Companies are opening up more and more to the idea of letting employees telecommute, especially employees who are primarily doing work on a computer. Practically, there is no reason why computer work has to be done in a specific location. Communication tools make it easy for chatting and conferencing with fellow employees at a distance from the workplace when needed.
I will address specifically the situation where you currently work for a company, and would like to telecommute with that same company.
If you are currently working for a company, and your job responsibilities can be performed through telecommuting, you might first check to see if your company has a policy in place for telecommuting employees. Many large companies have established policies for this work arrangement, although many employees inside the company might not know about it if it's not advertised. If the company does have a policy, check the policy to find out how you might be able to request this type work arrangement. The company I work for has this information on a website. Most likely, if there is a policy, the company is going to leave it up to your
local supervisor and management to make a determination to allow you to telecommute. Your job is to convince them that you have personal traits that are conducive to telecommuting. You must be able to work independently and productively without much supervision. They have to trust you. If you have a lot of distractions at home, which would interfere with your productivity, then you might not function well as a telecommuter. So, put together a sales pitch on why you
should be allowed to telecommute, and talk to your supervisor or manager.
If the company you work for does not have a policy on telecommuting, then find out if there are any employees currently telecommuting for the company. Speak with them, if you can, to find out how they initiated this arrangement. If that fails, then approach your management with the idea, and sell them on it. But first, get all your facts together. Sell them on why this will benefit both you and the company. The good companies will want to keep the good employees, and they are concerned about "quality of life" for their employees. This makes good business sense if they want to attract and retain the best talent.
Here is my story:
I currently work as an engineer for a large corporation. I own undeveloped land that is located a long way from the office. I work in Iowa, and the land is located in Tennessee. During this next year, I intend to approach the company about telecommuting so that I can move close to my land and begin developing my homestead.
I would have done this sooner, but I sold management on funding me for a year to work on a technology development project, which has the promise to save the company millions of dollars and deliver a higher quality product to the customer. For part of this project, I have to do field testing at a specific location in Iowa, which cannot be done anywhere else. Once the project is finished, I'm good to go. I am currently on track to be successful with this project. The important point here is that I have built trust with the company, and objectively demonstrated my value to the company; therefore, they are more likely to be open to my request for telecommuting.
There are no jobs for the type of engineering I do near where my land is located, so it makes sense to stay employed by this company if possible. Fortunately, the company has a policy on telecommuting, and it has employees working for our office who are located in far away places. As a matter of fact, I know a manger who lives in Texas on his family farm, and is managing employees at our location in Iowa. He shows up at the office every now and then so his employees can see his face.
Recently a young engineer in our group told our supervisor that his wife was putting pressure on him to move back to Minnesota so that they could be close to family, and their kids could grow up around the grandparents. The management allowed him to move and telecommute. This is extremely important to me because it sets a
precedent in our group. Therefore, management will not be able to logically deny this old experienced engineer the ability to telecommute, when they trusted a much less experienced person in my group to do so.
In addition, I have already proven that I can work independently and productively, and our management is already allowing me to work two days per week from home. So, it's not a big step to stretch two days to five days at home. As a matter of fact, I am much more productive working from home than at the office, because I have absolutely no distractions. The management has also witnessed this increase in productivity, which further builds my credibility.
So, here is the bottom line. If you are currently working for a company, and you desire to telecommute with that same company, it will be easier to convince them to allow this work arrangement provided you have first demonstrated that you are a valuable employee and that you can work independently and productively. If you need to build this credibility, and your management is somewhat resistant, ask if they would consider allowing you to work from home maybe just one day per week. If that goes well, and they become comfortable that you can perform well in a telecommuting arrangement, then later ask for more days. Eventually, you might be able to telecommute full time.
I suspect it is much harder to gain new employment full time with a company directly into a telecommuting position (that pays decent money), unless you are a salesman, or some other specialists where the job itself naturally fits the telecommuting paradigm. I'll leave it to others to answer that question.