What others see as the future of the workplace, and what parents see as a most important tool for juggling home and work, Marissa Mayer apparently sees as disposable.
The CEO of Yahoo!, who made news when she took the position last summer while five months pregnant, announced through the company's human resources arm yesterday that employees will no longer be permitted to work remotely.
"Speed and quality are often sacrificed when we work from home," says the memo from HR director Jackie Reses, and reprinted by Kara Swisher on allthingsd.com last night. "We need to be one Yahoo!, and that starts with physically being together."
No. It doesn't.
It did 40 years ago, when work and home were separate realms and workers had the luxury of taking care of one at a time. More accurately, men had the ability to take care of work because they knew that women had it covered at home.
It did 20 years ago, when the tools of work were all in the office -- all the files and paperwork; the office phone, with the office number, and the cord that didn't reach beyond the cubicle wall.
It did before there were studies showing that flexibility improves worker productivity, and morale and health.
I had hope for Marissa Mayer. I'd thought that while she was breaking some barriers -- becoming the youngest woman CEO ever lead a Fortune 500 company, and certainly the first to do it while pregnant -- she might take on the challenge of breaking a number of others. That she'd use her platform and her power to make Yahoo! an example of a modern family-friendly workplace. That she would embrace the thinking that new tools and technology deserve an equally new approach to where and how employees are allowed to work.
Instead she began by announcing that she would take just a two week maternity leave, which might have been all she needed, but which sent the message that this kind of macho-never-slowed-down-by-the-pesky-realities-of-life-outside-the-office was expected of everyone.
And now there's this. Rather than championing a blending of life and work , she is calling for an enforced and antiquated division. She is telling workers -- many of whom were hired with the assurance that they could work remotely -- that they'd best get their bottoms into their office chairs, or else.
Yes, there are some jobs that can not be done remotely. But a case by case approach, identifying not only which positions CAN be flexible, but also having managers work with employees on a clear plan of what's expected from those positions, makes far more sense than a blanket ban. Instead, Yahoo! is cracking down not only on those who work from home full-time, or those who need flexibility because they are parents; everyone is being warned that their lives don't matter.
"For the rest of us who occasionally have to stay home for the cable guy," Reses writes, "please use your best judgment in the spirit of collaboration."
I'd argue that it's Mayer and Yahoo! who need to use their best judgment, and, in the spirit of collaboration should come to exactly the opposite conclusion. Putting employees back into a box is not good for Yahoo!. It is not good for workers. And it is very bad business.
Click over to All Things D to read the Yahoo! memo in full.
WATCH:
Earlier on HuffPost:
Follow Lisa Belkin on Twitter: www.twitter.com/lisabelkin
Gail Becker: Work Is Where the Laptop Is
Eve Tahmincioglu: Unfortunate Unflexing of U.S. Workplaces
Yes, the studies show increased productivity and morale. But studies show trends and there are outliers and exceptions to the rule. From what I understand after reading some more about it, many of the WAH people were not logging into the VPN as often as they should have and were milking the system. They ruined this themselves. You still have to have accountability and benchmarks to meet. It sounds like their was poor management as well. Who was holding these workers accountable when they were not logging in?
Then the justification came out. Then we learned it was about the data. And how employee satisfaction went UP.
This is my frustration with Huffington. It's okay to attack people who agree based on logic, but not okay to actually listen.
The Internet is full of people with strong opinions - and many of whom do not see the forest for the trees. There is a reason why they paid her a ton of money to revamp Yahoo. As a whole, their work-at-home contingency got caught.
I now expect to see improved things from Yahoo. And I continue to be disgusted by the people who attack me and my cohorts.
I do agree that people with dissenting viewpoints on Huffington Post are often met with ad hominen attacks, and I'm not sure why that is. I actually get far less of it when I post dissenting views on 'National Review'
Either their jobs cannot be done from home, or they work at an antiquated company that enforces domain/organizational fiefdoms.
It seems kind of obvious that there is an element of jealousy here.
But a couple of facts need to be set straight.
I work from home and guess what? Horrors of horrors I actually go out and take a walk around my nice neighborhood to shake my legs and get the blood pumping.
Looks like I am not serious about my work? What is the difference from me doing that and the people at my corporate headquarters that do the same thing by walking around the building?
Or the ones that go down to the cafeteria to get a coffee/soda - gone for about half an hour while they yack with each other. I go down, get a coffee in the kitchen and I am back in my office in less then five minutes.
My company was able to shut down several data centers and consolidate the servers elsewhere because the people were working from home and the real estate was not necessary, it did not matter that the servers moved. That is a huge savings and the company stock is showing it.
It doesn't just benefit the workers, it is for the company as well.
Walking around isn't the problem. The root cause is a lack of productivity. The outcome is poor performance by Yahoo.
She's either going to shake things up and make good or shake things up and fail.
While people who work at home are more productive and have higher morale, maybe they are just simply more motivated and disciplined to begin with -why they cite the absence of the water cooler gossip, the people coming up to your desk, a coworker asking you take yet another break as the benefits.I can't stand that stuff either and if I had the chance, I would work from home.
I was not happy with her decision either but after reading more articles on it, I think it was warranted.
From 2005 till now I am at a home office and we use VPN, instant messaging, email and conferences to keep in touch.
We are expected to be available throughout the day via instant messenger and to be quick on e-mails, not to mention conferences all throughout the day, of course if we do not grab the IM right away we do not get our hands slapped - we are professionals.
We did have some guys that were trying to do side jobs ( technical and project management stuff ). the company pulled some guys back to the office, but did not just do an arbitrary "everyone out of the pool thing".
To me that is bad management, similar to telling kids that they are all in trouble because of just one of them.
Lisa- I usually agree with about 75% of your opinions, but not this one. What part of "this is what capitalism looks like" don't you understand? Nobody is forced to work for Yahoo!. If a parent wants to work from home, then they should be their own boss. But as long as you're employed by a company that continued employment is continent upon following the rules, regardless of how seemingly unnecessary.
If, as a society, we want our work environment to reflect a more friendly attitude towards families and stay at home parents we need to work towards federal legislation/programs that require/provide for such. Given the current situation, expecting our employers to care about our lives outside of work is not only futile, it's irresponsible parenting.
I'm sure we'd all like to work from home but its a policy that Majority of companies do not offer, most times because it's just not condusive to the job, role, industry, or business model.
Also just a side note about telecommuting. There is totally a difference between working at home 2-3 full days a week, and the occasional working at home because you have a sick kid. I think a good and fair employer could limit the former because it doesn't work for everyone (my job wouldn't), but should definitely permit the latter, as long as the employee's performance is good. But no employer needs to let people work at home while caring for a baby or toddler on a regular basis. That's not working and it's not some kind of anti-feminist concept to prohibit that. Most people have child care arrangements but I've seen some comments indicating that telecommuting is a solution to a lack of child care.