Richard Branson Says That Marissa Mayer Got It Wrong About Remote Employees
Aimee Groth | Feb. 25, 2013, 5:24 PM | 5,563 | 21
Last week Yahoo CEO Marissa Mayer sent out a controversial memo telling remote employees that they either had to start working from a Yahoo office or quit.
Since then, everyone has been weighing in, including Virgin Founder Richard Branson. In a post this morning titled, Give People The Freedom Of Where To Work, he wrote:
To successfully work with other people, you have to trust each other. A big part of this is trusting people to get their work done wherever they are, without supervision. It is the art of delegation, which has served Virgin and many other companies well over the years.
We like to give people the freedom to work where they want, safe in the knowledge that they have the drive and expertise to perform excellently, whether they at their desk or in their kitchen. Yours truly has never worked out of an office, and never will.
So it was perplexing to see Yahoo! CEO Marissa Mayer tell employees who work remotely to relocate to company facilities. This seems a backwards step in an age when remote working is easier and more effective than ever.
If you provide the right technology to keep in touch, maintain regular communication and get the right balance between remote and office working, people will be motivated to work responsibly, quickly and with high quality.
Working life isn’t 9-5 any more. The world is connected. Companies that do not embrace this are missing a trick.
Ex-Yahoos Confess: Marissa Mayer Is Right To Ban Working From Home
Nicholas Carlson | Feb. 25, 2013, 3:16 PM | 85,571 | 63
Last Friday, Yahoo HR boss Jackie Reses sent out a memo telling all remote employees that they needed to find a way to be working in an office by June.
This upset lots of Yahoo employees – including some working mothers, who say they wish they could afford to build a nursery at the office the way CEO Marissa Mayer has.
But we’ve just heard from a former Yahoo engineer who tells us Mayer is making the exact right call.
“For what it’s worth, I support the no working form home rule. There’s a ton of abuse of that at Yahoo. Something specific to the company.”
This source said Yahoo’s large remote workforce led to “people slacking off like crazy, not being available, spending a lot of time on non-Yahoo! projects.” Read more of this post
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