Yahoo bans employees from working from home

Sorry but thousands of companies have employees who commute to work every day, and I cannot drum up much sympathy for these employees. Productivity when working at home isn't because you work from home it is because you uderstand how to work from home and the focus and committment it takes to contribute while not being in an office atmosphere.
Perhaps the new CEO has realized that for Yahoo to pull it out of the toilet everyone needs to come back to the office and recommit to the team.
Working from home is not a right, it is something that is earned by being a valuable memember of the company, nothing more.
If people just show up to work to do their jobs, with lack of passion and determination then perhaps they need to work somewhere that doesn't expect much from them.
Good on Mayer for making a necessary change.

Personally, I don't telecommute but I've noticed that executives focus on the irrelevant when a company is in serious trouble rather than cutting outrageous executive salaries and perks. Next they will be rationing office supplies and mandating how long a bathroom break should be. It's like re-arranging deck chairs on the Titanic while its sinking. Time to sell your Yahoo stock.

I agree with pittiegirl, working at home is not a right, changes happen and that is just life. I had a "work at home" job once doing census for the government. In honesty, I was not nearly as focused as I would have been in an office. I would make some calls, do some groceries, plan dinner, make a few more calls, all while minding my 2 year old daughter. It was not condusive to producing good work so I gave the job up. I can understand a company making a change like this. They should just all be thankful they have jobs, if they want to give them up I am sure there are plenty of people who would be happy to work in the office in their place.

I work from a vitual office at home. When I go to head office 1 - 2 times per week I see many people there surfing the net, socializing and generally not working a full day.
You have to be the right type of person (self motivated) to benefit yourself (usually earning salary and bonus incentives) and your company.
I work hard for both reasons as I believe in loyalty to the company that pays for my family to eat every day.
It is cost effective in both mileage and time. So I think it all depends on the individual situation.

What is yahoo? Is that a new type of food. Yahoo is redundant.

This is a counter-active policy. Forcing people to do things they don't want to do will merely cause them to find ways to re-establish their very same work habits they had at home, to the workplace now.

I agree with Mike, it's a case by case situation. Some jobs are able to be done remotely while others have to be at the office (if you need a file out of the cabinet, you can't do that remotely). Some people are also not motivated or focused enough to work from home either so it ends up wasting the company's money. Like Mike pointed out there are also people who don't focus in the office either.
Personally, I get far more work done when I'm at home than in the office. At the office, there is a lot of interruptions - some social and pointless, others that are work related - while at home I can focus and get my work done.
With a company like Yahoo, it's sad to see the case by case idea swept aside when I'm sure they have some employees that were even more dedicated since they could work from home. I would not be surprised if they lost a lot of hard working staff over this change.

I think we need to do everything we can to reduce our dependence on fossil fuels. Working from home is a good way to achieve the goal of less pollution and less cost per day. The carte blanch action of forcing everyone to come to the office to work sounds more like someone avoiding confrontation with staff. i.e. some people working from home are failing to do their assigned work. Working from home is good for the environment, that said not everyone can do it. Good luck sorting out the problem staff at Yahoo.

About time Yahoo reigned in this policy. Molly-coddled tech employees need to learn some work discipline. A salary review might be in order. Some more pay adjustments based on results - and I suspect some adjustments might be downward.

Solid move.

You get everybody visible. You understand who really is doing what. You get the org re-aligned with its goals, probably make some substractions. Then you probably loosen this policy once you are sure there's organizational alignment and you've put controls in place to make sure you are getting value for dollar on the offiste work.

To really change an org, you need to do moves like this where it effects lots of people. Window dressing stuff like restricting executive bonuses or restrict travel expenses is the red meat stuff you need to do for good press headlines and good internal morale, but it doesn't move the needle in terms of real cost or effectiveness. Its when your change is times hundreds or thousands of people, that's when it really adds up to something.

She's a clown. We need more remote workers to take the pressure off public transport, our highways and the environment in general. The right course of action is the deal with managers who are unable to handle workers abusing the situation. At best, this is a nasty bait-and-switch, at worst, a dastardly way to demotivate your workers into resigning. Terrence/DeepDigital, you are jealous, narrow-minded clowns who have nothing contructive to add to this article.

I would like to apologise to any clowns out there who took offense to my previous comment that compared them to Marissa Mayer, Terrence and DeepDigital. Clowns have a valuable role in society that should not be underestimated.

