By Emily
About the author: Gareth Cartman writes on a number of subjects, from digital marketing to outsourcing and human resources. He doesn’t work at home.
While many of us appear to view flexible working as a means of improving productivity, Marissa Meyer sees it differently. The relatively new Yahoo CEO, and former Googler, has told employees that working at home will no longer be permitted from June onwards.
A memo, sent round by Yahoo’s HR Director, stated quite clearly that home working would no longer be part of Yahoo’s culture – a culture so steeped in remote working that you can buy magnets in the company store with the letters “WFH” on them. It may be that the culture is so ingrained that those who view WFH as an integral part of the job may decide to hand in their notice.
And that may be the objective. After all, Yahoo has costs to cut – so why not cut them in an area where, it is perceived, productivity is at its lowest. The word in Yahoo is that many home workers are ‘not productive’, and a lot of people are hiding away. This crosses all divisions, and there is also a perception that WFH-ers are starting up their own businesses while ‘working’ at Yahoo.
Here in the UK, where train delays and traffic jams add up to billions of pounds worth lost to the economy every year, home working – or at the very least, flexible working – has turned out to be a rather efficient answer to a difficult problem. Working mothers have appreciated employers’ efforts to help them get back into work while not having to worry about the difficult schedules of schools and nurseries. In short – we see home/flexible working as a positive for the business.
Yahoo’s problem most likely stems from a continual slipping of communication between HR, line managers and remote workers. The role of home working in the business was not defined by Yahoo, it was defined by hearsay and rumour – the commonly heard banter that states “home workers are lazy” and “they must have a job on the side”.
Yahoo’s main problem is not necessarily the home workers themselves, it’s the culture. While most of us in the UK no longer really know what Yahoo does, it’s still a significant, if small, rival to Google and Bing in the US, and with Marissa Meyer at the helm, they are undergoing radical change throughout the business. Meyer’s aim is to instil a Google-esque culture at a business where the current culture reeks of suspicion and a silo mentality.
Already, Meyer has brought in free food, free smartphones and a range of initiatives designed to make Yahoo a more fun, collaborative place to work. As the “confidential” memo states, “to become the absolute best place to work, communication and collaboration will be important, so we need to be working side-by-side. That is why it is critical that we are all present in our offices.”
It goes on: “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!”
One Yahoo might sound like an Ed Miliband speech, but it underlines Meyer’s philosophy for the business – if you’re going to be a technology giant, if you’re going to take on Google and Facebook, then you need to be on the cutting edge. In these types of organisations, ideas do spring out of collaboration and impromptu meetings in the corridor.
When a business builds its offices around the way it wants its people to behave, it demonstrates a thorough knowledge of the behaviours that drive its business.
Now, this is not to say that the age of home working is over. With the right measurements and communication in place, it can be a valuable retention tool for talented employees. Home working should, above all, be set within a framework that suits the business. If collaboration and innovation is at the heart of the organisation, then remote working should be handled with care. Too much can damage those values.
However, the option, allied with the tools for simplified communication (Yammer, Skype, Chatter, etc.) and sharing (Dropbox, Google drive), can prove attractive and can actually improve productivity. When, for example, an employee has childcare problems and seeks to work different hours, how can that be accommodated? This isn’t just from the employee’s point of view, but how can this fit around the team and their own objectives?
It’s about finding a solution that suits everyone. In Yahoo’s case, home workers are clearly not valued as highly, and their resignation would probably not be seen as a “bad thing”. This is an organisation in flux, with the need to create a culture akin to its Silicon Valley counterparts. They’ll find a solution that suits them first, keep & acquire the people they want to take them forward second, and lastly, they may reconsider home working under certain conditions once they’ve established the desired culture.
Comments, questions or random thoughts? Why not send them to us on Twitter