Hi folks,
I have been informed by my employer that we can soon apply for working from home 2 days per week. I work in an IT Helpdesk environment and have been informed that it will be a case of first come first served basis.
At the moment, once per month I visit my father up in Northern Ireland and usually book a day of flexi leave on a Monday or Friday to make a bit of a longer weekend out of it. My father is a disabled pensioner living alone so I would ideally like to be able to spend more time with him and stay for longer when I visit once per month. I am happy to still continue using a day of flexi leave to extend the length of these trips but I would like to also be able to have the option of working from home when I'm up there particularly if anything happened to my car during those weekends that would prevent me from being able to make the long journey back down to the Republic. I would even be happy to throw in the occasional day of annual leave on top of the flexi leave to really make a good long stay with my father once per month. It's too much mileage and fuel expenses to visit any more than once per month due to the distance of the journey.
I am also feeling that particularly with cost of fuel these days, I would like to try to manage my working from home schedule in such a way that I can minimize the amount of days I physically have to commute to the office. I've heard some suggestions that a Monday would be a bad day to elect to work from home as most bank holiday public leave days fall on a Monday so it almost seems a waste to be off on days that I would be due to be at home anyways. I also tend to have booked most of my flexi/annual leaves days on a Monday or a Friday so again I wonder if it's a waste working from home on these days and perhaps having some midweek days to work from home might mean less overall commutes to the office over the course of the year.
A final aspect that I am considering is how busy I would be on particular days.
In terms of our IT helpdesk, the busiest days of the week in terms of percentage of support tickets logged are as follows:
Tuesday - 23.2%
Wednesday - 20.7%
Thursday - 20.1%
Monday - 19.8%
Friday - 16.2%
In terms of 2 days combined, the stats are as follows:
Tuesday & Wednesday – 43.9%
Tuesday & Thursday – 43.3%
Monday & Tuesday – 43%
Wednesday & Thursday – 40.8%
Monday & Wednesday – 40.5%
Monday & Thursday – 39.9%
Tuesday & Friday – 39.4%
Wednesday & Friday – 36.9%
Thursday & Friday – 36.3%
Monday & Friday – 36%
I’m unsure if I would want to be at home on the busy days in order to avoid a hectic stressful day in the office, or am I better working from home on the quieter days where there is more free time to simultaneously get personal non-work related things done at home. Tuesdays and Wednesdays are very hectic whilst Fridays are so relatively quiet that we almost don’t really mind having to come in.
With all of these factors to consider, I would be keen to hear some thoughts and opinions on how I try to decide upon which specific two days per week would be the ideal sweet spot for my circumstances.
I have been informed by my employer that we can soon apply for working from home 2 days per week. I work in an IT Helpdesk environment and have been informed that it will be a case of first come first served basis.
At the moment, once per month I visit my father up in Northern Ireland and usually book a day of flexi leave on a Monday or Friday to make a bit of a longer weekend out of it. My father is a disabled pensioner living alone so I would ideally like to be able to spend more time with him and stay for longer when I visit once per month. I am happy to still continue using a day of flexi leave to extend the length of these trips but I would like to also be able to have the option of working from home when I'm up there particularly if anything happened to my car during those weekends that would prevent me from being able to make the long journey back down to the Republic. I would even be happy to throw in the occasional day of annual leave on top of the flexi leave to really make a good long stay with my father once per month. It's too much mileage and fuel expenses to visit any more than once per month due to the distance of the journey.
I am also feeling that particularly with cost of fuel these days, I would like to try to manage my working from home schedule in such a way that I can minimize the amount of days I physically have to commute to the office. I've heard some suggestions that a Monday would be a bad day to elect to work from home as most bank holiday public leave days fall on a Monday so it almost seems a waste to be off on days that I would be due to be at home anyways. I also tend to have booked most of my flexi/annual leaves days on a Monday or a Friday so again I wonder if it's a waste working from home on these days and perhaps having some midweek days to work from home might mean less overall commutes to the office over the course of the year.
A final aspect that I am considering is how busy I would be on particular days.
In terms of our IT helpdesk, the busiest days of the week in terms of percentage of support tickets logged are as follows:
Tuesday - 23.2%
Wednesday - 20.7%
Thursday - 20.1%
Monday - 19.8%
Friday - 16.2%
In terms of 2 days combined, the stats are as follows:
Tuesday & Wednesday – 43.9%
Tuesday & Thursday – 43.3%
Monday & Tuesday – 43%
Wednesday & Thursday – 40.8%
Monday & Wednesday – 40.5%
Monday & Thursday – 39.9%
Tuesday & Friday – 39.4%
Wednesday & Friday – 36.9%
Thursday & Friday – 36.3%
Monday & Friday – 36%
I’m unsure if I would want to be at home on the busy days in order to avoid a hectic stressful day in the office, or am I better working from home on the quieter days where there is more free time to simultaneously get personal non-work related things done at home. Tuesdays and Wednesdays are very hectic whilst Fridays are so relatively quiet that we almost don’t really mind having to come in.
With all of these factors to consider, I would be keen to hear some thoughts and opinions on how I try to decide upon which specific two days per week would be the ideal sweet spot for my circumstances.
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