Yahoo Telecommuting Ban

[Plutonic Panda]

Just curious what everyones thoughts were on this. Seems interesting. I would think there would be more distractions at home, but that is me. I can get my school work at school much faster than I can at home. I'm sure the exact opposite can be said for others.

Yahoo telecommuting ban draws debate from Oklahoma professionals | News OK

[metro]

Bad move for Yahoo, IMO, especially being a cloud based company.

[kelroy55]

I used to telecommute about 50% of the time and I got more done at home than I did in the office.

[venture]

It all depends on the company. Yahoo has been hurting for years and this might very well be the wake up call to get people to work harder. With that said, it is almost asinine to reverse course and eliminate telecommuting completely. It provides benefits for lower facility costs and allows for you to get some great talent that doesn't reside in your operating area. I think a better adjustment would have been requiring everyone to have 1 day a week on sit (or at least a couple days a month). If they are living outside the area, then the company can fly them in for a few days to a week.

With the advancements in technology and the ease of remote desktop/applicants compared to what it use to be like, there really isn't much reason not to make the jump. If an employee is failing to meet the expectations of their job, then you take the privilege away...if you retain them at all. Chances are a dedicated worker going home to work is going to churn out equal work. An employee who is not putting out quality work was likely already spending time messing around when in the office.

[venture]

I used to telecommute about 50% of the time and I got more done at home than I did in the office.

I've done a lot of telecommuting as well and would say the other benefit - you avoid all the drama that can be stirred up at the office.

[metro]

It all depends on the company. Yahoo has been hurting for years and this might very well be the wake up call to get people to work harder. With that said, it is almost asinine to reverse course and eliminate telecommuting completely. It provides benefits for lower facility costs and allows for you to get some great talent that doesn't reside in your operating area. I think a better adjustment would have been requiring everyone to have 1 day a week on sit (or at least a couple days a month). If they are living outside the area, then the company can fly them in for a few days to a week.

With the advancements in technology and the ease of remote desktop/applicants compared to what it use to be like, there really isn't much reason not to make the jump. If an employee is failing to meet the expectations of their job, then you take the privilege away...if you retain them at all. Chances are a dedicated worker going home to work is going to churn out equal work. An employee who is not putting out quality work was likely already spending time messing around when in the office.

I've done a lot of telecommuting as well and would say the other benefit - you avoid all the drama that can be stirred up at the office.

My thoughts and experience exactly.

[Of Sound Mind]

Generally, I actually prefer to work in the office rather than at home. I am consistently more productive while in the office. Additionally, it makes collaboration and consultation with colleagues much easier when everyone is in the same place. Perhaps, that's just with my type of work.

[venture]

Generally, I actually prefer to work in the office rather than at home. I am consistently more productive while in the office. Additionally, it makes collaboration and consultation with colleagues much easier when everyone is in the same place. Perhaps, that's just with my type of work.

I think it should be up to the employees what they want...if possible. If some want to stay at the office then so be it.

[BBatesokc]

I think it really depends on the job being performed and the current goals trying to be met. If I'm a programmer, accountant, etc. I may benefit from the fewer distractions at home. If I'm in management, HR, marketing, advertising, sales, R&D, etc. I probably would do my best work in an office atmosphere.

I personally think offering 1-2 days (at most) of at home work is good if it is suitable to the position of the employee.

I think an employer should strive to create a working environment at their location that makes people want to be there as opposed to home. Offering things like on site daycare, gym, food court, meditation rooms, quite and loud spaces all foster happier, dedicated and more productive employees.

If you're going to offer work-at-home positions then you need excellent managers in place to keep everyone on target.

I'm actually more for everyone works at the office, you create a welcoming office atmosphere and are flexible with office hours - Want Fridays or Mondays off? Then work an additional 2 hours each day throughout the week. Allow some employees to work at night or weekends if needed, so they can attend their kid's events, school activities or run errands some during the week.

