Do you telecommute? If you work for Yahoo you dont.

[FelixDeCat]

lol

Yahoo says it must end the practice of working at home to foster collaboration. Others who telecommute cite the benefits but say success depends on the type of work.

(Photo: Paul Zimmerman)
Story Highlights

• Yahoo says ending telecommuting will foster collaboration
• Working at home decreases traffic, saves office space and allows flexible hours
• It works best when jobs have clearly defined outcomes

SAN FRANCISCO -- Almost 10% of U.S. workers do their jobs from home at least one day a week, so news that tech giant Yahoo will end the practice in June surprised many.

"It's the only thing that has made our lives remotely possible and affordable and sort of possible to raise kids," says Lopa Pal, 36. She is the donor relations officer of the Greenbelt Alliance, a conservation group in the San Francisco Bay Area. When her second child was born, she wanted more flexibility and discussed it with her executive director.

"Literally his words were, 'I don't care if you do your work from a beach in Tahiti, just get it done and raise three-quarters of a million dollars a year,'" she says.

She switched to working from home two days a week and over the past four years has kept on target with fundraising while being able to schedule time with her children, 4 and 8, and her husband, a chef. That flexibility has kept her in her current job for eight years, even though she figures she could probably make more money and move up if she went elsewhere. It's made her an "extremely loyal employee," she says.

Yahoo's decision is meant to foster collaboration, according to a company memo sent to employees Friday.

Yahoo's head of human resources, Jackie Reses, wrote that communication and collaboration will be important as the company works to be "more productive, efficient and fun." To make that happen, she said, "it is critical that we are all present in our offices. Some of the best decisions and insights come from hallway and cafeteria discussions, meeting new people and impromptu team meetings."

Yahoo does "not comment on internal matters," spokewoman Lauren Armstrong said via e-mail Monday.

The struggling Internet icon burned through four CEOs and shed thousands of workers in the few years preceding the appointment of Marissa Mayer as CEO last year. Her appointment gained further notoriety when she disclosed that she was pregnant at the time of her hiring.

Mayer has since whipped the company into shape -- the stock price is up about 50% -- with a series of executive changes and acquisitions. Her latest edict is motivated, in part, by a desire to improve productivity among Yahoo employees who work from home and to weed out unproductive workers, according to a former Yahoo employee who recently departed for another job. He asked not to be identified because his current employer works with Yahoo.

Authors Jody Thompson and Cali Ressler -- who wrote Why Managing Sucks and How to Fix it: A Results-Only Guide to Taking Control of Work, Not People -- say Mayer is making a mistake.

"Mayer has taken a giant leap backward," they said in a joint statement. "Instead of keeping great talent, she is going to find herself with a workplace full of people who are good at showing up and putting in time vs. a workforce that could most effectively and efficiently drive the business forward in the 21st century."

More in the article:

http://www.usatoday.com/story/money/business/2013/02/25/working-at-home-popular/1946575/

I support her move. Telecommuters are by and large lazy loafers and cruise Youtube all day anyway. :biggrin:

 

[xanis]

I work from home occasionally. I definitely get more done at home where it's quiet than I do in the office with phones ringing, people talking, etc.

 

[Mixolydian]

No

 

[ultimatebob]

Occasionally, yes.

I've heard that a lot of Yahoo employees abused the work at home privilege by slacking off, though, so this is a good way for them to clean house.

 

[Insomniator]

Its a sad time when a company gets shit for telling its employees to COME INTO WORK.

I'm not saying working from home is wrong, but I can certainly see why a company wouldn't be thrilled about it.

 

[rsutoratosu]

my coworkers works from home.. all they do is go food shopping and pretend they work.. they openly admit it to me.. but whatever.. it'll catch up one day when you miss a deadline or something.

 

[kyrax12]

I work from home occasionally. I definitely get more done at home where it's quiet than I do in the office with phones ringing, people talking, etc.

Hmm I find that working for home to be a distraction to a lot of people.

 

[Caveman]

I work from home occasionally. I definitely get more done at home where it's quiet than I do in the office with phones ringing, people talking, etc.

Ditto... Working from home is not for everyone - in fact probably a very small percentage of folks... I've never been one to surf at work, listen to music, etc... Ever... Though I've seen people who think a little here and there is ok... And they are generally the people who make stupid mistakes because they're "playing" instead of "working"...

