I applaud Mayer's decision, because I loathe collaborating with remotes at my workplace. I can't just walk to a remote's office to ask them a question. I can't do in-person code reviews. In meetings, remotes miss out on all the natural human interactions and cues, so they constantly interrupt someone who is about to speak. Remotes can't talk to a specific person, so we all have to stop talking when any of them talk. Technical issues with the software are a constant annoyance, and slow all of us down. And God help us if there's more than one remote in a meeting: they talk over each other all the time.<p>I view remotes as a drain on the workplace and on my productivity, and I resent them for it. I've made the choice to live near my company's HQ, and make that damn commute every day, so that my workplace gets the best of me. Remotes have not, and I wonder if they get paid the same as me while they sit at home, and I view them as selfish.<p>The prospect of not having to tolerate remotes actually perks my interest in working at Yahoo.
<i>Remote workers must be judged on how much they produce, while office workers can show up for eight hours and that’s what the office manager remembers.</i><p>That's a common situation. I've also seen remote workers get away with doing almost nothing while the co-located ones pick up the slack. I've seen remote working be used as a "reward" for some, and it's lack be a "punishment" for others.<p>Letting any of these situations happen is down to lousy management and leadership.<p>I do a heck of a lot of remote work myself - I see many advantages to doing so. But from what I've seen it's not a universal performance benefit.<p>I've seen smart, committed teams almost double their measured performance by deciding to co-locate to a single team room... even with all the skype video / IM / chat windows you could wish for open. There's a lot of ambient communication that happens in meatspace.<p>I really wouldn't be surprised if this turns out to be a really smart decision for Yahoo!.
What's the point of the faux outrage at Yahoo's HR decision? Most of those outraged probably don't even use Yahoo or have a stake in its future. If they can't at least concede that Yahoo is a company that is fighting for its place in this world then I don't think reflexive justifications for these kinds of perks add much value to the conversation.
I agree with other commenters on this topic that really this is about forcing attrition. At some point Yahoo has to make big layoffs. We all know it. They know it. They employees there know it.<p>Getting a bunch of folks to jump before they're pushed is a great start. It reminds me of the two Bobs from office space: "we fixed the glitch... we tend to find it best to avoid confrontation".<p>There are plenty of rationalizations for both sides of this decision. I lean to the simplest explanation. They're happy to see folks go.
> Face time at the office shouldn’t trump productivity or collaboration, but in this case, it seems like that’s happening.<p>I don't think that's happening. I think they're trying to use face time at the office to drive productivity & collaboration.
"Remote workers must be judged on how much they produce, while office workers can show up for eight hours and that’s what the office manager remembers. "<p>Is that true in 2013? Are office workers in a tech company not judged by production?
Having worked at a large software corp I totally agreethat if you're a remote worker you have to work twice as hard on your output. Since you're not there in person to attend all the meetings, you're less "seen". This adds more pressure on you to deliver, get on calls, work weekends, etc.. I've seen people working from home in Australia and deliver amazing results (for a based SF company). If this is indeed about attrition, I think they may be losing more of the people that they would probably want to keep.
>Remote employees who wish to remain with Yahoo! must uproot their families, move to a more expensive city, and face an hours long commute each day. Frankly, I see the majority of them quitting and going to work for a startup closer to home.<p>I think she's drastically overestimating how easy it is to change jobs. There's also the fact that, Yahoo, as a large and well established firm, can offer things like generous insurance and retirement plans, which startups generally do not offer.
My guess....Yahoo needs to fire lotsa people (they have 18,000 employees), so probably they are starting: "Oh, you can't move your family from Small Town, Ohio to Big City in 7 days? Unfortunately we have to let you go."