[zookeeper]

I've been paying attention to Marissa Mayer's overhaul at Yahoo and I have been impressed. If you've read about this particular decision, it just makes sense. She thinks Yahoo has been too lax, unfocused, nobody on the same page and she thinks it needs a time of shared community and work to get Yahoo back in a competitive position. She thinks that means all hands on deck and I admire her ability to make this tough call. I think she's probably doing the right thing, under these particular set of circumstances. This isn't something that even Marissa Mayer thinks every business should do. It's about Yahoo and where it is right now and what she wants to do. Gutsy move.

[zookeeper]

I thought I'd put my sexist comment in another post from my serious thoughts above.

If my boss looked like this, I'd work anywhere she asked me to.

[Plutonic Panda]

I think it really depends on the job being performed and the current goals trying to be met. If I'm a programmer, accountant, etc. I may benefit from the fewer distractions at home. If I'm in management, HR, marketing, advertising, sales, R&D, etc. I probably would do my best work in an office atmosphere.

I personally think offering 1-2 days (at most) of at home work is good if it is suitable to the position of the employee.

I think an employer should strive to create a working environment at their location that makes people want to be there as opposed to home. Offering things like on site daycare, gym, food court, meditation rooms, quite and loud spaces all foster happier, dedicated and more productive employees.

If you're going to offer work-at-home positions then you need excellent managers in place to keep everyone on target.

I'm actually more for everyone works at the office, you create a welcoming office atmosphere and are flexible with office hours - Want Fridays or Mondays off? Then work an additional 2 hours each day throughout the week. Allow some employees to work at night or weekends if needed, so they can attend their kid's events, school activities or run errands some during the week.

*like*

[NoOkie]

I've heard some scuttlebutt that Yahoo has a lot of powerpoint warriors working from home and not really producing much. This may be part of trimming the fat: pull back on the benefits to try and force some freeloaders out. I think Yahoo has been floundering for a while, and a major shakeup is probably what they need. I mean, aside from Flicker, I haven't used any Yahoo products in years. And I've stopped using Flickr because other products integrate with the things I use better.

Also, programming in a large environment is actually a pretty collaborative process. Unless you really leverage modern telepresence/collaborative technology, it's hard to get the same level of of teamwork.

I'm not a programmer, but I've found that when I'm working with other people on the design phase of a project, few things beat sitting around a table with a white board.

[kelroy55]

I've done a lot of telecommuting as well and would say the other benefit - you avoid all the drama that can be stirred up at the office.

Not to mention all the useless phone calls I used to get during the day. But now I live 5 minutes from work and my phone rings 2-3 times a week

[RadicalModerate]

From what I understand, the CEO thinks that the company needs more of the synergistic creativity that results from brainstorming in a corporeal rather than virtual work environment . . .



Plus, doing this in The Cloud ain't quite the same . . .

[kevinpate]

Some staff meetings are the worst use of staff time. More would get done if you just sent folks home for the day instead. Some actually build teamwork though.
Years and years ago, I was with a group of folk that had a staffing every freaking Friday late afternoon. It became quite efficient and business got done (one benefit of a late Friday meeting, no one really wants to drag it out or get dramarific. After we'd wrap, most of us would adjourn and regroup on the pub side of Othello's (back in Patsy's time when both sides were danged decent) for informal teambuilding time. Sometimes a fair number of folk were still there after 10 pm. If someone wasn't in a position to get home on their own, there were enough who were fine to assure it worked out. All in all, not a bad process.

[Hawk405359]

It depends on the person as to where they work better. I usually find I'm a lot less effective at home than in an office, so I wouldn't want to telecommute. But for a company that's hurting as much as yahoo is, you'd think they'd prefer anything that could reduce costs. I think they'll either reverse this quickly, or they'll find themselves being even less relevant than they were before.

