Working from Home (Yahoo CEO stops it)

[Desi Cartman]

Yes, that was eggajacly the point, was it not? :cantstop: Point is rather simple - Today's entitlement crowd often makes it sound as if they are moving mountains to get to work, reality is that is hardly the case.

It's not entitlement :wall: it's something which has become available only recently. Companies benefit from it all the time, I used to get calls for IBM at 1 am, yeh ho sakta tha 25 saal pehle ? It I say I'm a little unwell my boss says but do you mind still replying to emails when you can and jump on to few calls ? So it's not one way traffic. See I get to work by 9.30-10.00 but I wake up at 7.00 and spend an hour at home going through emails, getting important stuff done even before I get ready to leave for work, so isn't the employer benefitting by employees replying to email 24-7 and also available at odd hours ? Aur yeh entitlement kya laga rakha hai, aise to we should also not use dishwasher and air conditioner as 30 years ago people in India didn't have these

[triam]

Agree with Desi in this, calling it entitlement is wrong, previously people worked ina company got pensions and more or less the jobs were for life (would you call this entitlement?) IF people used to amputate legs due to diabetes now that we dont and treat it with medicine, is tht also entitlement? Do you think yahoo can attract top talent with this policy? as a top notch whiz coming out of mit or stanford would i choose yahoo or some other company where I feel the company trusts more?

[Desi Cartman]

^ my employer has remote employees as they cant find enough talented people in bay area or their other offies in big cities. We have people working from Ohio who WFH and have been great employees. So it does work both ways

[veer]

As I said before I think WFH is not for everyone.. one will take it based on indivial's style of working and his/her work ethics. Some will take it as entitlement and other will take it as a perk.. Two recent experience.. There is this Project Manager who used to work at my office.. but heard she had to move to Austin cuz her husband got a new job there. Now, she works remotely entirely. However, she is heading a high stake project and the way she is leading/managing this project is mind blowing. She is super quick and arranges her daily calls very efficiently. It is more problem for her that she has to manage everything while working remotely Another incident my wife told me yesterday: She works with three senior colleagues... But one of them is very laid-back .. comes in at work at 10-10:30.. and leaves at 6-6:30 (yeahh manager is too soft).. and other two are good and responsible employees. My wife told me these other two were called into office and told by manager that he has ordered laptops for them and they can work two days from home every week.. but he also told both of them not to talk about this arrangement to third colleague since he doesnt trust her to work responsibly from home and hence she wouldnt have this privilage to work from home.

[Lurker]

It's not entitlement :wall: it's something which has become available only recently. Companies benefit from it all the time, I used to get calls for IBM at 1 am, yeh ho sakta tha 25 saal pehle ? It I say I'm a little unwell my boss says but do you mind still replying to emails when you can and jump on to few calls ? So it's not one way traffic. See I get to work by 9.30-10.00 but I wake up at 7.00 and spend an hour at home going through emails, getting important stuff done even before I get ready to leave for work, so isn't the employer benefitting by employees replying to email 24-7 and also available at odd hours ?

Desi boss with respect, snap out of it. Every job, and specially true in IT, has those challenges. And yet there is a reason why people take IT jobs (read high $$). Frankly it comes with the territory mate. I know it sounds tough but if one does not like it, take up teaching for example. You get paid 60K but one will have enough time.

Aur yeh entitlement kya laga rakha hai, aise to we should also not use dishwasher and air conditioner as 30 years ago people in India didn't have these

Because there is a sense of entitlement that employers, or even your fellow colleague, have to make extra room for you. Too often the folks who make a case for WFH are those who have a lot of things going on in life (read family, kids etc etc). A yuppie college going grad does not WFH. It is a mid 30s parent who does that. Why should there be a sense of entitlement for the latter?? You can even include entitlement in the sense of commute. Those complaining about commute made a conscious choice to be in a big town (which includes me by the way). If you dont like commute buy a house in Tucson, AZ. 5 minute ka commute and housing would be fraction as well. Of course the jobs you get will also pay less. When people make a decision to stay in a big city they have to live with consequences.

[Lurker]

Do you think yahoo can attract top talent with this policy? as a top notch whiz coming out of mit or stanford would i choose yahoo or some other company where I feel the company trusts more?

Talent does not go where trust is. It goes where the top $$$ are. And yes if Yahoo pays top $$$ the same talent will make a beeline ahead of the competitors.

[Desi Cartman]

Desi boss with respect, snap out of it. Every job, and specially true in IT, has those challenges. And yet there is a reason why people take IT jobs (read high $$). Frankly it comes with the territory mate. I know it sounds tough but if one does not like it, take up teaching for example. You get paid 60K but one will have enough time. Because there is a sense of entitlement that employers, or even your fellow colleague, have to make extra room for you. Too often the folks who make a case for WFH are those who have a lot of things going on in life (read family, kids etc etc). A yuppie college going grad does not WFH. It is a mid 30s parent who does that. Why should there be a sense of entitlement for the latter?? You can even include entitlement in the sense of commute. Those complaining about commute made a conscious choice to be in a big town (which includes me by the way). If you dont like commute buy a house in Tucson, AZ. 5 minute ka commute and housing would be fraction as well. Of course the jobs you get will also pay less. When people make a decision to stay in a big city they have to live with consequences.

of course the company can ask people to work from anywhere they want them to, they can ask them to relocate or demote them or fire them and the employee also has a right to resign and find another job. So I am not saying that a company doesnt have these rights, my point is that WFH has its advantages and it also helps the company. Whom it helps the most is debatable. As for who works from home and who doesnt, with experience employees become more valuable while new comers can be easily replaced so yes the people in 30s-40s etc do get some leeway but because they have experience which is hard for the employer to find.

