You've probably heard of Marissa Mayer, the CEO of Yahoo. She made headlines when she was appointed the CEO of Yahoo, and more recently when it became public knowledge that she'd changed the "Yahoo working from home" policy. She is also absurdly gorgeous, but I digress....
Jealouussss!
I found out about the Yahoo memo that will end working from home this Spring from a Facebook post of a friend of mine. The post was something along the lines of "SHAME ON YOU MARISSA MAYER. You are the worst ever and hate women trying to balance home and work."
Whoa.
And then a multitude of other articles came out with a similar sentiment. And...I don't get the vitriol. I definitely feel for anyone who was working hard from home and now has to rearrange their life to come into the office, but the outcry has been more than from just people who work at Yahoo. It's been everywhere and has ignited a whole work-from-home debate.
Here are my thoughts on the the topic.
1) Yahoo needs help.
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Yikes.
So the company needs help. Changes are needed.
2) Double Standard? I believe much of the outcry against Mayer has been because she is a woman and a mom, in addition to being a CEO.
For example, Best Buy did a similar change in policy for work from home lately and there hasn't been the same outcry. Apparently Mayer was able to build a nursery next to her office, which additionally pissed people off. But I mean...what else is new? Since when did CEOs not get insane perks and get to do stuff the ordinary person can't? (See Larry Ellison buying airline that will serve his Hawaiian island).
I really feel like the best thing Mayer can do for women, is to kick ass at her job, get Yahoo to be more successful, and show the world how great a female CEO in tech can be.
3) Expectations: My mind is blown by the amount of people who think coming into work should be optional when you have a job and are getting paid for it. I mean sure, if you applied for the job with the understanding it would be a remote position and the policy changes THAT BLOWS and I'm sorry. But, it's not unusual to see policies change over the years in companies, especially when there is abuse of the policy.
Maybe I'm just bitter because I can't work from home regularly.
4) How good YOU are at working from home: I think a lot of the outcry is coming from people who are seeing themselves as a Yahoo employee, even if they are not. Or those who think that Mayer's decision will change how other companies do things.
It's possible her change will cause other companies to follow suit, but I kinda of doubt it as it's not like this is some revolutionary policy that has never been thought of.
I can see in a job that is pretty standard (recording medical billing, for example) where there is little reason to come into the office. And I get the "I'm more productive from home" statement...because yeah...sometimes I am too. But Marissa Mayer's policy change isn't a statement on what the whole world should do, just what she thinks is right for Yahoo.
5) It's hard to argue with teamwork: Time for a running analogy: I almost always run harder and faster when in a group. This is why elites tend to have training partners. We learn things from each other and become better athletes (employees?) and friends when we spend time together. There is definite value to being around coworkers and building a team environment.
Soooo....What do you think about the work from home policy change? Have you ever worked from home? How did it go?
I think I'm in the minority in how I feel here, so I would love to hear what you think!
