Canadians want an official national day to work from home. Over 20,000 votes were recently recorded in a Workopolis homepage poll on the idea, and more than 80 percent of people voiced their support. Read some of the numerous readers’ comments on our original blog post.
As Canada’s online career resource, Workopolis wants to help. So, let’s make it happen: sign our online petition to support the National Work from Home Day. Once we’ve got enough momentum, we’ll approach an MP to introduce legislation that could make National Work from Home Day the law of the land.
The timing couldn’t be better. A recent study has indicated that Canadians find themselves with less and less leisure time to spend with their families or in pursuit of their other interests outside of work.
Our goal is that by making Work from Home Day an established date on the calendar, more and more workplaces will embrace the idea. There are numerous clear benefits to telecommuting for the employer, for the employee, for families and for the environment. Often the main hurdle is just in making the cultural shift.
Having the Canadian government officially recognize the advantages of working from home will help spread the discussion to more and more organizations. Working from home significantly improves productivity, enables businesses to be more competitive, and enhances employee retention by offering them greater work-life balance. Telecommuting also helps the environment by alleviating slow-moving highway congestion as fewer people have to commute in rush hour traffic. In fact, taking those people off the congested roads even contributes to greater employee safety.
Working from home can be a refreshing change from being in the office. Instead of water cooler chats, you can chat with your family. Instead of braving a spirit-shattering commute, you get an extra hour in bed. Instead of fretting about whether that belt goes with those shoes, you can just stay in your pyjamas. And all the while, you’re saving the environment.
Show your boss just how much you can get done without enduring the commute for a day. Support our Facebook initiative, and keep your fingers crossed. Canada may get its own National Work from Home Day.
-Peter Harris
Yes – I support a national Work from Home Day!!!
Leading this movement Workopolis once again shows that it is seeing the need of the public. Actually this issue has become the need of the hour. But at the same time proper measures should be taken for the care of work force.
IBM has most of its staff working remotely at least part of the week. Yes you do do a lot more hours, but the appreciation felt when a medical appointment comes up and you have the flexibility of dealing with it and other such things is enormous. That is so long as it doesn’t conflict with conference calls. It amazes me that some employers like my husbands have to see people in the office to believe they are productive. What absolute rubbish.
There is no doubt that at LEAST one day should be a work from home day. It is an excellent way to get more accomplished in a day in an at ease environment. With the way most companies expect work to be done (IE- one person doing a two person position) this should be a mandatory law.
While I think the idea behind the Work at Home day is nice, we already have a day off each year for spending time with out family; Family Day. Who would be included in this day? From the sound of it only office workers get this day off. This seems like unintentional discrimination against retail and factory workers who can’t practically work from home.
WOKING AT HOME!!!
I think is a graet way for Canadians to spend more time with their families, There are benefits to telecommuting for the employer, for the employee, for families and for the environment. Often the main hurdle is just in making the cultural shift.
Telecommuting helps the environment by alleviating slow-moving highway congestion as fewer people have to commute in rush hour traffic. In fact, taking those people off the congested roads. Working at home contributes to businesses to be more competitive, and enhances employee retention by offering them greater work-life balance.
I say lets geat this into law soon.
Dwayne Maracle
Go GO Go !!
Work From Home Day: could be a wonderful win/win situation for some INDIVIDUALS and their companies. For ALL employees and all companies – pure simplistic nonsense. And to declare a National Day for this strikes me as the kind of socialistic mentality that has put so many European countries into serious trouble. We have a fabulous country. Let’s count our blessings and not tinker with it by coming up with “air head” one size fits all ideas like this one! So there.
I find it ridiculous that ANYTHING you want to do nowadays online, you have to have Facebook. Why can’t we simply sign the petition WITHOUT having a Facebook account? I have several co workers that wanted to sign, and now can’t, because they don’t have an account. Not everyone lives their lives online people!
It would be wonderful if we can all work from home. This will benefit employers and employees think about it the employer could rent an office at minimal cost without considering whether he has enough space to house his employees, furniture and office equipment costs will be low, hydro bills will be less along with other office costs. Also, payroll costs of employer’s health tax and other taxes the employer pays will diminish.
The employee on the other hand could work from home via the internet and e-mail communication doing exactly what he or she does in the office, will be able to manage his or her household better. Also, be able to control and watch over their children with help from the family and eradicate kindergarden costs.
This could never be made a law because it could be gotten around all too easily. There is a stark dichotomy between people who work in offices, and the common blue collar worker operating machines (or GC’s in my case). It should still be left up to the employer. Having a number of WFH days as part of the yearly work schedule, much like sick days would be a good alternative, but that’s just my opinion. But again, this couldn’t be used for all jobs, so a law makes no sense (no offense, but the people of workopolis are probably not a good cross section of Canada’s population. Even if it is brought in as a law, companies would say that operating the computers at work requires that people be there. Hard to see them letting people freely access databases and closed intranets from a remote location.
Yes! Thank you Workopolis and Peter Harris for prime minister!
Working from home is a Great idea but what about the people that can’t take their work home.
Work from home is already understood in most companies to be a fake, despite honest intent to do some work-work on the day one works from home, most people login, check email, make that minimal presence known then – gone. Home-work for the rest of the day.
