Home-worker?

To the great surprise of no-one it was announced last week that the Sun Watford office, where I work, is to close within twelve to eighteen months. The office itself is leased from Regus and isn’t cheap, especially considering the work that we’ve paid for to get the power and air-conditioning up to scratch. The thirty or so staff have to find other places to work with Guillemont Park (GMP) and home being the two most likely candidates.

GMP can be quite a trek from Watford, as it’s about forty miles around the M25 and down the M3. On a good day the trip takes around an hour. On a bad day it can easily extend into three hours.

Figuring out the best option out of:

• full time at GMP,
• flexible home/office based at GMP and
• full time at home is quite difficult. It’s unlikely that we’ll move house so full time at GMP is not attractive.

Balancing the benefits and disadvantages of the latter two is more difficult. Many of the worries with both approaches are, in reality, not a problem with my current management, but it makes sense to consider how such things might take a turn for the worst.

For example, if your contractual place of employment is GMP, it appears that the company can insist that you attend the office every day. As I mentioned above, with my current management this is unlikely to be a problem, as my boss isn’t likely to do that. In the future?

Similarly, if your contractual place of employment is your home then the company wants to participate in decisions about moving house. How this would actually work is not clear, but it has worrying possibilities.

Seems that my previous thinking about random telecommuting may actually turn into a more urgent matter…