Let’s set aside last week’s fury over telecommuting. Telecommuting is fine. It is widely accepted and often useful and in no danger of disappearing from the corporate landscape, regardless of what anyone working at Yahoo has to do.
The real problem with the tech giant’s human-resources bombshell last week — the pronouncement that employees will no longer be allowed to work from home, except when they briefly need to wait for the cable guy — is that it insults so many people’s intelligence.
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It doesn't have to work for every woman, it just has to work for Yahoo. Marissa Mayer doesn't work for the employees, she works for the stockholders. The stock is up over 50% since she took the job. So far so good.
Marissa Mayer came from Google. Google's market cap is ten times that of Yahoo. Google does not allow telecommuting except for a few low paid part timers. Google is working. Yahoo is floundering. Marissa Mayer's job is to turn Yahoo into Google. Female op ed writers and mommybloggers can throw stones at her but she is doing what needs to be done. Employees who can't get on board with the new program are welcome to seek more rewarding employment elsewhere, ideally in the public sector where competition is not an issue. Yahoo needs to reduce headcount anyway, and the disgruntled telecommuters won't get severance when they resign.
Spot on. I'm not sure what the point of the article is. Her decision has nothing to do with feminism.
Google has a product. Yahoo does not. When Mayer can lead people and not push them then she will be a great CEO.
If the "new normal" is going to be "my work schedule...my way", there is a question as to whether the 'employee' works for the company...or the company works for the individual. Yahoo needed a turnaround; the old method didn't work. If she is 'insulting your intelligence, don't work for her. I am sure she doesn't need a boss like you anyway
Except for original news reports at the time of Ms Mayer's memo informing Yahoo employees they had to return to the office every single commentator, opinion writer or work place guru has left a single word out their spiel; creativity. All do throw around the word productivity. Why is that? Google did not get where it is today by having workers who are "productive." While Google, Facebook and Twitter created, Yahoo was probably most "productive" in the number of e-mail replies generated.
Anyone old enough to have seen the Dick Van Dyke show knows about creativity. Rob, Sally & Buddy hashing out a joke then running with it is called creativity. I am pretty sure David Letterman's comedy writers don't telecommute, why is that? Check out a few of the top AD Agencies and see how many allow their creatives to telecommute.
Weiss is obviously clueless as to the number, and types, of businesses, that stilll require employees to be present, face to face. Many of our venerable businesses and services require it, and will continue to do so. Frankly, the backlash to "flexibility" is long over due; I don't know about anyone else, but I've been a witness to the abuse and how it has eroded what little espirit de corps is left in the workplace. Some employees simply have work that requires them to be present, end of story. No whining. What a concept, you know? Employers making demands on employees? How shocking. As for female executives, it seems that once they make it to the top, they're criticized no matter what they do. I find it discouraging to see such an attack attitude, especially from an opinion piece that is promoting feminism. Very hypocritical.
What is surprising about many of the recent comments on this subject is how many people cannot understand that not all jobs need daily face-to-face collaboration. There are many jobs that are better served by letting people work alone ond focus on the problem at hand. Granted, total isolation doesn't work, but a balance between the "team" approach and individual effort works better than either one alone.
No. The company gets to decide what the requirements of the job are. The employees are entitled to their opinions but the company sets its own policies based on its own perception of its needs. When the memo goes out from HR, that means that the debate is over and policy has been set.
I (surprisingly) agree with your original comment, Harry. But your reply here is off the mark. AG is not dispuing a company's right to mnake a ruling, but simply making an observation.
There are some issues involved here the writer overlooked. These are: 1) the issue of telecommuting is not limited to working mothers and some reports indicate that telecommuting has been abused at Yahoo by men, women, single people and married people. If that's correct, then Yahoo has the right to end telecommuting. At least until it get's its house in order. 2) Telecommuting can work for some jobs, but it does not work for all jobs and can increase the workload on others back in the office to support the telecommuter. The added cost to support the telecommuter has to be considered if it is adversely affecting other employees. Lastly, Yahoo needed a turnaround and the new CEO determined telecommuting was hurting Yahoo. If she's right, then she made a tough, but necessary call.
