A reader writes:
I work for a corporation that has round 600 workers and a number of other places of work in a couple of totally different nations. Just lately a distinct workplace was refurbished, and through the refurbishment all the staff who labored there needed to earn a living from home. It ended up taking longer than deliberate they usually have been all working from residence for round two and a half weeks.
Our employer may be very pro-working-from-home, and I’m one in every of a small handful of workers who works in an workplace every single day. I like workplace working, however a part of the explanation I do it every single day is that I dwell in a shared residence in an costly metropolis the place my room could possibly be described as “cabinet measurement.” There’s a small desk within the shared kitchen/front room which I’ve used to work from at in a pinch (e.g., I have to let an emergency plumber in when neither of my roommate could possibly be at residence). That is positively not one thing I may do for greater than a day with out it being actually annoying for me and my flatmates. I dwell inside a 15-minute stroll of the workplace so whereas I don’t love cabinet life, it really works for me, and the loopy rental market right here means I’m in no hurry to search for someplace else to dwell.
My query is that this: if the same workplace refurb was introduced for my workplace, what would my choices be? Is it simply an expectation for workers at work-from-homeable jobs to have the ability to make it work? Realistically I may ask round and discover associates or household who may discover the area for me to work for every week or so, but it surely’s fairly a giant favor to ask. The sort of work we do requires a number of screens to be environment friendly (individuals who earn a living from home recurrently are supplied with displays) so it’s not one thing I may do from a library or a coffeeshop. Might I ask my firm to pay for a coworking area (one of many fancy ones with displays) for the time spent with no workplace? Would it not be actually out of contact for me to ask?
This can be a hypothetical query as a result of I don’t see it taking place for my workplace however I’m to know what the etiquette is.
As with so many issues about work, there’s what ought to occur after which there’s what does occur.
What ought to occur is that in case your workplace expects you to earn a living from home throughout one thing like a renovation or {an electrical} outage or so forth and also you don’t have the power to earn a living from home — and also you didn’t explicitly settle for the job figuring out that typically working from residence could be a part of the deal — they need to both (a) present alternate area so that you can work from (like a coworking area) or (b) offer you paid day without work for that interval (which shouldn’t come out of your regular trip time, since you’re not selecting to make use of your time that method).
What usually occurs in actuality, although, is that you simply’re simply anticipated to discover a solution to make it work by yourself — that means you both work from that tiny desk in your shared kitchen, otherwise you go to a coffeeshop or a pal’s home, and so on. If the workplace disruption is only for a day or two, you would possibly find yourself being given paid day without work to cowl it, however in any other case they’re prone to anticipate you to determine it out. You can most likely get them to offer you one other display although.
However that’s to not say it could be out of contact to ask about choices! You can positively ask about getting a coworking area lined, notably if it’s going to be longer than a few days (and if the state of affairs is trying prefer it’s going to be greater than every week — and particularly if it’s stretching to a month or longer — your probabilities of them saying sure go up).