I worked for a major Silicon Valley high-tech corporation for ten years. They distributed laptops to every new hire. If their work allowed it, people were encouraged to work at home at least once a week, logged into the VPN, as long as their managers approved.
The company touted this policy as part of their green initiative, reducing employees’ commute time.
In my group, people typically had one or two (a few had three) WAH days per week. We called into meetings using conferencing software. All our work in progress was right on our laptops and/or accessible through the VPN.
I was not alone in finding that I got much more done at home than I ever did in the office. It was quiet, there were few interruptions, and I put in longer hours with fewer and shorter breaks. I was able to sustain concentration and productivity much better than when surrounded by cubicle conversations, taking phone calls, and having to be physically present in meetings.
I didn’t expend any energy on my appearance, travel, or chitchat.
It does take a certain kind of discipline, and many people do need the social contact more than I do.
People who had trouble staying on task and meeting deadlines while WAH didn’t get to keep the privilege, but most of my colleagues in documentation were introverts anyway and handled it well. I had already had years of experience as a freelancer working at home, so there was no novelty in it for me other than the laptop itself and the VPN.
Over the course of my decade there, office presence declined so much that most cubicles were empty a lot of the time. Paradoxically, that would have made it easier for some of us to work on site; but it was so nice to go to work in jeans and slippers, without makeup or hairspray, that I didn’t want to trade.
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