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allow home-working

sunnyweather

Senior Member
Polish
Hello,

I've come across the following sentence:
'We're considering allowing home-working for 2 days a week to address the issue.'

It sounds incorrect to me. Can we use verb-ing after the verb 'allow'? Or is it perceived as a noun derived from a verb here? I'd appreciate your help.
Yes, it's functioning as a noun. I probably would have said "working from home" (or "work from home") since "homework" to most people suggests schoolwork done at home.
I probably would have said "working from home" (or "work from home") since "homework" to most people suggests schoolwork done at home.

School homework was the first thought that popped into my head, but of course the context immediately told me that it was talking about teleworking. It's not the most elegant wording, but it is grammatically correct.
It's not the most elegant wording, but it is grammatically correct.
It's wholly unremarkable in BE and is what I would expect in the OP context.

There's also no possibility of any BE speaker confusing it with "homework", given how commonly it is seen and heard since the COVID pandemic.
To me it sounds awkward and not something I'd expect to hear in the US. I just don't hear home-working used as a verb like that in normal circumstances. I wouldn't expect to hear:

- I was home-working for two weeks last month.

I would expect to hear:

- I was working from home for two weeks last month.
It's a noun, as "home-working" is equivalent to "work from home".
Yes, but of course in the phrase "work from home" "work" may be an infinitive.

They let us work from home.

They're considering allowing working from home. (noun "working")
They're considering allowing us to work from home. (verb "work")
It isn't being used as a verb. It's being used as half of a compound noun. It's no different from shift-working, night-working and weekend-working. Are those terms not used in America?
It's not being used as a verb, agreed. I'm not sure I've heard shift-working, night-working or weekend-working. At least the first two sound possible, but then we'd probably use shift-work or night-work instead (with or without hyphen). The specific problem with "home-working" (or "home-work") making us think of school work remains. An alternative would be "remote work," which might be better since technically you don't have to work from home; you could be in a hotel or any number of other places.
There's a distinction for me.
Shift-work - a type or pattern of work.
Shift-working - the action of doing shift-work.

The same goes for home-working. Although you can't hear the difference, home-work and homework (as opposed to schoolwork) are two different concepts, although home-work is not something I'd expect to see because the context always or almost always needs home-working.
There's a distinction for me.
Shift-work - a type or pattern of work.
Shift-working - the action of doing shift-work.

[...]
To my AE ears "shift-work" is something a worker might perform, while "shift-working" might be the practice of employing workers in shifts. But in the end I think the latter term just wouldn't be used much here.
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