Jethro wrote:
On Apr 19, 2:58 pm, Tim Streater wrote:
In article ,
The Natural Philosopher wrote:



Jethro wrote:
On Apr 19, 12:21 pm, jgharston wrote:
Jethro wrote:
Which leads back to my "if it *really* mattered" argument. Is there
*any* government push for homeworking (tax breaks for companies, etc)?
No, not a tax break for workers - who cares about them ? I meant a tax
break for a company (say 1% of corporation tax) that can demonstrate
they have a policy to encourage homeworking. That way, the
*shareholders* would pressure the directors to make it happen.
In my career, I have sat on 3 separate employee forums that discussed
home/flex working. (In 3 companies). Every time we put together a very
cogent, and reasoned proposal for why it would work. Each time, they
were rejected with the simple "the MD doesn't like it". The closest we
got was when it was pointed out that letting an employee homework
could be viewed as a 5% pay rise with no cost to the company.
Exactly my experience. Despite the fact that I did it extensively within
my own company.
Managers don't like it: they see their idealised existence of checking
who comes in late, and the easy job of 'having meetings' in which
nothing is ever decided, slipping away and being replaced by what
management actually is: the division and allocation of work and
resources to staff, and the monitoring of their progress in performing
that work.
I'd agree that poor managers won't like it for the reasons you give. And
any meeting that doesn't have a set agenda, and doesn't end with a list
of actions for attendees to have done by next time, is a waste of time.
You rapidly discover who the **** meeting Chairmen are.

The first time I got involved with a proposal (for flexitime), one of
the early objections was that managers would have to keep an eye on
employees to make sure they put in the hours and didn't abuse the
system. To which my response was "isn't that their job ?".

I had a similar conversation with a sales and marketing guy who
complained that I was developing the wrong product, and should have
worked out what was actually wanted..