Dear (Cite Contribution),
Debates are raging on CEO of Yahoo, Ms Marissa Mayer's decision to ban "work from home" across the globe. However, I would like to clarify here few things. Why companies give facility of "work from home"? It is because it suits everybody. The reasons are as below:
a) It helps employees in maintaining work-life balance as no unnecessary wastage of time in commuting to office.
b) At home one is always relaxed
c) It is a major cost cutting tool for companies. It saves company's cost on power, water, office space, crèche, and so on
d) Lastly, it is not a "process" but it is a provision or facility. As long as deliverables are met, from where employees work that does not matter.
As of now this is only a decision and we can assess it's efficacy only after a year or later. To draw a conclusion that "work from home" has failed would be a too sweeping statement. In Marathi, there is a proverb "Suta varun swarga gathane" (its loose meaning is drawing conclusion by logical overreach). There is absolutely no guarantee that taking cue from Ms Mayer, other software companies will follow suit.
When a CEO and that too of the stature of company like Yahoo takes a decision to ban work from home, it should not be seen from the point of deliverables and KRA etc. This is applicable up to the level of Project Manager and that is all. Ms Mayer's major challenge is to give reasonable value to the shareholders' money. After taking over she did not make significant gain as such but then she could elevate confidence of the of the investors and arrested the downhill of the share value. This in itself is major achievement.
The major challenge of Yahoo is lack of innovation. Somewhere in 2007 two major companies, Google and Apple entered into telecom segment and all of a sudden changed the rules of the game. A change was so comprehensive that it questioned the very existence of companies like Yahoo, Microsoft, Dell, HP, Nokia etc. None of the company is in position to compete with Apple or Google. Though ruled the roost at one time, business pundits question existence of Microsoft after five years.
This is a classic example of leadership's obsession with vision. While setting the eyes beyond horizon, also have a feel of the ground beneath you. What is the use of having eyes on horizon if all of sudden ground starts shaky?
Today, Yahoo's major challenge is to show innovation into some segment. Most of the sectors are already taken over by Google. Where will it go? Search engine is no longer a potent source of revenue. Against Google's share of 66%, Yahoo stands at just 6%
When Ms Marissa Mayer took a decision, she wanted to improve the people to people interaction. She wanted that question or challenge should come from the colleagues. As of now Yahoos are just doing what they are told to do. For software professionals job, work from home is enough. However, it appears that Ms Mayer wanted a big churning of ideas and she believes that it can come from personal interaction hence this decision.
In my training on "Strategy", I use case study of Yahoo. Anyway, I am thankful to Ms Mayer because of her new and strange decision yet another leaf has been added.
Ok...
Dinesh V Divekar