[PennyQuilts]

I think a lot has to do with the type of job, the maturity of the employee and the situation at home. Husband telecommutes but so much of his job involves travel, telephone calls and report writing that it really isn't that much different than being in the office other than there are less distractions. He is probably more productive, as a result, than he was when he worked in the office - he certainly puts in longer hours and as a result, gets reports done a lot faster. Because of the nature of his job, he sees him co-workers and can brainstorm, in person, on a regular basis. Still, the biggest part he misses from telecommuting is the daily, face-to-face impromptu brainstorming with bright, creative people yahoo mentioned. He really enjoyed that part. I've always been impressed with my husband's work ethic but that respect has soared seeing how diligent he is even when he has less structure. He's always worried that if he took advantage, it would negatively impact other people who wanted the same opportunity. He'd feel horrible about that. If there were little kids at home or a bunch of family drama going on, it wouldn't work very well. As it is, he logs in at the regular time and even if I am home I rarely see him until he comes out for lunch or to grab a cup of coffee. After lunch, he's back in his office until quitting time. I've seen him take routine calls at 1:30 in the morning from people on a swing shift during an investigation and he never bats an eyelash.

If someone had the type of job where they just showed up and worked in a cubicle, all day, with few hard deadlines, I could see where they'd need more structure and supervision.

[SoonerDave]

What's a bit lost in the discussion is just how bad from a perception-only standpoint this looks for Yahoo. Here's a company itching to be relevant in the very technical arena that helped bring to bear the entire concept of telecommuting/virtual office/insert favorite buzzword here, and their CEO comes up with a policy that just oozes 1970's parochialism. I understand there may be "under the hood" motives, and IMHO the way to handle it is to attack those problems individually, not punish the whole company for it. If you have a corporate structure that benefits in specific ways from telecommuting, and those ways have been realized at the point where the decision is best made, then its really a contrarian idea to just shut it down unilaterally.

She's also come under great fire from women's groups who encourage alternative work schedules and virtual office opportunities for working moms, and from technical communities who see it as rather absurd for a tech company to ban a tech office concept.

May well be a great idea, but Yahoo is taking a beating in the media for it, and in all honesty I can't disagree with the beating. I think it was a dumb move, myself.

[SoonerDave]

Believe I heard that Best Buy is getting ready to release the same edict for its tech employees - no more virtual/telecommuting.

After thinking about this for a while, it suddenly dawned on my why this issue is really coming up. And its for a great deal simpler reasons that are being tossed around - heck, I feel stupid for not having realized it earlier myself. It has virtually nothing to do with all this corporate doublespeak BS about synergy and facetime and all that. It's about money.

One of the benefits most folks enjoy at any company if they've been there long enough is some form of vacation, sick day, paid time off, whatever you want to call it. From the business side, however, that's a huge cash liability - on any given day (well, pay period) a company has to be able to fork over a decent chunk of cash to pay for those paid days off. As a result, companies over the last several years have been working hard to encourage employees to burn those vacation hours, and get those hours off the books and reduce their liability. I didn't understand this myself until I worked for a smaller company one year who refused to TELL me how many vacation hours I had...I just asked for some time off, and they gave it to me. When I pressed the issue, I was given the runaround. Some else 'splained it to me later that the company didn't want to "commit" time off hours to anyone because of the way vacation has to be accounted for in the company books, so it was all "off the record."

So how does that tie into telecommuting? Let's 'splain/illustrate with a theoretical example.

Bob is a theoretical virtual worker with a company laptop, and can (and has) shown he can effectively work remotely even though most of the time he goes to a physical office. One day, Bob is expecting home delivery of, say, some legal documents for which he must sign. Because he's a virtual worker, he fires off an email to his peers/boss saying "Hey, I'm working from home today, if you need me, drop me an email." He works from home, receives his package, figures he spent an hour dealing with the documents once he received them, and "makes up" that hour. From his side, he's worked a legit full day. From the company's side, they've received a legit full day of work. Everyone's happy.

