Working from home as an employee
Employee telecommuting combines flexibility over place and hours with continuing obligations to an employer. Its suitability depends on concentration, availability, relationships with colleagues and the employee’s ability to keep work within reasonable boundaries.
How common the arrangement is
Telecommuting extends beyond freelance work: full-time employees can work remotely while retaining salaried employment. The employee-telecommuter definition used in a 2011 trend series included full-time or part-time employees working remotely at least one day a month.
The 2015 AMWA salary survey was the first to ask employees about telecommuting; its discussion reported 48% working remotely at least some of the time, compared with a cited estimate of 20–25% for the US workforce. The report also described approximately 27% of employee respondents working remotely 20% of the time, 21% entirely remotely and 39% entirely on site. Telecommuting was increasingly blurring distinctions between freelance and employed work on key job features.
Flexibility and employer obligations
Employees working at home still need to complete assignments on time, attend meetings and travel when required. Outside scheduled commitments, flexible hours can let writers use their most productive part of the day, whether early morning or late evening. Flexibility should respect colleagues’ working hours and the employer’s requirements for hours worked: completing assignments early does not by itself justify working fewer hours than office colleagues.
Working at home can make evening deadlines easier to combine with family routines and allow errands at quieter times, with time made up earlier or later. Occasional breaks should not become repeated absences from the computer and phone. Employees remain responsible for impromptu conference calls and urgent client requests, so an errand may need to be interrupted. A smartphone can help an employee remain in contact while away from the desk.
Removing a commute and office noise can leave more time and quiet for writing. One employee also valued being at home with her dog and cat while writing. However, having the computer nearby can also encourage repeated email and voicemail checks and make separation from family time harder. Telecommuting requires both the discipline to work rather than do household tasks and the ability to stop work before its accessibility overwhelms personal life.
Visibility and relationships
Employees who thrive on personal interaction may find homeworking isolating, without nearby colleagues for quick questions or informal conversation. Building relationships by phone and email takes deliberate effort and practice, and poor rapport can affect how colleagues perceive a remote employee’s work or assign blame.
A willing attitude can help demonstrate a remote employee’s commitment: employees should be open to additional work, procedural changes and helping colleagues, such as volunteering to teach the internal style guide. The criteria for judging an employee extend beyond written output and meeting performance, and demonstrating value can be harder off site.
Employees aiming to lead a department should weigh the arrangement carefully, because managing unseen staff can be difficult and managerial potential may be less visible from a distance. Managers discussing remote work in 2019 considered engagement with the company and its structure harder when contact was entirely virtual, and identified remote training and team integration as recurring concerns.
New employees and hybrid arrangements
A writing-team head reporting in 2024 considered remote work an adaptation to communication technology rather than a loss of interpersonal skills, while seeing office attendance as especially beneficial for first professional experience, onboarding, mentoring and learning team dynamics. A mentor similarly considered remote-only newcomers at risk of misunderstanding agency culture, describing a junior employee who sat at a home desk for eight hours without proper breaks until mentoring helped establish more realistic working habits.
Working at home need not be all or nothing: two days a week, afternoons or alternate weeks allow relationships to develop in person and be sustained during periods when the employee is less visible.
Childcare
Working at home does not remove the need for childcare: frequent interruptions interfere with work, and children’s background noise can disrupt calls. Older children who respect the workspace and entertain themselves may make the arrangement manageable, provided clear rules about interruptions are maintained.
The employer’s case
An employer may gain access to a wider talent pool by permitting remote work. A 2011 employee account also identified possible productivity gains and savings in office space, energy and insurance as reasons companies might agree to telecommuting. It described employers supplying a computer and sometimes paying for high-speed internet and a phone line. Employees should work conscientiously and collaborate well wherever their desk is located.