Everyone seems to be mind boggled with the
storm brought by Marissa Mayer last week when she banned the work from home
policy at Yahoo!
I don’t see a reason for this
after-madness.
I think there will always be people who
will be for and against the motion about everything under the sun and what
matters is what do you think is right to do and whether you have the authority
to it. Not to forget the time to make a decision and the justification which
you put across are dangerously important.
Justification, however is never going to be
convincing enough for anyone who does not believ in something that is just
imposed upon. Justifications are usually the aftermath of a decision which is
nothing but – rationalizing an emotional decision.
Coming back to the point on whether or not
Marissa Mayer is right in doing what she did. Well, I certainly think she atleast
cannot be foolishly wrong with decision. The whole idea from work-from-home has
been seriously abused by people in industries.
Before even jumping into passing opinions about
the quality of the decision, we must first understand, work-from-home is not
for all the industries and set-ups.
Work-from-home claims to brew creativity in
people and hence not doing so, will be stifling the creative being in a person.
Patrons also claimed that the idea of having a changed work-place is more often
than not improved the productivity of employees. Not to mention the buttressing
arguments of being comfortable, relaxed, secured etc which sounds like a terrific
medicine to make people innovative.
Not that all of this is untrue. But to what
extent it is true and in what circumstances it is true are two important questions
to be asked.
The idea of work-from-home as mentioned earlier
is one of the most abused working concepts of today’s workplace conundrum. The
number of people who are genuinely opening their creative pores sitting in
their shorts with their dog sitting next to them, is far lesser than what
patrons claims for. Instead work-from-home has become more often a holiday that
was not approved!
Yes, again, nothing is completely true and
same can be applied to the above statement. But what must be looked upon as
well are the rational arguments that justifies the fact that work-from-home
definitely is not the best thing in recent times which has happened to
workplace policies in organizations.
When people meet, they talk. When they talk
in offices or workplace, more often than not, they will talk about work, peers,
superiors etc. This helps the organization in number of ways –
There are common talking points between in
peers making them not just tw computers sitting next to each other but people
who mutually exists
Discussions in offices are one of the major
reason why work-from-home must be abolished. It allows people to argue and
counter argue. It allows people to filter and refine their thoughts at a much
earlier stage, hence saving a lot of
productive time and possible resources
A common identity which is associated with
the employees is the workplace which all of them visit every day and associate
with. Taking that away from employees is pushing the people away from that
single association point
Yes, we are in 2012 and yes, u have heard
of e-mail, outlook, skype, twitter, fb etc but when you want to discuss an
issue or an idea, nothing is more effective than a peer or a real team sitting
together instead of 4 small video windows on your screens with your team
looking and talking in different directions
Finally, it is important to trust your
employees and give them the liberty to do their work, but can anyone deny that productivity
always needs to be enhanced and to do that you must first know how to manage
it. And how will you manage it, when you do not have enough and correct
parameters to evaluate it? I mean the time spent, the efforts expensed, the
results achieved(tangible and intangible) etc.
No wonder people are unhappy with this move
by Yahoo! CEO, but is it surprising? A big chunk of people who were having time
of their lives by working-from-home are suddenly questioned about their
productivity. They have suddenly realized they are under radar too. And they
have certainly realized that the party is over for them. And it is just to be
seen , who all follow the suit.
I think Marissa Mayer did just the right
thing. It is not more home sweet home for work! Now say Yahoo!
