How to negotiate a permanent work-from-home arrangement

• Instead of making it a case of your personal preference and how much you hate commuting, get into the shoes of the employer and frame it from their perspective.
• If you are moving away to a smaller town or the countryside and plan to work from there, the employer may have a different pay scale(based on employees location) and there could be a possible pay cut.
• If you plan to move closer to your family members, taking care of your spouse and kids, it may give your pitch strong reasoning.

While building a case to your boss, showcase how you will set your goals, commit towards your projects, communicate your progress and measure outcomes, ensuring that they know how the working model would work out even after the pandemic, when others are in the office and you are doing WFH.

If you are a manager handling a team, your decision to not be physically present in the office can impact your coworkers and your own team. While pitching for the WFH request, you need to have the solutions ready on how to handle this challenge.

Ensure your manager that you are working towards a solution for the entire department and would be working with the team to ensure that the WFH model works for the entire department.

As with any negotiation, be prepared to compromise and treat the discussion as a stepping stone for future negotiations. One can have an honest conversation with the higher-ups to figure out the barriers and pain points, addressing them if possible.

1. If your boss is hesitant about a permanent WFH decision, suggest a trial period, or a pilot month of WFH, after which the decision can be taken.
2. If your boss wants a set of people to be physically present on location to handle on-site issues, you can discuss with your colleagues and try to figure out a path.
3. Try to get the WFH home arrangement with your boss in writing.