As a CEO/COO of a tech firm, I find the move perplexing on several levels but what strikes me most I am deducing, sounds to me like this is a move to bolster her image with the board and flex muscle across the company. What is the role of a CEO?...hunt down problems and fix them. If productivity and by extension, results are the issue and this is her 'fix' well, ok. But, if this is a knee-jerk to show the boys she has a pair, mistake, nobody cares what your sex is anymore, results matter, the end. All or nothing, likely will cause retention issues. Reality is, people have things to balance like uh...life and last I checked, work was not the be-all and end-all. I think maybe a flex-time approach might be better and besides, working from home makes sense and not just to save fossil fuels either.

Jody Thompson from CultureRx goes on to say that this will lead to workers showing up just to put in their time.

Then fire them. simple really...

This is a very controversial issue with many different opinions on how it should work. One could argue it's the basic struggle of the haves against the have not's, seems to be very similar issue with what everyone believes teachers should be getting and not getting based on comparison to their own position in life - but that's another argument entirely. A lot of companies have installed a work at home or flexi policy that has benefited both the employee and the business. So what if you have a 2 year old that needs your attention, isn't it absolutely fabulous that you have that option - that your kid sees their parents thru the day, what a novel concept. On the other hand, think of all the money being saved on daycare, gas, vehicle maintenance, the pollution no longer being put into the atmosphere, there are so many positives here, it by far outweighs the archaic old school thinking that one must be in an office to be productive. If there are guidelines, and goals set out that produce results, and one is proud of what they do and want to contribute regardless of where they work from then I think we have a win win situation for all parties involved. To take that option away because there is a 'perception' of not contributing is wrong, how about looking at a set of commitments and being evaluated against them at various points in the year as the measurement of ones contribution, then if one doesn't make the grade, put action plans in place to move forward. If that doesn't work, fire the bugger and get on with it. Of note, I've personally been a work at home employee for over 15 years with a very large and progressive firm and my contribution is measured accordingly... I've been with this company for almost 40 years and have been measured this way thru that entire time... I'm still here, so one might say I'm committed to demonstrating results that benefit the company even if I do work from home...

I totally agree with Ben, Thompson is a fossil. Having to go to work 9-5 harks back to the 60's. It's antiquated thinking, now employees will come, do their 9-5 and go home. I'll bet you when they worked at home many employees worked more than 8 hrs. a day

The problem with having people work at home is they often don't produce. Some people can be trusted to be fair and discipline themselves and others think it's a free pay check. I work out of my home, but I work for myself and I work long, steady hours. I've tried allowing employees to do the same and in all honesty, it doesn't work for most of them. They just don't deliver. Of course most people would rather work from home because they are often doing something other than working.

I'm with the person that said that these jokers are lucky to have jobs in the first place. They are.

Ahh yes, another micro-managing female manager. Sorry to stereotype but I've seen this mentality way, way too many times to think that it is anything other than a general gender trait.
Don't get me wrong, for a kindergarten teacher or working with the mentally challenged micro-management is a wonderful approach. It is also a fantastic way to crush workplace morale and encourage your best and brightest to find better companies to work for.
Yahoo has failed to find a way to properly determine worker output and instead has allowed a misguided management team to lurch the company from one misguided policy to another.
I do hope that they get this sorted out before this woman does to Yahoo what Kim Campbell did to the Progressive Conservative party of Canada.
Time will tell though.
Funny that she allowed herself to bring her own baby into work, no?

Marissa's comment on life when she took the position at Yahoo was "God, family and Yahoo—in that order". Guess it just applies to herself!

This is something that started because these companies make ridolous profits for little work.It's easy to throw money away when it comes in for free but when you have to manage like regular bussiness reality strikes home.

hey dave, that won't be a problem soon, all, if not most of those office hen jobs will be eliminated from the western world, the indians and the chinese are going to have these jobs as soon as enough of them are sufficiently educated, they already have our factory jobs. no wear and tear on your cars, actually, no cars, no need for daycare, they will be stay at home moms. most of these office workers are just playing solitaire, surfing the web or going on facebook, some of the others are too busy gossiping about co workers to get an ounce of work done, the rest are the ones that are actually working, i could walk into an office, and eliminate half of the staff and not affect productivity, however, it would have a negative effect on morale.