Sunday, March 3, 2013

Yahoo's 'No' to telecommuting: I am with Marissa's decision


The Yahoo! memo said, "We need to be working side-by-side. That is why 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. Speed and quality are often sacrificed when we work from home. We need to be one Yahoo!, and that starts with physically being together."

She took a decision and many of us did not like that. Why? Because, we have our own perspectives and we have all the rights and perhaps right arguments to believe in and say, "Why Marissa is wrong" and "Why we are right". Even if we do not say, why we are right, we can say, why she is wrong. All that happens as every one of us have some hands-on experience with the kind of situation, which she has tried to control. Did we really like this? When a CEO, that too new CEO, a very young CEO and perhaps a lady CEO, who was hired when she was pregnant and delivered a baby a month back, takes such "Administrative" decision, it is always protested. If she wanted to bring people together, to learn and collaborate in real work-space, for many obvious 'good' that many commentators listed and what Marissa told clearly, it is her discretionary right to exercise.  Who knows as a servant leader, she may have been asked by board to tighten the rope and fix all loose ends.
Interesting to read that, "programmers/individual contributors have done better in WFH environment" and I agree but at the same time other programmers or architects or testers did not do so well as these great programmers were not there to help as they were not visible and not available. I have seen many failures when one lead is WFH after maternity or due to health reasons, team has suffered and due to poor productivity or quality or timeliness, many of these poor folks in office got fired or left company in utter disgust. Someone said in lighter vein, "Working From Home (WFH) is like Work For Home (WFH*)!

I think she has done a great job. This is high time for Yahoo! to huddle together and be One Yahoo!

All of us know that she is back to work in just 15 days, after delivering her baby!

We all want Yahoo to survive and do well. I remember one indelible statement that one Yahoo CEO made when asked to compare against Google. She said, Yahoo begins, where Google ends. Cannot agree more as she explained that Google tells you where can you find the search and details and analysis but does not do all lot on itself as Google. Yahoo does all that and more!

Look at Yahoo Finance page. Is it not on your Favorite list/bookmark bar?

Help Yahoo! Help Marissa. 


1 comment:

  1. Yes she is right when she says there in no scope "working from home", I have seen lots of employees have taken this trend for granted I really doubt the commitment level of employee working from home, as their are lots of home distractions.When it comes to HR their should be no work from home expect for special cases,any good employee initiative is misused to a great extent then the very initiative becomes absolute hope Yahoo's new trend will set things of work from office initiative effective across all the companies.

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