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It all depends. Many years ago, I worked for a big San Jose company as a
full time telecommuter. It was part of the contract I signed to work there.
My pay was based on me not living in California. It was about 2/3rds the
salaries of several I knew who did live there and worked on-site.
I can't say for sure, but seeing most of those San Jose companies trade
people with some regularity, I bet the same type of pay structure exist at
Yahoo. Live and work in San Jose and work in the office - paid $120,000.
Live and work from home in some other state - paid $80,000. I'm sure she
isn't planning on giving them all a raise to come into the office.
I see several things happening. If they change your location, and you are a
regular employee, then the company is responsible for moving you. The
financial hit isn't a good thing on thousands of employees.
Second, the pay structure will have to change. A person working in Arkansas
can't afford to work for that in San Jose, not unless the housing market has
collapsed much more than anyone admits.
Third, doing this en mass is a really dumb idea. One or two go out the door
quietly, and no one cares. 5000 go out the door and the proverbial brown
stuff hits the rotating air mover. Someone in that group is smart enough to
organize and gets a class action suit going. This has occurred before with a
few SJ companies, although they try hard to keep it quiet. And that does
impact stock.
Fourth, I really don't know, but SJ is an area where making employees
stockholders is common, so they could be booting a lot of stockholders. One
lesson companies are slow to learn, but feel the impact from, is don't make
your stockholders mad, and firing them really makes them mad.
What all these Yahoos should do, if they had any sense, is team up.5000 out
the door today just means that it is easier to kick another 5000 out in a
few months. But if they all team up and quit, or threaten to, policies can
change. It is a unique strategy called striking. However, the very liberal
and sophisticated minds of Silicon Valley would never want to stoop to the
blue collar mentality. As such, they will all lose their jobs when they have
the power to not only keep their jobs, but to keep status quo on working
locations.
If I were to place a bet, I bet there is a strong chance they are getting
ready to sell Yahoo. She is the hatchet person, in to clean house, make the
stock look good, polish the product to make it shine, and raise the value,
so the buyers think they are getting a great deal. Dump a lot of people,
then profits look very good, both total and profit per employee, and the
company becomes an easy sell.
She looks too young (37) to be this closed minded to the work mindset of the
21st Century with a company whose goal is to make work feasible online and
from anywhere. She is a tool, sent to do a job, and that job won't be good
for those who work there.
-----Original Message-----
From: On Behalf Of Keith Hood
Sent: Monday, February 25, 2013 8:35 AM
To: Cardimon, Craig; 'Anne Robotti'; 'TECHWR-L'
Subject: Yahoo!'s telecommute policy (was Re: Telecommuting ( was: Do as I
say, not as I do ))
Irony squared and cubed. The CEO of a 21st century electronic company which
makes money by enabling people to find things and take actions over the
internet, insisting on enforcing a process control model straight out of the
1940s.
I think it's likely that she is doing this because she is <i>hoping</i> it
will cause a lot of people to jump ship. She got the job by promising she'd
make the company's margins better. One way to make the numbers look better
is to cut the head count. This way she gets the same effect as a mass layoff
without the bad publicity that a mass layoff would cause. There will be some
badmouthing from workers, of course, but it won't be the same scope and this
way of downsizing is less likely to get the stock analysts worked up.
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