A chief executive is charged with making tough decisions, that he or she believes will improve the performance of the organization. It is about Yahoo, not about what "women need". Yes, there are many roles that can be done from home. Apple Computer employs many who work at their comptuer in their pajamas. But each company must decide what is best for it, and Yahoo has decided.
A CEO who treats all employees and their jobs as the same won't be around long
The last two CEOs weren't around long either. BTW, the stock is up over 50% since Marissa Mayer took the job. Some of the employees and all of the mommybloggers may hate her but the shareholders and the board love her.
Since this is a free country, the employees have a choice. If they do not like the job requirements e.g. being in the office every day, they are free to quit and work somewhere else. A private compnay gets to determine work hours, job location etc.
You are absolutely correct, private companies do get to set the terms of employment, however that doesn't mean their decisions are necessarily the correct ones and it doesn't mean that they have to behave like bullies towards their employees. I don't think the issue here is the policy so much as the method. If she hadn't changed the policy in such an absolute, one size fits all, way while catering to her own personal needs so lavishly there wouldn't have been such an uproar. It's been suggested that her real goal is to reduce her work force and so she is intentionally alienating many of her workers so that they will quit and Yahoo can avoid paying termination and unemployment benefits for them.
jwin...as a publicly traded company, yahoo must do what's right for their shareholders. NO companies like to pay lavish rif benefits. This decision of hers will curry out all of the deadbeat at-home workers who were "enjoying the ride", and bring face-to-face controls back into their management structure. These types of decisions can be tough and divisive in the short-term, but strategically necessary. I bet a year from now that yahoo's business model and revenue per employee ratio will be vastly improved AND that "must keep" work-at-home employees will still be with yahoo.
It strikes me that this is just an attempt at natural attrition. Get 10-20% of your workforce to leave so you don't have to lay them off and pay their unemployment. Get your operating expenses under control. Then reverse the policy.
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First, the rule was that women can't be tough-minded leaders -- they're too soft, too weak. Now, the rule is that women can't be tough-minded leaders -- they're too harsh, too extreme, too insensitive to public perception. The woman can't just be left alone to do her job; she has to represent all womankind. Meanwhile male CEOs are judged on their performance.
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I totally agree with Cambridge131 and several others. This was a business decision that, when considering ALL the facts (which none of us really has) is apparently making a lot of sense. Women weren't personally targeted here. And we do have a choice. If anyone at Yahoo needs a job where they can work from home, go find one. Or be happy you still have a job.
Not every job can be done remotely all the time. There's a middle ground here and if Yahoo weren't in such trouble, perhaps Mayer might have been able to go there first. But that wasn't the case and, so far, she seems to have made the right business decision. Time will tell. But as a woman, I am more embarrassed by Weiss and others criticizing her with respect to the "mommy track" than I am by Mayer. Equality is being treated the same as everyone else, not getting special treatment to get ahead. But, god, Marissa, did you have to build that damn nursery????
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I usually agree with Weiss but on this one I think she is dead wrong. Mayer got to be perhaps THE most successful woman in high tech in the history of the US. She is one in a trillion. She happens to be a genius-level person and a person with the capacity and passion to work round the clock. God bless. Too bad there aren't more people like her. The idea that the tyranny of other people's families is going to suppress this kind of person is just plain wrong. If you want a balanced like, get a low-level job so you can "have it all". Lord save me from the boredom and tyranny of a "balanced life" - particularly OTHER people's balanced lives. I'm all for family-friedly policies - but the idea that we all have to slow down so some other person can have a child is just another kind of tyranny. Some of us - even women - just want to work hard. Is this not allowed? The creativity needed to produce a Google is quirky and weird and only the people who do it know what it takes to do it. People love to quote studies that say people who work less are just as productive as people who work like Marissa. That is nonsense - certainly for certain fields at certain times. This kind of innovation is much more of a group activity than many people realize. Great discoveries do not spring from the mind of some isolated geniuses. They come out of group activity that stimulates people's minds.It may seem its all "my idea" - but it isn't. As for her having a nursery when others don't - hey - are they working as hard as she is? shouldering the same responsibility? Sure she should build daycare on the grounds. But give her a chance to save the company first and everyone will be able to have a nursery near their office. Go Marissa! - a true American heroine! This woman has the right to strive for greatness in her company. It's fine for the people who do office work to work form home perhaps, but if she feels the creative people need to interact, she is undoubtedly right.
