One upside of the coronavirus pandemic is that many office workers finally got the chance to work from home. After months of this setup, we bet many of you aren’t looking forward to returning to your old routine of commuting to and sitting in the office all day.
The good news is that there’s a big chance that you’ll have to continue working remotely for the foreseeable future as the world is still dealing with the coronavirus pandemic. Even better, you can try opening a discussion with your boss about your position being changed to a permanently remote one.
Here’s how you can go about that.
Find Out Your Company’s Stance
With big companies like Twitter already announcing that their employees would have the choice to work from home forever, do your due diligence and find out if your employer is also warming up to the same idea.
Knowing your company’s stance on the matter would guide you in moving forward to air your request to your boss.
Prepare Your Arguments
Next, you should prepare a couple of arguments justifying why it would be a good idea to allow you to be a work from home employee even when the threat of COVID-19 has passed.
Your arguments should answer any concerns that your employer may have about remote work arrangements. Some of the potential concerns you should be prepared to answer are how you can collaborate with people despite being physically away, how you’ll schedule your work tasks, and how your overall productivity might suffer.
Benefits to the Company
Another tactic you should use is highlighting how the company can benefit from letting you work from home. Employers are already more likely to agree to remote work options for employees with health conditions or older workers.
For example, you can emphasize how eliminating the hours you spend on commuting or getting ready for work in the morning can give you more time to dedicate to actual tasks that need to be done.
A Compromise
If your boss is still hesitant after all the efforts on your part, you can settle to agree on a trial period first. Convince your employer to let you try working from home full time for a couple of months and then determine whether or not the set up will work in the long term.