Deciding on 2 days per week to work from home

KJK1LL3R

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.

StevenToast

Wednesday & Thursday

SuperBowserWorld

I've seen product "plans" for multi million euros work, with less detail than this post. 😁

zenith

Agreed with SuperBowserWorld, you are wasted on the helpdesk. Consider business analysis.

I personally would go into the office two of the busy days, possibly in a block, the quiet days in the office will feel like a waste of a commute; the less busy days at home will allow you to decompress and write, which you are good at. You also won't get drawn into pointless meetings unless they're important; if you're happy with your visibility for promotional opportunities etc.

KJK1LL3R

Apologies folks but my original statistics were not accurate due to an issue with a Microsoft Excel formula.

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%

Mrs OBumble

Presumably you will not be able to build up flexi-time, to cover the flexi leave, while you are at home.

So to keep up with your current level of flexi leave use, your in office days will need to be very long. Can you manage that on busy days? Or justify it on quiet ones?

KJK1LL3R

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119376082#Comment_119376082

That is correct, I won't be able to accrue flexi on the two days that I work from home so it will mean working approximately an extra 20mins per day on the three days that I am in the office. This shouldn't be a major issue because we recently changed from a 37hr week to a 35hr week so we had always previously worked 9am-5:30pm and have only recently started finishing at 5pm. I also take an hour for lunch but it wouldn't be a major issue if I had to take a 45min lunch instead.

NewbridgeIR

Ideally the two days at home should be consecutive.

Pre-Covid, I did two days at home, three in the office. Usually worked from home Wednesday & Thursday.

Flinty997

Why does what day is busiest have any effect on WFH.

I assuming you do the same work, regardless if in the office or at home.

Jet Black

Breakdown of my office uptake.

Monday - 24%

Tuesday - 15%

Wednesday - 18%

Thursday - 15%

Friday - 27%

Most popular combined days were Monday and Friday, followed by Wednesday and Friday.

Staff who applied for WFH - 45%

Staff who didn't 32.5%

Staff not eligible - 22.5%