommute, Part 1 of 2


Are you desperately trying to find a telecommute job so that you canquit your current one? Hold on! Your job just might have the potentialto be done from home.

With the right approach, a little research and a good proposal, manyemployees are selling the idea of telecommuting to their employers.

In this first segment, we focus on the steps you should take in order todetermine whether or not your job is a candidate for telecommuting.

Many jobs are well suited for telecommuting...and many aren't. Yourfirst step should be to evaluate your current job and determine whetheror not it is feasible to do it from home.

Ask yourself the following questions:

    * Does your job depend on resources that are only available at the office? If your job only requires Internet access, phone and fax, it isdefinitely possible to do it from a home office. However, if you are areceptionist in a medical office, you probably have otherresponsibilities that require you to physically be there, i.e. havingpatients fill out paperwork and filing.
    * Do you work well without supervision? Some people are perfectly contentto work on their own. Others need the support of having a supervisorand co-workers nearby. Monitor yourself for a week. Be aware of howoften you rely on others and how you would deal with it if you had beenaway from the office. In some cases, a supervisor may feel that gettingphone calls from a remote employee is disruptive, while a quick questionin the hallway is not.
    * Do other companies offer telecommuting for your job type? Do someresearch and find out if it's already being done. Having evidence ofsuccess with telecommuting can go a long way in convincing an employerthat it can (and does) work.
    * Does telecommuting fit with your company culture? If your company has aculture of empowerment and trust, telecommuting may be a perfect fit. If they have a more hands-on management style, it may not work. Thinkabout how your company manages their employees and whether or not thehands-off style required for telecommuting is possible.
    * Could you cope with the isolation? Some people crave office gossip,lunches with co-workers, water cooler chats and all the humaninteraction that comes with a traditional job environment. If thissounds like you, you may need to give serious thought to whether or notworking remotely is for you- it may turn out to be more like solitary confinement!

Here are some useful resources for evaluating your current job and fordetermining whether telecommuting is right for you:

====>Do You Have The Skills to Telecommute? from About.com

====>Is Telecommuting For You?

In Part 2, we will discuss the ways that you can convince your boss to let you telecommute.

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Sharon Davis is the Mom to two girls, the owner of 2Work-At-Home.Com, Work At Home Articles.net and the Editor of the site's monthly ezine, America's Home. In her spare time she reminisces about what it was like to have spare time.

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