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Agreed. Yahoo could have done a more surgically precise removal of telecommuting. One done with a scalpel rather than with a butcher knife.
Quiet is good, but it's a rare commodity. One of the many reasons I'm glad I got used to working in chaotic and noisy newsrooms in my younger years.
From: beelia [mailto:beelia -at- gmail -dot- com]
Sent: Monday, February 25, 2013 2:42 PM
To: Keith Hood
Cc: Porrello, Leonard; Cardimon, Craig; Janoff, Steven; TECHWR-L
Subject: Re: Yahoo!'s telecommute policy
Now that I've read the article explaining her rationale, I understand why she's doing it. It's true that some people aren't disciplined enough to work alone, or the conditions in their home environments are too distracting for them to focus on their jobs.
But this decision is throwing out the baby with the bathwater. They need to separate out those employees who don't do well at home from those who do. Maybe the telecommuting policy at Yahoo will change back after the problems have been sorted out.
Tech writers in particular need the peace and quiet of a home office to get quality work done. A lot of Silicon Valley companies have gone to cubicle-less environments that are bad for employees who need to focus. For that reason, you couldn't pay me enough to work at Facebook.
Bee
On Mon, Feb 25, 2013 at 11:24 AM, Keith Hood <klhra -at- yahoo -dot- com<mailto:klhra -at- yahoo -dot- com>> wrote:
Fuel cost is part of it. Companies are already under pressure from the EPA to reduce the number of miles driven by commuting employees. They're
urged to support carpooling and van-share programs. Seems to me that if they showed the EPA how many miles are saved by having people work remotely, they'd come out ahead. Remote working would probably become a new standard if companies could get a tax credit for that mileage reduction.
I've always thought that for office-type jobs that don't involve dealing with customers or partners, the financial analysis would be overwhelmingly on the side of remote working. If everyone works at home the company doesn't have to maintain physical plant for their use - no building to rent, no paying people to mow the grass around it, no furniture to buy, no electric bill, no water bill. And I wonder if any company has ever thought of arguing down their insurance costs because of remote work. If an employee slips and falls in his own house, the company isn't liable.
The opinions on Forbes that I have read are in favor of Mayer. The business side of things wants everyone under the same roof, apparently.
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