How to Ask Your Boss to Work From Home (for a Day)

As a professional, you know the importance of maintaining a good work-life balance. And working from home offers a huge range of benefits for the employee and the employer.

However, asking your boss to allow you to do so can be challenging, because there is a potential for conflict if your work affects the team or if you are required to be in an office.

Thus, sometimes it is not easy to get approved by your boss for a hybrid work arrangement even if it means working from home for a day a week.

How to Ask Your Boss to Work From Home for a Day

Working from home can be a great way to increase productivity and take care of personal business. For employees, it can provide an opportunity to take care of personal matters without taking a half-day at work, requesting to leave work early, or missing work, and for employers, it can reduce costs associated with employee commuting.

However, it can be difficult to make the request, especially if your boss is resistant.

If you need to make a permanent hybrid work request or even a last-minute request to work from home for a day, your best chance of success is to follow this list of tips and guidelines.

1. Communicate clearly the reasons why you need to work from home

Communication is key when you want to ask for any favor from anyone, including your boss. While working from home has become more common in the workplace, there are also a number of reasons why not all bosses may not feel comfortable doing the same.

In order to be fully effective and productive in both personal and professional life, it is important to communicate with your boss about your need to work from home.

Providing a valid reason for your request and explaining why working from home will be beneficial for both you and your team will go a long way in convincing your boss to allow this request. And you’ll less likely to face resistance from your manager.

Good reasons to work from home for a day at the last minute.

• Need to take care of a sick family member
• Need to be at home to sign for a delivery
• Need to be at home to deal with a house inspection
• Need to attend an emergency at home
• Not feeling well and wish to work from home
• Unexpected events such as; a public transport strike

Good reasons to work from home permanently one day a week.

• Improve work-life balance.
• Improve mental health.
• Taking care of a loved one.
• Own health issues such as recovery from injury or illness.
• A disability that makes commuting difficult.
• Better work productivity, especially for certain industries.
• Time flexibility to allow better work productivity.

Just remember, it’s always better to be as truthful as possible.

2. List the benefits

Working from home benefits employees in many ways. It can improve work-life balance, reduce stress levels, and allow employees to spend more time with their families.

A recent study found that allowing workers to work from home can lead to at least a 13% increase in productivity gains. Additionally, employees who are able to telecommute report feeling more engaged in their jobs and are more likely to be satisfied with their working conditions.

If you want to work from home because it is more convenient or productive, make sure you let your managers know why.

• How will working from home help you do your job better?
• How does this work arrangement help you become more productive?
• Will this work arrangement enables you to work at hours that better accommodate the needs of the team and the company?

You do not need to hide the fact that working from home can benefit you personally, just make sure that you are able to identify benefits from your boss’s perspective as well.

For example, if you have to battle increased commute times thanks to a transport strike or major roadworks.

Simply let your boss know that your time is better spent working at home as you can start work earlier than sitting in a traffic jam and being unproductive during the long commute.

3. Keep the details to the minimum

When convincing your boss let you work from home, it is always good to provide a valid reason why you want to work from home but keep the details to a minimum.

By focusing on the benefits of working from home, rather than listing every little detail, you’ll be able to put your boss’s mind at ease and create a stronger case for why this arrangement should be allowed. Keeping the details to a minimum will make the proposal more persuasive.

Giving too much information, or going too detailed when requesting is not only unnecessary, but it might also prove to be counterproductive if it makes you look deceptive.

Being concise makes you look more trustworthy and you’ll save yourself time and energy explaining things that are not related to your request.

4. Make Your Work From Home Arrangement Beneficial to Your Coworkers as Well

If other people are inconvenienced because you have to work from home, you should do something or make some special arrangement at work where your coworkers who are not working from home can benefit from your work-from-home arrangement.

Working From Home Permenantly One Day A Week

You may arrange tasks where you can easily help your colleagues because you do not require to commute and will be available at your computer most of your time.

Examples of arrangements beneficial to your coworkers

• Take up desk bounded task. Often there is some task that does not need the employee to be onsite. As you are working from home, you can take up these desk-bound tasks.
• Flexible working hours. Instead of working 9 to 5, there will be incidents where odd-time meetings will be held with cross-regional teams. You can cater your 8 hours of the workday to accommodate these odd hours meetings so that your coworkers do not need to reach offer in the early morning, or stay in the office till the wee hours of the night.
• Be the contact person for cross-regional projects. A cross-regional project often has meetings and discussions at odd timing which lead to the employees performing OT. As an employee who is working from home, you’ll have much more freedom in arranging your time, and if the ask is reasonable, you can be the contact person for cross-regional projects.

Working From Home At the Last Minute

Requesting to work from home at the last minute will often inconvenience your coworkers in the office, thus it should always be avoided.

But often things unexpectedly happen which require you to get approval from your boss to work from home on short notice. When it happens, you should make it up to your coworkers as soon as possible.

Examples of things you can do to make up to your coworkers

• Give a treat. Give something simple as a ‘thank-you coffee’ in the office the next day.
• Offer assistance. Offering to take up the slack on any outstanding work they might have.

The less resentment in the office the better and if you act grateful you’re more likely to be able to work from home the next time you need to.

5. Provide the relevant documentation

Documentation is one of the most important things when requesting to work from home. If you have the relevant paperwork and your boss agrees, it will make your case much stronger.

Make sure you have all of your ducks in a row before presenting your request so that there are no surprises and no arguments.

Documents you’ll need when requesting to work from home permanently a day a week

Having relevant documents is especially important if you are requesting to work from home permanently.

Documents you’ll need include:

• The company’s policy documents support remote working arrangements.
• Documentation that is required for applying remote working arrangements.
• Medical reports

A new contract of employment might be given when you are changing to a permanent work arrangement. And it may list information such as:

• Place of work
• Hours of work
• Reporting structure
• Equipment and expenses
• Data confidentiality
• Consent of monitoring
• Right of termination or change of hybrid/ remote work arrangement
• Responsibility for health and safety
• Company insurance and benefit policy

If you need to work from home a day or two a week permanently, prepare all your relevant documents and understand your company’s policy on remote work. If your reasons are valid and your company allows employees to perform work remotely, you should not have any trouble getting approval from your boss.

If your department doesn’t allow a hybrid or remote work arrangement transferring to another department, or finding a better job where a hybrid remote work arrangement is allowed is also another viable option.

Always remember, money does not always bring you more happiness, sometimes it is better to find a job with less pay but suits your needs

Documents you’ll need when requesting to work from home at the last minute

Even though there’s little you can do to prepare for a last-minute emergency, it’s a good idea to collect any relevant paperwork so that your boss can see that you did, in fact, need to work from home at short notice.

Documents you’ll need include:

• Medical certificates.
• Trade receipts.
• Purchase invoice.
• Appointment email or memo.
• Photographs of the damage caused by bad weather, a broken pipe, or a burglary.

Remember, honesty is always the best policy. If you have a legitimate reason to work from home last minute, you should not have any trouble getting permission beforehand or approval afterward.

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