But here's the rub: For any other non-virtual employee, however, the Company has just lost a chance to "burn" a day of vacation off the books. In any other non-telecommuting circumstance, Bob has to take some sort of paid leave, such as vacation, paid time off, whatever, to accommodate that package delivery. That's (presumably) 8 hours off the company's books as a cash liability that Bob can exercise later and the company still has to pay at some point on the future. The net result is that, from a certain perspective, the telecommuting option effectively gives him more leave time.

I have no doubt that the bean counters at Yahoo (and other places) have started to realize that telecommuters burn leave time much more slowly than their non-telecommuting counterparts. Extend the reasons for an ad-hoc day of telecommuting - kids are sick, furniture's being delivered, have to wait for a plumber, A/C repairman is on his way, cable is out - and you start seeing all manner of ways the telecommuting option works out to slow the rate of burn-down for paid time off. It is not about the worker "stealing" time from the company - its about the nature of telecommuting affording its users more options in how they work their day.

And there's a sidebar that also probably scares companies just a bit, too. If you even remotely accept the notion that the process described above affords certain employees "more" leave time even though the Company Handbook says everyone gets the same, you open up an entirely new can of worms: does the opportunity to be a virtual worker create a defacto form of discrimination based solely on whether you have broadband Internet access, which is all-but a requirement for telecommuting in many/most cases. And that notion, however remote, perks up the ears of the lawyers - Bob gets to telecommute because he lives in an area that supports higher-speed internet connection. Jane doesn't get to because she lives in an area of town, or perhaps an apartment complex (whatever) that doesn't. HR departments hate sticky wickets like that.

So, rather than face these issues, the simpler and cheaper solution for the company is simply to shut it down entirely, making up all manner of tinfoil-in-the-radar reasons why. But don't be fooled. Its about money.

[RadicalModerate]

That was one of the most enlightening things I have read recently. Thank you.
(do you suppose there is any hope of getting the Like button fixed?)

[venture]

Dave, great post. I think you are finally latching on to something. I use to work for a tech company that gave nearly everyone remote access and we were expected to check in from home. However, we were still mandated to clock in at least 40 hours a week at the office. Eventually it turned out what they were doing was finding a way to circumvent paying overtime and ended up getting sued. Ooops. I think the remote option is just something the "old guard" at companies aren't sure how to handle - still.

The Best Buy news is getting some what misreported. The headline on CNN was something like "Best Buy Eliminates Work at Home" when all they are doing is requiring employees to get manager approval first. Right now they can simply declare "I'm working from home" and its approved. It is interesting though to see these decisions at companies that have really become "has-beens" in their industry. Yahoo is no Google. Best Buy is no Amazon/NewEgg.

[NoOkie]

Believe I heard that Best Buy is getting ready to release the same edict for its tech employees - no more virtual/telecommuting.

After thinking about this for a while, it suddenly dawned on my why this issue is really coming up. And its for a great deal simpler reasons that are being tossed around - heck, I feel stupid for not having realized it earlier myself. It has virtually nothing to do with all this corporate doublespeak BS about synergy and facetime and all that. It's about money.

One of the benefits most folks enjoy at any company if they've been there long enough is some form of vacation, sick day, paid time off, whatever you want to call it. From the business side, however, that's a huge cash liability - on any given day (well, pay period) a company has to be able to fork over a decent chunk of cash to pay for those paid days off. As a result, companies over the last several years have been working hard to encourage employees to burn those vacation hours, and get those hours off the books and reduce their liability. I didn't understand this myself until I worked for a smaller company one year who refused to TELL me how many vacation hours I had...I just asked for some time off, and they gave it to me. When I pressed the issue, I was given the runaround. Some else 'splained it to me later that the company didn't want to "commit" time off hours to anyone because of the way vacation has to be accounted for in the company books, so it was all "off the record."

So how does that tie into telecommuting? Let's 'splain/illustrate with a theoretical example.

