People who work from home are more satisfied with their jobs

I have gone full circle. At first I loved the idea of working from the house. Years later, I love the office. The best mix is a combination of freedom of being able to pick your hours and working from home but still having that work place to go to.

Note what it actually said:<p>"Spending less than 50 percent of the week in the collocated office affords more flexibility and aids in the balance of work and personal roles, which teleworkers find satisfying."<p>Less than 50%. When I was a more of a contributor versus my current manager role, coming into work 2 days a week and getting my stuff done at home would have rocked.<p>There are also many things that weren't said. I have a 10x16 office with a door and windows. The folks on my teams are in 4-person semi-private pods with plenty of room with attractive color schemes, reasonably high quality furniture and natural light. It's work, but everyone is pretty happy.<p>In other roles, I've been in 4x4 high-wall cubes in windowless pens with 40 people where the brightest colors in the room were the red nubs on IBM thinkpads. That was a miserable working environment.<p>Personally, I'd rather work in my current environment than home. On the other hand, I'd rather work in my basement sitting on a stool and using my furnace as a desk than previous, crappy office environments/cattle pens.

I think personal autonomy is underrated in most facets of life - we're just seeing the effects of it in this article on this particular study.<p>I really really really disliked growing up in my family. It's not that I hated them, but I hated having to be around them all the time. Forced vacations on someone else's schedule, forced meal times, etc. I just <i>really</i> hated it. That was taken (even by my family) as rejecting <i>them</i>, which wasn't the case, but hard to articulate when you're 9.<p>I <i>really</i> enjoy having time with my brothers now (and my parents) but it's because it's on <i>my</i> time and my schedule.<p>I am pretty sensitive to sound, and having to sit around people who chew with their mouth open is torture. Same thing with gum chewing. I left a job once partially because I was forced to sit in the same room with someone who'd taken up gum chewing. Growing up with the family, meal times were really bad. Now, as an adult, I can politely leave the room for a few minutes if I need to (to destress) but as a kid, I couldn't.<p>Being able to control where you work is great, but just reaffirms that as humans, we are happier when we are in control all aspects of our own lives.

I think that this study fails to address that they may confuse cause and effect. What is the reason for a telecommuting arrangement? Why doesn't that person just move closer to the job location? The answer is often that he has family ties. I would suspect that telecommuters are significantly more likely to have families, and that may have a pronounced effect on their views of their work life.

I'm going a bit bonkers working from home, to tell the truth. The biggest problem is the fuzzy line between work and home.

I've been a teleworker since 1989. Then, I had a phone, micro-Vax and a UUCP connection. Sounds primitive, but I and a few others were the proving grounds for today's remote and mobile work force. Not everyone can work well at home. It's hard to separate home from work; especially because my company has a global presence, my work "day" begins when I rise and ends when I retire. Make certain that you take breaks, make time for family and personal interests. Get a dog! My dog and office mate is actually a big help. His bio and exercise <i>needs</i> keep me from working inappropriately or harmfully long stretches without breaks; in fact, he brags that he's the reason I don't have repetitive motion, back or neck injuries.

I worked from home for years until our first child came along. Now I've started renting office space and I am happy to have a natural separation between work and home. When I switch the computer off and go home, I switch off and relax.<p>I now realise that this separation is important for your long term health and relationships.

Having worked many jobs from an office, both cubes and private offices, and now working from home, I can say I LOVE working from home. I get interaction like I did before, phone, IM, email, etc. We have meetups all the time, and I still go out to lunch with folks so I can be around others once in a while.<p>I'm more productive, I'm happier, and I really think it shows in my work.<p>Of all the job changes I've had, this has been by far the most pleasant change.

The article mentions "Spending less than 50% of the time in the office," I think the key there is choice. As soon as going to the office every day isn't compulsory, you feel that you have more freedom; very few people respond well to a situation where they're told they "have" to do something (or is it just me?!).<p>You can also pick your working environment to suit your mood, I find sometimes I want minimal distractions and no commute so I work from home for a bit; after a few days of that it's refreshing to be in the office and around people for a while and then the cycle repeats.<p>What I'm getting at is I think people who have the option to work from home are likely to be more satisfied rather than people who exclusively do.

I love telecommuting. I have yet to find an office environment which feels right. Really, what do i end up doing? Sitting down and writing code? That can be done almost anywhere. Meetings? Chat and Skype.<p>Of course there are problems but i dont see them as a reason not to telecommute. If anything they present great challenges to overcome.

People have to be more satisfied with their jobs to work from home.

Not having to keep a seat occupied in the office 5 days a week 8 hours a day also makes me happy.<p>Also, I suppose people that work from home are satisfied with their job exactly because the job allows working from home. It's not that common yet, so if you want it and find a job that allows it, it's double fun.

Well, if you have the yard space, and need the separation between work and family, I recommend something like this:<p><a href="http://modern-shed.com/home.aspx" rel="nofollow">http://modern-shed.com/home.aspx</a>

I used to have a rigidly self-enforced work/home schedule, when I was out of the office I was really out of the office.<p>Right now I am working from home, and I find I work from the moment I get up until the moment I go to sleep. I was considering going back to working at the office but I realized that back when I refused to work from home, I spent most of my time worrying about work. At least now I can get up in the middle of the night to check email.

Being able to control the HVAC of your home is also a plus. Take my office as an example: In the midwestern US, we are in the middle of a heatwave, and the A/C has malfunctioned in our part of the building. With temps pushing 85 it's impossible to be productive. If I were at home, I would be comfortable. Even if my A/C were out at home, I could always take my work to the coffee shop.

I work from home and its depressing sometimes, but it could be my job, its pretty boring.<p>Maybe I have weak self-control but it takes more then 8 hours to get 7 hours of work done from home at least.