Melissa Meyer, the former Vice President at Google, joined Yahoo as President and CEO in July last year to move the company in the right direction.
Mayer got off to a good start with the changes she made by making all meals at the office canteen free of charge and gave every member of staff an IPhone.
However, her biggest change has courted controversy In an email on behalf of Meyer, the company’s Head of HR, Jackie Rees, stated that all employees had to report to the office for work by June 2013 or quit. She stated that “we need to be one Yahoo!, and that starts being physically together”. Rees herself is now commuting 6000 miles from her home in New York to the Head Offices in Sunnyvale, California.
It is likely that most current home working employees (of which there are several hundred) will not be happy with this decision, they will have to relocate to enable them to get to a Yahoo office and many will likely resign from the company.
This decision has brought about a negative impression in the media of CEO Mayer and what she is doing to turn things around at Yahoo.
Mayer has made a calculated business decision based upon what is working and is not working for the company as a whole. She believes that home working has run it’s course and has decided that a return to traditional office based working is more efficient and effective for her company.
Employees have been given until June 2013 to make this transition to office working.
Homeworking is fast becoming the norm in a lot of businesses. It is a useful way of keeping members of staff happy and to enable staff to allow employees to enjoy a better work/life balance. Mayer is therefore going against the grain in terms of “progressive” HR practice and has come in for some criticism as a result.
If you allow employees to work from home it would be advisable if you write down the terms and conditions upon which you will authorise such working arrangements. You should agree with your employees the terms of these arrangements and you should determine how you will measure acceptable performance levels.
It is advisable to conduct a risk assessment of the employees working conditions at home as this will, in effect, his or her workplace.
All employers can learn from Mayers experience and should ensure that they properly think through the implications of allowing home working. Many organisations find that home working works well for the employee and the employer, however some employers, like Mayer, prefer to stick to traditional working arrangements.
Both approaches have their merits. Make sure that you consider all your options before you decide which is the appropriate approach for you.