How do I make my hybrid job fully remote?

September 9, 2023 7:20 PM

I love my job, but I don't love where I live, and I'd like to move somewhere cheaper. I own a small studio flat in Farnborough, which is cheap for this area, but if I moved to somewhere like Dundee I could easily afford a place twice as big. The only thing keeping me in Farnborough is my job, which is hybrid-remote, with 3 days at home and two days in the office.

I work as a designer for a very small puzzle company and, aside from seeing my boss and two coworkers in person, there's no real reason for me to be in the office. What I'd really like to do is make my job fully remote, so I can move anywhere, but I'm not sure my boss would agree to that. Has anyone turned a hybrid job into a fully remote one? How did you sell it to your boss?

posted by Chenko to Work & Money (4 answers total)

Tel him that your productivity will increase when you’re at home with no office distraction and offer a trial run to test how it works. Then ensure that this actually happens. You need to make this attractive for him, not just for you, whether it’s that with fewer people he can lease smaller office space and save money, increased productivity, whatever.

Find out what he thinks he actually gains from having you in office at the moment. It may be in person meetings that he thinks can’t happen elsewhere, maybe you need to see the product in person, but once you find out, you can formulate an argument around it.
posted by Jubey at 8:13 PM on September 9, 2023 [4 favorites]

Best answer: I, and several of my coworkers, have done this, though in a very different environment (extremely large multinational company) so YMMV. Based on what I've seen work, I would advise you to find some other, external reason why you must move (e.g. to be closer to family, for a partner's job/schooling, etc). Like, I understand that you'd like to have a bigger flat but who doesn't, right? Figure out what makes your situation special and lean on that if possible. It helps if you have a specialized skill set that is difficult to replace, of course. If you're willing to travel to see folks in person once in a while (quarterly/semi-annually/whatever makes sense) I would also mention that.
posted by btfreek at 8:17 PM on September 9, 2023 [9 favorites]

Why does your boss, or whoever is making the decision, think that your role should be hybrid? I think an argument that's specifically tailored to their concerns and biases is more likely to stand a chance of being successful. Lots of organisations are seeing hybrid as the best of both worlds solution so it might be hard to persuade them. Productivity might have a strong sway factor if in-person collaboration is important. Similarly, some people find personal circumstance arguments persuasive and others don't.
posted by plonkee at 6:27 AM on September 10, 2023 [1 favorite]

Best answer: There's not one magic word. You will need to appeal to whatever your boss might find convincing. But I think you're better off preparing a fairly formal campaign that anticipates and addresses concerns or objections, before you ever bring it up.

I don't think it's wrong to lead with something like, "There's been some talk in my family," where 'family' can be kept vague if you don't have a partner that work knows about, since many of us are facing parental care in the future as well, "about moving to Dundee, but I can't really explore that with them without moving to fully remote here. How feasible do you think that would be?"

This may be an entire lie, but there's something about evoking "family" at work that seems very different than saying "I'd prefer to live elsewhere". It externalizes it some, and glosses over the perfectly good possibility you might just go get a job somewhere else so you can do what you want.

Listen to their answer. You'll have prepared talking points for all likely objections or concerns, but let them talk first, because I've known a number of people who didn't have to argue - the manager realized after saying it out loud that their objections didn't really hold water and were like yeah, okay. But let them say their bit and answer any questions they would have about how you'd handle X or Y aspect of work fully-remote. Then when they're done address any overall concerns. Be confident, reassuring, accommodating to their concerns, but approach it like you're selling a good thing we can all be happy about and not some terrible concession you're begging for.
posted by Lyn Never at 7:50 AM on September 10, 2023 [3 favorites]