Bob is a theoretical virtual worker with a company laptop, and can (and has) shown he can effectively work remotely even though most of the time he goes to a physical office. One day, Bob is expecting home delivery of, say, some legal documents for which he must sign. Because he's a virtual worker, he fires off an email to his peers/boss saying "Hey, I'm working from home today, if you need me, drop me an email." He works from home, receives his package, figures he spent an hour dealing with the documents once he received them, and "makes up" that hour. From his side, he's worked a legit full day. From the company's side, they've received a legit full day of work. Everyone's happy.

But here's the rub: For any other non-virtual employee, however, the Company has just lost a chance to "burn" a day of vacation off the books. In any other non-telecommuting circumstance, Bob has to take some sort of paid leave, such as vacation, paid time off, whatever, to accommodate that package delivery. That's (presumably) 8 hours off the company's books as a cash liability that Bob can exercise later and the company still has to pay at some point on the future. The net result is that, from a certain perspective, the telecommuting option effectively gives him more leave time.

I have no doubt that the bean counters at Yahoo (and other places) have started to realize that telecommuters burn leave time much more slowly than their non-telecommuting counterparts. Extend the reasons for an ad-hoc day of telecommuting - kids are sick, furniture's being delivered, have to wait for a plumber, A/C repairman is on his way, cable is out - and you start seeing all manner of ways the telecommuting option works out to slow the rate of burn-down for paid time off. It is not about the worker "stealing" time from the company - its about the nature of telecommuting affording its users more options in how they work their day.

And there's a sidebar that also probably scares companies just a bit, too. If you even remotely accept the notion that the process described above affords certain employees "more" leave time even though the Company Handbook says everyone gets the same, you open up an entirely new can of worms: does the opportunity to be a virtual worker create a defacto form of discrimination based solely on whether you have broadband Internet access, which is all-but a requirement for telecommuting in many/most cases. And that notion, however remote, perks up the ears of the lawyers - Bob gets to telecommute because he lives in an area that supports higher-speed internet connection. Jane doesn't get to because she lives in an area of town, or perhaps an apartment complex (whatever) that doesn't. HR departments hate sticky wickets like that.

So, rather than face these issues, the simpler and cheaper solution for the company is simply to shut it down entirely, making up all manner of tinfoil-in-the-radar reasons why. But don't be fooled. Its about money.

This is a really interesting perspective on the issue. I would think they would be able to address the issue with mandatory leave caps(My company forces you to take a payout or take some leave once you hit the cap). While I have the type of job that requires me to be in the office(I do IT support, gotta be there to kick the servers or help a user), my time is still flexible. I don't have to burn a whole day, or a half day, to go take care of some business. I can just make the hours up whenever in that week. My last job was similar. Is that uncommon outside of certain jobs with required staffing levels(Call center work, retail, data entry with deadlines)?

[BoulderSooner]

Believe I heard that Best Buy is getting ready to release the same edict for its tech employees - no more virtual/telecommuting.

After thinking about this for a while, it suddenly dawned on my why this issue is really coming up. And its for a great deal simpler reasons that are being tossed around - heck, I feel stupid for not having realized it earlier myself. It has virtually nothing to do with all this corporate doublespeak BS about synergy and facetime and all that. It's about money.

One of the benefits most folks enjoy at any company if they've been there long enough is some form of vacation, sick day, paid time off, whatever you want to call it. From the business side, however, that's a huge cash liability - on any given day (well, pay period) a company has to be able to fork over a decent chunk of cash to pay for those paid days off. As a result, companies over the last several years have been working hard to encourage employees to burn those vacation hours, and get those hours off the books and reduce their liability. I didn't understand this myself until I worked for a smaller company one year who refused to TELL me how many vacation hours I had...I just asked for some time off, and they gave it to me. When I pressed the issue, I was given the runaround. Some else 'splained it to me later that the company didn't want to "commit" time off hours to anyone because of the way vacation has to be accounted for in the company books, so it was all "off the record."

So how does that tie into telecommuting? Let's 'splain/illustrate with a theoretical example.