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Yahoo's problem is not that people are working from home. Yahoo's problem is that they have no product. Marissa better think of one fast because all this noise is only going to create a distraction for so long.
Maybe someday in the future Marissa will aquire another attribute to lead others...
WISDOM!!! But obviously not yet...
Yahoo, as reported by Forbes contributor, Larry Hawes, has approximately one-half of one percent (500/12000) of its workforce working on a remote-only basis. Hawes reports that these 'workers have become a collection of disconnected individuals who aren’t communicating and collaborating with the company’s other 12,000 employees. One insider even said “There were all these employees and nobody knew they were still at Yahoo" That same person underscored the business problem that created, saying “This is a collaborative business” and that many of these isolated remote workers “weren’t productive."
This was a smart move by an equally smart CEO, whose messaging, as misappropriated by Ms. Weiss, may have been improved simply by being more specific as to the root cause and, as Forbes' Hawes suggested, a possible return to business-benefit proven telecommuting.
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I have a Yahoo email, hence their news "aggregation" service. When someone explains to me what Yahoo actually DOES, maybe I'll understand this controversy enough to take a side.
They certainly don't bother much with copy editing, even spell-checking, so if that improves I'm guessing that maybe those people working from home just liked to smoke pot a lot.
But I'm not sure how collaboration and "creativity" are necessary to:
a) copy other (i.e. real) new organizations' reporting;
c) periodically tinker with the presentation in confusing ways that readers invariably hate;
b) post inane and trivial videos which, judging from readers' comments, half the readers either hate or or unable to see for technical reasons.
Yesterday the news headlines on my Yahoo home page mysteriously appeared in Portuguese. (Fortunately I know enough Portuguese to guess what stories to click on.) But maybe it was a prank by disgruntled employees.
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Why is it that women seem to be those complaining most vociferously about cutting off telecommuting? Is this a women's issue? I think not, but most men seem to be accepting the situation without feeling that they're victims of some sort.
And, Ms. Weiss, how about full disclosure. Do you telecommute? Is you column altruistic or do you have a vested interest here?
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I have noticed that the majority of posters lauding Ms. Meyers are men. Could it be that they have no problem wanting flex hours or telecommuting because they are not the primary caregivers of their children? Personally, Ms. Meyers may be a great CEO but never confuse her with a feminist. She has it all because an army of worker bees takes care of the rest of her life enabling her to concentrate on business. She has no clue what the average worker has to face in terms of work/life balance. I look forward to the day when this woman meets reality.
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No, us guys like her because she's hot. And that's one reason the sisters hate her. All women are not created equal. The camera doesn't lie.
Dear Ms. Weiss...suggest you not apply for a job at Yahoo. As the leader of Yahoo, Ms Mayer's task is to make Yahoo into a successful company. She believes that having employees show up at a work location where they interact with other employees is a factor that will lead to a more successful company. When and if you become the leader of a company, you can do what you want, but in the meantime, myob.
It's about time we got rid of laptops, iPhones, Droids, and tablets and went back to good, old fashinoned deskside computers at our desks. Time in the office 8 AM to 5 PM and no overtime. Leave the work at the office where it belongs. Long overdue.
Great insight from yogafriend. Why does it seem so many women executives get attacked, by women. Marrissa Mayer probably doesn't meet with some idealogical expectation of some members of the press or something. I think Marissa Mayer learned a thing or two or three or four thousand being one of the original group of employees for one of the most successful companies of the 1st decade of the 21st Century, THE Google.