Should Yahoo! employees be required to work from the office?

Yahoo! is in the middle of a turnaround after many thought its days were numbered.  Marissa brought a fresh outlook to the company and a renewed strength. If she believes it is necessary for the company to have all its employees having face-time then they should.

 

As Steve mention, Yahoo! is in the middle of a turnaround.  One of the biggest problems they have faced is that many of its key employees were jumping ship to new opportunities.  When Marissa was hired many decided to stay and see if she would be able to turn around the company.  Yahoo! needs to keep its employees first and foremost if it wishes to complete its turnaround, and taking away flexibility in their work is not going to help, especially when other companies in Silicon Valley do offer those perks.

 

Yahoo started a process of reinventing itself since Marissa joined as CEO.  One of the most important changes that she is leading is a change in the culture at Yahoo.  However, in order to successfully install a new culture in the company she needs employees present, interacting and absorbing this new culture. 

 

Face time can be important, but so is productivity. There isn't a lot of research or data supporting an argument that remote workers are less productive than on-site workers.

Besides, isn't it a global company? What are you going to do, force everyone to work in one giant building of Yahoos somewhere? 

If the goal is to emphasize strategic direction, aren't there many ways to communicate what it is?

Then there's this: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/lisa-belkin/marissa-mayer-work-from-home-yahoo-rule_b_2750256.html. ;

Perhaps she's trying to be different in an industry that supports remote working. But just being different isn't the same as being innovative.

Ever since Mayer announced this change in work policy Yahoo! has been hammered by the media and especially by those outlets read by the typical Yahoo! employee.  This is turning out to be a black eye that will make it tougher for the company to attract new talent.

No, but my answer might change if I knew more details of the policy.

I work at a place where there is a soft rule that working at home is best done on Fridays. And there is sometimes an explicit order to be in the office while a project is being planned and launched. That's reasonable.

But requiring employees to be in the office when, say, they are in heads-down programming mode is annoying micro-management. Give the employee their goals and get out of their way.

(OK, here comes a totally fact-free slam on Marissa Mayer...) I don't know Mayer, but her taking on a CEO job while pregnant strikes me as something an extreme workaholic would do. She is wealthy and no doubt has an army of nannies and secretaries that make it easy for her to ignore her kid(s).

If I were a Yahoo! employee with young kids at home and was told that there was an absolute ban on working at home, I'd be pretty p.o.'d at Mayer.

ie: Phone advisors would have a greater net value working from home.

ie: Mom's with valuable skills are more likely to work at Yahoo if they can work from home. Otherwise, Yahoo may have to hire someone with similar skills but at a higher cost

If Yahoo does not adapt to trends it will fall behind: lose skilled workers, higher real estate costs, etc