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| Marissa Mayer, CEO of Yahoo! |
There are distinct advantages to telecommuting for both employers and employees. On the side of the employers, it decreases the need for office space. Employees benefit from the flexibility of telecommuting by saving time that would have been used for commuting and having flexible work hours to accommodate family and other needs. However, there are distinct weaknesses to telecommuting. The main obstacle to working at a distance is the suitability of the task to telecommuting. Individual tasks with clearly defined goals are best done by telecommuters, whereas complex, creative, and collaborative projects are more difficult to complete without the social interaction that is inherent in the office environment. Mayer's decision was based on what she wanted to accomplish within the company; fostering creativity and collaboration. These goals were perceived to be unattainable while employees worked in solitude from their homes.
Yahoo's decision to end telecommuting has been seen as radical by many in the IT community who embrace the use of technology to increase flexibility in the workplace. However, Yahoo's CEO Marissa Mayer (who made the call to end telecommuting) has emphasized that Yahoo's actions are "wrongly perceived as an industry narrative". While this may not have been her intention, a week after her announcement, Best Buy also announced that it would end its telecommuting program as well. What do you think about Yahoo's move and Best Buy's subsequent decision? Do you see this as a reversal of the trend towards greater workplace flexibility?
telecommuting could be beneficial to certain businesses and might not be the case for others. if Yahoo and Best Buy see that telecommuting is not working for them that does not mean that IT tool is worthless. I think a business should determine from its perspective whether the telecommuting is helpful or not to its business operations. The business operations in the information age sometimes necessitate working from long distance instead of traveling back and forth from different locations. It all depends to what type of business telecommuting should work more efficiently in my opinion.
ReplyDeleteYeah, you definitely have a point. Some companies such as IBM, which primarily deals in sales have more jobs that are better suited to be completed from outside an office environment. After all, a salesman who spends all day in the office probably isn't doing a very good job, right?
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