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I currently work from home and have for about two years. My company allowed me to telecommute full time when my wife got a job in Southern California (company is based in the Bay).
Every other job I have had (and I've had a lot) has been in a traditional office setting. What working from home has really pointed out to me more than anything is just how much we spend on our commutes (mostly talking about money but time too). If I got another job outside of working from home (which I've had a handful of interviews for), I wouldn't get a car (wife and I have one) but even transit fare adds up very quickly.
Anyways I don't have much of an opinion on the subject other than it works for me, I get just about as much done, am much more flexible (able and willing to answer emails after work hours), plus I have a $0 commute that takes 5 minutes.
How much does one's EAGERNESS TO TELECOMMUTE depend upon the time and distance of the commute?
I think the shorter the commute, the less hassle it is for Yahoo-ers and others to return to the office.
I don't care if it's across the street, personally.
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Originally Posted by Geologic
I think having a huge number of telecommuters in a company WILL tend to fragment company loyalty, and so I suppose I agree with the CEO, who is fighting to bring back a pro-company spirit, and foster a more cooperative, open communication.
What you think and what actually happens are two different things. It doesn't have to "fragment" anything; work isn't a sorority mixer. If a job requires being on site, then it requires being on site. Some jobs don't require it. That's just how it is.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Geologic
Good luck to her, and for those folks who think they had a job which allowed a long commute only for those odd days they were in the office, well: Think again.
Think again if you are considering Yahoo as a bellwether.
Good luck to her, and for those folks who think they had a job which allowed a long commute only for those odd days they were in the office, well: Think again.
My guess is Yahoo is making this decision because 1.) they are preparing for layoffs and are using this to promote attrition, 2.) New CEO's make changes, any changes, just for the purpose of saying they made a change. CEO's come and go, corporate policies come and go. What happens this year won't be the same as next. This CEO will leave, probably in the next 24 months, and the new one will bring back telecommuting.
And for future trends in the workplace - welcome to the 21st century and out from under your rock. My boss works in The Netherlands, my other coworkers work in Singapore, or maybe Germany, or one in about a dozen locations in the US. I use the internet, company intranet tools, meeting software, internet calls with or without video, live meeting where we can share screens, if I need face to face contact - I travel. In a few weeks I will be in India....Welcome to globalization. It's what is happening. If a person can't adapt to telecommuting, that person will be replaced.
Or, you can stick to that rewarding and high-paying career in the service industry (McDonald's/Wallmart) where this technology is not applicable.
Exactly. And as Kat said, the CEO is a control freak.
There is no sinister plot afoot to eliminate telecommuting as an option for companies who wish to offer this benefit to their employees. I highly doubt that every employer is going to follow Yahoo's lead just because they're Yahoo.
I'd be happy with being allowed to work from home one or two days a week. Other than that, I like being in the dysfunctional workplace and enjoy the give-and-take of my crazy co-workers, as annoying as they can be at times. My cats really aren't much help when I need fresh ideas.
Agreed, though from what I know of people who work in programming, a large part of the job is discussing ideas with co-workers rather than just sitting at a desk and coding. Telecommuting all the time wouldn't be ideal.
I grew up in a mill town in western Pennsylvania, which was part of a network of other mill towns near Pittsburgh. The factories were not in the downtowns of any of these places. They were on the edges. Of course, some of these towns weren't that big, so there were factories near the residential areas. There were no steel mills in downtown Pittsburgh, either. In fact, there were only a few mills in the city proper.
In the late 1940s, New York City had industrial 500,000 jobs in what would be equivalent to a downtown elsewhere (manhattan south of 59th street). Of course, these factories weren't steel mills. Plenty of port jobs as well. The jobs are long gone but you can still see traces of an industrial past if you look carefully. I assume some were in walking distance to work, more weren't.
Yahoo, working at home: Marissa Mayer has made a terrible mistake—working from home is great for employees and employers. - Slate Magazine
**Numerous studies have found that people can be more productive when they’re allowed to work away from the office. One, released this month by researchers at Stanford, showed that when Chinese call-center employees were allowed to work from home, their performance increased by 13 percent. Considering such gains, it’s likely that Yahoo’s new ban will force remote workers to alter their work lives in a way that will lower their productivity. It will also put Yahoo at odds with just about every other tech company in Silicon Valley—firms that don’t impose such rules on working from home, and with whom Yahoo competes for talent.
The challenge with working at home is motivation. It’s best when you have very dedicated employees who are passionate about a company or project. If people are literally just “phoning it in” and doing the minimum to keep from getting laid off, it can be a problem. Yahoo! has been a unfocused mess for years and years. In that particular case, it might be well to bring everyone back into the office.
I don't necessarily see how telecommuting will save the suburbs. There's no necessary reason that someone with the flexibility to choose a house without a commute would pick a suburb. More likely, if they work from home they would want to be somewhere less isolated.
I have no studies to support it, but I think that those sorts of gains may be short-lived.
Other studies have shown that ANY sort of changing, painting the walls a new color - for instance, can bring short lived productivity gains.
If a job is highly routine and predictable, without need much communication with co-workers, I can see it working. But if the tasks require responding to change in a coordinated way, the coordination benefits from face-to-face interaction.
I have no studies to support it, but I think that those sorts of gains may be short-lived.
Other studies have shown that ANY sort of changing, painting the walls a new color - for instance, can bring short lived productivity gains.
If a job is highly routine and predictable, without need much communication with co-workers, I can see it working. But if the tasks require responding to change in a coordinated way, the coordination benefits from face-to-face interaction.
You interpreted Missy Moron's edict through your anti-suburb filters. Do you think SHE cares about the city, the suburbs, whatever? H*ll no! She, who is refusing to let her employees telecommute, had a nursery built next to her office, so she can attend to her new baby when she wants to. (Preferably, probably after the nanny has fed, bathed and changed the baby!)
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