Yahoo CEO Marissa Mayer has decided to revolutionize the company's employment policy by bringing back its telecommuting employees to offices. The revolution is to start in June. Marissa Mayer believes this action will strengthen and ease collaboration among the employees. However, Richard Branson criticized Marissa Mayer's actions by referring them as "backward".

Working-from-home Policy Abolished

Marissa Mayer, new chief executive officer at Yahoo Inc., has decided to end with the working-from-home policy, thereby making all employees, who work remotely, attend office regularly beginning from June. According to a message sent by Yahoo's Human Resource head Jackie Reses, employees are to report at offices physically and not simply telecommunicate from their homes. Marissa Mayer believes that physical proximity can inspire one's insight which in turn would increase productivity of the employee. Moreover, speed and quality get hampered when one works from home. Jackie Reses underlined in the memo: "To become the absolute best place to work, communication and collaboration will be important, so we need to be working side-by-side."

Marissa Mayer initially started her work at Yahoo Inc. with popular steps, including distributing new smartphones for each employee. However, her recent action of abolishing the working-from-home policy received a great deal of anger and criticism from hundreds of Yahoo employees. Working remotely helped the employees to assist to the needs of their families and proved to be a better option for those living far off from offices. With the implementation of the new policy, many Yahoo employees would either have to relocate their homes or quit their jobs at the company.

The findings of the survey by the US Census Bureau show that more than 10 percent of Americans work from their homes at least one day a week. Thus it helps employees, especially working mothers, to create a balance between their personal and professional life. With the end of the working-from-home policy, many Yahoo employees are planning to resign as it is inconvenient for them to work in offices while they have to look after young children or aging parents, reports say.

Bigger Picture

Yahoo Inc. reported high profits and an increase in revenues in January which were higher than analysts' expectations. However, a long period of poor performance and a weak management team led to the abolition of working-from-home policy. Even though analysts and Virgin Group founder Richard Branson have criticized the policy by claiming it to be retrograde and inflexible in approach, many experts support the decision taken by Marissa Mayer. In the face of remote and unproductive employees, the company had to bear huge losses in the form of opportunity costs and weak management. With many employees not showing up at offices, the overall productivity of the company was hampered. Thus with the resignation of unproductive employees, Yahoo could control its costs which were heightened in the past 15 years. Moreover, the working-at-home policy is aimed at fostering collaboration and cooperation among the employees working under one roof.

Industry Leaders Magazine