 

[Red Squirrel]

No but it would be awesome to do. Lot of jobs can easily be done from home if properly setup with a company VPN/phone. As long as you are producing whatever the job entails, who cares what you are doing in between. For higher stress jobs I bet being able to work from home would make it less stressful. When I was a server tech, I always dreamed of being able to do that. I could actually do my job! We got so many walk ins there, it was bad. Could never get anything done.

With my current job though I actually don't mind at all going in. It's a nice laid back job, everyone is nice including the boss, and there's a social aspect to it that you would not get working from home.

Imagine if working from home was made the standard practice though. You'd probably cut car traffic by over 50% and help slow down global warming, although by a small amount as cars are probably not the biggest cause, though looking at a traffic jam in a bit city like Toronto makes you realize just how badly we are polluting this planet. Obviously some jobs can't be done remotely, like trades etc.

 

[Gunslinger08]

I enjoy working from home 1 or 2 days a week. It's nice to be alone in a comfortable setting and just getting stuff done. It's also great to be able to fix any snack/meal I want, use my own bathroom, etc. I find that I'm generally more productive from home and I work longer hours.

I do still like to go in sometimes. Working from home too many days in a row causes me to feel like a hermit slob.

 

[jpiniero]

Doing both would be ideal actually.

Yahoo is just doing a stealth layoff. Sneaky.

 

[trmiv]

I work from home 2-3 days a week, I love it. Especially when I'm doing something like writing scripts (I'm a sys admin). Today I was in the office, and with all the chatting going on between cubes and people stopping by every few minutes it was impossible to get anything done. I finally had to stick headphones on and try to ignore everyone. When I'm at home it's quiet, and no one bothers me (well, my dogs bother me). I wouldn't want to be in the office full time, and I wouldn't want to work from home full time either. I love the option and balance of being able to work from home 2-3 days a week.

And yea when I work from home there are times I do other stuff like vacuum or fold clothes, etc. But a the same time my computer is always on, so I may do some work at 7:30, or 9 or whatever when I walk by my desk and see an email or something. When I go into the office I leave at 5 sharp, and I don't turn the computer on when I get home. So in the end it balances out, and they usually end up getting more time from when on my WFH days.

 

[xSauronx]

i do some, yes. its nice when it works out, as generally i work at customer sites alone anyway.

my gf does it permanently. lives in NC, works for a company in PA. the boss just wants her up there like quarterly to meet some people and do a few things in particular. works out well for her.

 

[ArizonaSteve]

I work in IT. I also work from home two days a week. I get twice as much done in a day working from home as I do in the office where I'm subject to constant interruptions. Fortunately I'm not working at Yahoo, but if I was I would be looking to get out of there as soon as possible. As someone said above, all they'll be left with is employees who are good at showing up to the office and who give the appearance of being productive.

 

[slugg]

Just like anything, it's all about moderation and self discipline. Telecommuting can be a very good thing.

For me, I work wonderfully if I get one, sometimes two days a week at home. For others, they can function well without ever going into the office. And some others just need the office environment to remain productive.

Then there's the lazy asses. They should be dealt with individually. Screwing everyone else's workflow over because of the underachievers is a load of crap.

 

[ImpulsE69]

I work in IT as well and work from home 90% of the time. I would agree that for collaborating face to face is much more productive. It's easier to bounce ideas off each other than getting your points across than on the phone or in IM or endless emails. Our team has shown this repeatedly and have actually asked the management to allow for it more often.

How much work you get done outside of the above is pretty much a person by person thing. Some people get too distracted in the office, others too distracted at home.

What I hate is my wife seems to think that since I don't "go in" I have time to drop everything and run errands for her all the time

 

[kranky]

For jobs that require collaboration, WFH doesn't cut it. Heck, we have people who work IN the office who might as well WFH. They never talk to anyone face-to-face, just never-ending streams of emails.

I rarely email anyone in the same office, other than to provide information that doesn't need to be discussed. Therefore I don't get tons of emails - and that saves me an hour a day right there. I can walk over to someone's desk to have a 5-minute conversation and resolve something. I probably have 10 in-person discussions for every email discussion. If someone emails me and I can see it's going to lead to a string of emails, I don't even reply. I just walk over to their desk. Most times things get resolved in less time than it would have taken me to type out a meaningful reply to the first email.

I have to laugh when management consultants teach people that body language and other non-verbal aspects (tone of voice, e.g.) of communication encompass well over half of what is actually communicated, and then turn around and push email and IM other computer-based stuff as great tools to improve communication. Can't be both ways.

