Late last month, Yahoo CEO Marissa Mayer announced her company would be putting an end to any work-from-home agreements it had with its employees.
In a company-wide memo, Mayer told her workers that as of June, it would be mandatory for them to report to the office on a daily basis.
Throughout the business world, be it in large international corporations down to smaller businesses, the trend has been to increase employee freedom and flexibility.
This makes Mayer’s announcement not only seem against the grain but downright archaic. Indeed, the loudest responses to the announcement have been from those who see the move as anti-progressive.
Sir Richard Branson, the founder of Virgin Group and a man who knows a thing or two about running a business, has been the heaviest hitter.
In a blog post a few days after the news, Branson wrote: “Many employees who work from home are extremely diligent, get their job done, and get to spend more time with their families. They waste less time commuting and get a better work-life balance. To force everybody to work in offices is old school thinking.”
The British billionaire went so far as to say that with the pace of technology, in 30 years people will look back and wonder why offices even existed.
That's not to suggestw that Mayer’s decision is entirely without merit.
In her memo she says “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.”
While the argument makes sense it neglects the fact that times have changed.
A whole new generation of employees is no longer satisfied with a rigid, clock in-clock out, sit in a cubicle and suffer through commuter traffic, kind of job.
The effects of burn-out, low office morale and the increased benefits of working from home have been well documented and the call for change has been so strong it has sparked its own industry called ‘work-shifting’.
IT companies are now specialising in helping other companies shift from a traditional office to a more flexible work-from-anywhere network.
Fuelled Networks, a Kanata based IT firm, is leading the way in the Ottawa area.
In an article on the issue, Ernie Sherman, the company’s president, says that a balance between work and life is a priority for most employees.
“The ability to allow your top team members to fulfill this goal in their life will help in getting your best employee’s engaged and keep them around for a long time,” he wrote.
Sherman notes that security issues have hindered companies from making the leap in the past but with recent technological advancements in the field.
He says companies can rest easy knowing employees can work and share company information from anywhere securely.
According to a 2010 Statistics Canada report, around 3.6 million Canadians had the luxury of working from home.
That number has surely grown in the past few years with Canadian companies such as Telus having as many as 50 per cent of their employees work from outside the office. The company even has a goal to have that raised to 70 per cent by 2015.
A recent U.S. study found that one in five Americans works from home and that number is expected to grow by as much as 63 per cent in the next five years.
Numbers like these show that allowing employees to work from outside the office has been on the rise for a reason.
Because it works: It’s cheaper for companies who can cut down on office space, reduces their carbon footprint by eliminating commuting and allows companies to attract creative, young talent who feel stifled by a traditional office setting.
Mayer, Yahoo’s fifth CEO in four years, is living dangerously indeed if she hopes her company can buck the trend.