Now, yes, a minority of people who work from home actually do work and some even do more and better work from home. However, if you take the group of respondents from a pool sourced from a Facebook debate… well then, you’re already using a sample that represents those most likely to NOT get “work” done when working from home.
Work from home is neither national nor cultural – it’s between the company and the person – it’s about the role and the work that is needed to be done not what one wants to do instead.
I don’t think it should become law. As for working at home, I have plenty of house work at home to keep me busy. And when you’re home, you have to deal with interruptions. I don’t see this working or becoming law. It’s a foolish idea if you ask me.
Since not every job can be done from home and also the day could be taken advantage of too easily, I would rather see Alberta Family Day spread to the rest of Canada. However, make it like a second Christmas Day where all malls are closed, etc. because family is more important than money (sales).
I can’t believe Workopolis did all this just for me. Thank you Peter.
Face it…. many of us already work from home on a regular basis, even in our “off” hours…. so yes many more hours are put in, however, the flexibility with dealing with life and all of it’s complexities (home, family, aging parents), is priceless. Employers who allow this, even if on occasion truly understand the importance of finding a home/work balance. I applaud them.
For those that don’t, they should definitely think about this as a positive that will make the lives of employees happier, fuller and definitely more productive.
I think it’s a wonderful idea to make this a law… let’s move forward with the times!! :)
This is only for lazy people who do not want to be accountable or committed to a real work.
Sounds like June would be a great month and I completely agree that it needs to be law – even now with the legal stat holidays, unscrupulous employers refuse to give their employees the day off. We are lagging in the # of stat holidays given compared to many other countries. Employees deserve a day when they can relax over their work, and if they choose to spend it with family, all the power to them. The work world is too stressful, much moreso than in our parents’ day.
Well of course it should be law, its valid and everyone who works from home pays taxes and gets to vote so ergo why would you not. I mean if the present day govt can come up with a ditzy law like ” Family Day ” then why not make this one valid as at least the concept of it contributes to society………………….winks
With today’s technology, I don’t see why not. Make it a law? I don’t think so, but I think that it could be an option. I am one of those people who have had the experience to work from home and I am very productive, it is a mindset really, just like learning online vs going to school!
I have been a 100% teleworker since April 2009 and would highly recommend the experience. My company has encouraged teleworking for quite awhile now. Not only am I more productive because I have less distractions, I am able to spend more quality time with my family instead of spending 2 hours commuting via public transit to my company’s office. I do go into the office at least 2 or 3 times per month in order to connect with my coworkers and go to face to face meetings, but I have many other tools available to me in order to stay connected – web camera, live meetings, ms communicator, phone, email.
However, I don’t agree that it should be come a law, as not all people are suited to the experience and no one should be pushed to telework if they do not want to!
I think there should be a law in effect that says you have to work 7 days a week 10 hour days for 5 years after which you get a year off with pay.
I vote for a Close Our Eyes For Sleep Day as well because I have no personal time management skills. My daily choices are so routine I can’t change them; Mother Government help me.
You can create a “Work From Home Day”, but that doesn’t change the fact that working from home usually means that you are an entrepreneur, and as such, you are more likely to work longer hours than those who commute to offices!
Why don’t you get a job that you can work from home if you want to work from home? It probably doesn’t pay enough!
My employer changed its location about 2 months ago, making me have to travel 1 hour and 1/2 and spend twice as much to buy my monthly bus pass, since I have to get one for Montreal, Laval and St-Eustache, where my employer is now located. I also pay daycare every month. I now find myself working for almost nothing, once you take away the daycare money, the bus pass and the lunches, not to mention the office clothes i have to buy. I would very much appreciate working from home and think i`d even be more effective, being happy and at ease, in my own things. Of course, i like meeting new people at work, but being a mom to a toddler, i find myself spending more time with my colleages and bosses than with my child and husband. Working from home shouldn’t be just for one day a year, but at least 2-3 days a week.
It seems quite apparent that as an Internet site Workopolis people have the culture and ability of working from home available to them. Therefore I wish to commend you on making this effort on behalf of other Canadians to do the same.
Through a federally funded program called WORKshift, Calgary Economic Development is promoting the bottom-line benefits of telework to the business community. We had Canada’s first Telework Week in April and have one of the most advanced programs in the world to support the adoption of the practice.
There are still some old-school close-minded managers/employers who think productivity is only acheieved by physically having staff in the office. There are also many companies that encourage their staff to work from home for part of the week. There are companies that encourage job-sharing / desk-sharing as well.
My vote on it: GO, Go Go!!!!!!!
Work From Home option should be considered as a right not a priviledge.
Who’s great idea was this? Work from Home must be some office workers dream. How does a deli/grocery store clerk serve customers from home? They don’t sit on an office chair
all day and dream about being at home. They’re too busy being physically active, standing on their feet for their entire shift & getting paid very little.
Great idea – to reduce congestion on the roads and the strain on infrastructure this should be done once a week. I’ll post a link to this petition on my site.
As I write this, I am wearing my blue housecoat. I’m about to change into my sweats for my noon workout. I love working at home. My dog does too. I’m very productive. I drive only when my meeting is neither a teleconference nor on the TTC. More companies whose employees can work at home should encourage it. It should be a lifestyle, not a day. The only problem is the proximity to the refrigerator.
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