It's pretty obvious to me that talking face-to-face is a more effective and faster way to get something done if you need to collaborate. Telephone is second best. Email and IM lags way behind.

If collaboration is critical to Yahoo's success, then they are doing the right thing.

 

[xanis]

Hmm I find that working for home to be a distraction to a lot of people.

It's not for everyone. I definitely couldn't do it regularly, but I do occasionally if I'm not feeling well, my car's at the shop, etc. My work requires a fair amount of creativity (I'm a UI/UX designer) and working solo usually isn't beneficial. I find that I get clearer answers and understand things better when I can swing by someone's desk and say, "Hey, got a second to take a look at something?" I think that kind of thing is what Yahoo's getting at here.

 

[hans007]

i do occasionally like maybe half a day every other week or something.

for my current job , i think if you did it more than every friday it'd be not so acceptable, but i actually physically like being around people so i don't really mind. don't like the cabin fever feeling if i am at home too much, though on the other hand theres less distractions. i guess sometimes its good sometimes not.


i do have to say i worked at IBM for a year a couple years ago. there every computer is a laptop, you VPN in from every site even if you are at a desk because work from home is basically ingrained into the company. so you could work from home every day if you wanted unless you really had to be at a meeting. i knew people who would do it 4 days a week and loved it, but on the other hand we knew some poeple were say actaully actively on xbox live / steam when they were at home ....

i prefer to be at work, because you can talk to say other people on your team about what they say really mean when they want X or Y. now some people may prefer to work from home , and work better there, but it kind of hurts the people who would like them to be actaully at work to ask them things. i guess you strike a balance in your team and generally it would probably be bad if everyone on the team did it all the time, but i've never seen that actually be a problem. i think thats generally what she's trying to do, but its probably not going to work, the realities of the situation are that not everyone is 20-35 and has no children like a lot of google seems to be.


work from home though in my opinion is bad for your career, but you let the people who have kids do it, just they dont advance as fast. facetime if anything is important for office politics and the whole (well we dont actually see "DAVE" maybe we wont miss him, during layoff time factor). i think psychologically your presence is not felt so people marginalize your worth (its the same with quiet people though in general) but i guess in the end i'd rather have a contributor who had to work from home, than no contributor at all.

 

[Genx87]

Occasionally, yes.

I've heard that a lot of Yahoo employees abused the work at home privilege by slacking off, though, so this is a good way for them to clean house.

This isnt cleaning house. It is bringing the children into the daycare. If somebody is slacking off then address that issue. Forcing them into the office only means they will slack off there instead of home.

 

[Genx87]

Its a sad time when a company gets shit for telling its employees to COME INTO WORK.

I'm not saying working from home is wrong, but I can certainly see why a company wouldn't be thrilled about it.

Why is it a sad time when a tech company gets shit for going backwards when it comes to labor quality of life? Tech companies should be leading the move to work away from the 9-5 jobs in a cubicle. Not championing the outdated concept.

 

[Genx87]

my coworkers works from home.. all they do is go food shopping and pretend they work.. they openly admit it to me.. but whatever.. it'll catch up one day when you miss a deadline or something.

Yes and if that happens then they should be dealt with. But what happens if they never miss a deadline and get their work done but still do food shopping?

 

[dabuddha]

I work from home occasionally. I definitely get more done at home where it's quiet than I do in the office with phones ringing, people talking, etc.

This times eleventy googleplexes

 

[ImpulsE69]

This isnt cleaning house. It is bringing the children into the daycare. If somebody is slacking off then address that issue. Forcing them into the office only means they will slack off there instead of home.

The flip side of this is unless you shut off external web access, they are still probably surfing more than working.

 

[Wonderful Pork]

Yes and if that happens then they should be dealt with. But what happens if they never miss a deadline and get their work done but still do food shopping?

But what happens if I miss a deadline because I need information from them and can't get it because they choose to go food shopping at 9am?

If your work doesn't tie in with anybody elses,then sure, work from home is great. My job requires that I interface with a bunch of people every day, and productivity is lost if team members are sick, home, vacation, whatever (yes, we plan for it). Although we have flex work hours, there is a policy that you must physically be work between 9am - 2pm so people can schedule meetings, etc. Of course there are exceptions (long term medical, FMLA, whatever) but those are exceptions and not the rule.

Additionally, its not like Yahoo is performing like Google or Apple, they are failing - its time to change things up, I think its a pretty bold move. Also, they aren't going to work in some hovel, they have the same office perks as the other tech companies (free food, company iphones etc), unlike most of the other companies in the US.