Bob is a theoretical virtual worker with a company laptop, and can (and has) shown he can effectively work remotely even though most of the time he goes to a physical office. One day, Bob is expecting home delivery of, say, some legal documents for which he must sign. Because he's a virtual worker, he fires off an email to his peers/boss saying "Hey, I'm working from home today, if you need me, drop me an email." He works from home, receives his package, figures he spent an hour dealing with the documents once he received them, and "makes up" that hour. From his side, he's worked a legit full day. From the company's side, they've received a legit full day of work. Everyone's happy.

But here's the rub: For any other non-virtual employee, however, the Company has just lost a chance to "burn" a day of vacation off the books. In any other non-telecommuting circumstance, Bob has to take some sort of paid leave, such as vacation, paid time off, whatever, to accommodate that package delivery. That's (presumably) 8 hours off the company's books as a cash liability that Bob can exercise later and the company still has to pay at some point on the future. The net result is that, from a certain perspective, the telecommuting option effectively gives him more leave time.

I have no doubt that the bean counters at Yahoo (and other places) have started to realize that telecommuters burn leave time much more slowly than their non-telecommuting counterparts. Extend the reasons for an ad-hoc day of telecommuting - kids are sick, furniture's being delivered, have to wait for a plumber, A/C repairman is on his way, cable is out - and you start seeing all manner of ways the telecommuting option works out to slow the rate of burn-down for paid time off. It is not about the worker "stealing" time from the company - its about the nature of telecommuting affording its users more options in how they work their day.

And there's a sidebar that also probably scares companies just a bit, too. If you even remotely accept the notion that the process described above affords certain employees "more" leave time even though the Company Handbook says everyone gets the same, you open up an entirely new can of worms: does the opportunity to be a virtual worker create a defacto form of discrimination based solely on whether you have broadband Internet access, which is all-but a requirement for telecommuting in many/most cases. And that notion, however remote, perks up the ears of the lawyers - Bob gets to telecommute because he lives in an area that supports higher-speed internet connection. Jane doesn't get to because she lives in an area of town, or perhaps an apartment complex (whatever) that doesn't. HR departments hate sticky wickets like that.

So, rather than face these issues, the simpler and cheaper solution for the company is simply to shut it down entirely, making up all manner of tinfoil-in-the-radar reasons why. But don't be fooled. Its about money.

very much depends on the state and the job .. (sca gsa govt ect) in lots of place company's don't have to pay you for vacation upon separation (some may anyway as a good benifit) but they don't have have to and in those cases there is not a liability created

[SoonerDave]

Thanks all for the feedback. A few thoughts...

This is a really interesting perspective on the issue. I would think they would be able to address the issue with mandatory leave caps(My company forces you to take a payout or take some leave once you hit the cap). While I have the type of job that requires me to be in the office(I do IT support, gotta be there to kick the servers or help a user), my time is still flexible. I don't have to burn a whole day, or a half day, to go take care of some business. I can just make the hours up whenever in that week. My last job was similar. Is that uncommon outside of certain jobs with required staffing levels(Call center work, retail, data entry with deadlines)?

Leave caps are most common, I would think - use it or lose it time. My employer has a degree of flexibility in making up hours worked in the manner you describe. It might be harder to work for folks who are salaried as opposed to paid hourly, although I know there are some jobs where salaried folks are still paid on a hybrid hourly basis, which is kinda odd...

very much depends on the state and the job .. (sca gsa govt ect) in lots of place company's don't have to pay you for vacation upon separation (some may anyway as a good benifit) but they don't have have to and in those cases there is not a liability created

In the case of the company I worked for, there was no "vacation upon separation," but they absolutely told me they kept accrued vacation time off the books for precisely this reason. It wasn't about the risk of having to pay out a sum at employee departure (although it certainly makes sense they'd have to do that), it was about how they reported the cash liability for unspent overtime in the books to (presumably?) the tax and accounting folks.