[jusarrived]

I go to office just once or twice a week , only for my interractions with my team . Otherwise most of my work is with our clients in NA . Personally for me , its a very good option . I probabaly work 2-3 extra hrs when at home , which i normally lose out in travelling if I have to go to office .

[jusarrived]

in Addition to that , lesser Cigi/Coffee breaks , no dinner breaks ..so yeah my productivity is better when I WFH>

[triam]

Talent does not go where trust is. It goes where the top $$$ are. And yes if Yahoo pays top $$$ the same talent will make a beeline ahead of the competitors.

Every tech giant pays the same $$$$, thats why google and fb advertise ping pong tables and skateboards etc, so yes Yahoo will have a recruiting problem, the company I used to work for had the same problem we were in the east coast and paid the top most dollar but recruiting was such a big pain because of the reputatioon we had in the market (deservedly so) of being sweat shops for development.

[Jersey #10]

It's very simple. The company has been doing terrible for a while now. They need to cut the work force down and still be more productive. I think this is an excellent move from the company's stand point. the ones who absolutely can not work away from home will leave cutting the work force down. And let's face it, the work from home idea is a lose situation for the company. How many work from home people actually work full 8 hours a day? Most I know work maybe 3-4 hours a day max while rest of their time is occupied with children, cooking, tv, cleaning etc. When you have people actually working at the office, you get a better idea of how many employees each departments need. Yahoo had to take the firm moves and I am happy to see that. Yahoo.com is absolutely not the best looking search engine out there. They have been tweaking it a little here and there but no major transformations that they so desperately need have come about. It's a good move.

[triam]

For a company in turmoil such as yahoo which has to do serious reorganizing and sort out its priorities this move makes sense in the short term. Longer term for yahoo this will not work in attracting and retaining top talent (this is how most IT contractors are treated who bill by the hour make more than regular employees but are short term and dont have the employee perks). I recruit from top univs for my team every year, and believe me salaries are just 1 piece of the pitch that needs to go to them.

[Precambrian]

Combination of both... I get up early and work with a fresh mind and concentration on very critical activities.. by around noon head off to office... chitchat etc and then come back home... I am a believer in work being a psrt of life mon to fri. And my firm never encourages anybody to work on sat and sun..

[yoda]

BTW yahoo is not saying no to work from home at all, just no to working from home all the time.

[Crookbond]

Talent does not go where trust is. It goes where the top $$$ are. And yes if Yahoo pays top $$$ the same talent will make a beeline ahead of the competitors.

Sorry - not true. It's a combination of a conducive environment with good pay. A hostile environment with more pay will not attract the BEST, it will only attract a majority of workers who are willing to sacrifice personal liberty a la cheap skates. Check this below video and see what Zuckerberg, Dorsey say about employee retention via perks. Work for home should be thought about as a "perk". nKIu9yen5nc

[Ram]

Yahoo did the right thing by bringing this out in the open' date=' instead of scheming a mechanism of outwitting its employees. [b']I am a little surprised that you advocate creating a false sense of policy which at its core means employees would fail to comply. Personally I would much rather have my employer tell me directly to come to work or stop collecting the paycheck.

Come on Lurks - Isnt that what happens every single day across corporate America? These perks (like WFH, flexible work-hours, stock options etc) are nothing but great marketing tools to lure prospective innocent employees. And then, when its time to actually implement them, the idea is to make it as uncomfortable as possible for your people to avail these options. So you get the best of both worlds - You can recruit the best AND also have them to be productive.

[EnterTheVoid]

Whatever the issue is, stay away from office politics. I was fortunate enough to have a strong support base of friends who advised me how to diplomatically handle the situation. Was literally Skying one friend after the other

[dial_100]

It goes both ways i feel. The guys who work from office have 9-6 approach to their work. For those who work from home have habit of logging in at odd hours to make sure that they have not missed something. With global teams, its unavoidable to not have odd hours these days. But for some of the critical phases of your work, you wished you had all the members of your team in the same room, let alone same office. Sometime team in the same building are so far apart that they only see each other during lunch hour. Occasional Face2Face can take care of that where a large war rooms reserved for entire week where you get all important people available and decisions are made in a room. A good balance of 2 days WFH and 3 days in office works great for few.

[Lurker]

Come on Lurks - Isnt that what happens every single day across corporate America? These perks (like WFH, flexible work-hours, stock options etc) are nothing but great marketing tools to lure prospective innocent employees. And then, when its time to actually implement them, the idea is to make it as uncomfortable as possible for your people to avail these options. So you get the best of both worlds - You can recruit the best AND also have them to be productive.

You are far too young to be that cynical Sriram, leave that route for conspiracy minded to embark upon :winky: I would personally appreciate my employer to tell me directly that WFH is not an option than to beat around the bush and cheating me out of that.

[Lurker]

As for who works from home and who doesnt' date=' with experience employees become more valuable while new comers can be easily replaced so yes [b']the people in 30s-40s etc do get some leeway but because they have experience which is hard for the employer to find.

:headshake::headshake: