It’s natural there was a brouhaha over Marissa Mayer’s email
to Yahoo employees putting an end to the open telecommuting approach
the company had allowed employees to take advantage it. And boy have they! According to one account, 200 Yahoo
employees don’t come to work...ever. And
at least some of them may not actually be producing work at all, as the account
cited cases where employees are abusing the work-from-home policies by ignoring
the Yahoo work part and starting side ventures during work time.
While neither Mayers nor Yahoo were willing to go on the
record to further explain the directive, other unnamed sources explained that Yahoo’s lack-luster corporate culture and poor workplace
reputation were directly impacted by what seems to be an apathetic and
uninspired home workforce. As the company stated in a follow-up – this is what Yahoo needs and is not an indictment on the concept
of telecommuting.
Now that cooler minds consider her action, it looks like the Mayer’s decision is less
about telecommuting and more about the lethargy that has plagued Yahoo for
years. But for Mayer, being a woman – and
a rich new mom with a nursery next to her office – this decision appeared to
turn back the clock on feminism and the benefits (long proven by many
businesses and organizations) that telecommuting brings to job productivity (telecommuters
tend to work longer hours and create more work product) and company loyalty. In fact, the Yahoo decision really appears to
be a sensible reaction to a policy gone awry and the need to regroup and
rebuild a new culture in a company at a critical crossroads – face to face. Perhaps the tone of the email wasn't inspirational, but the need for it is evident in Yahoo's current performance.
Another side of the 'in person' debate was presented by NYT contributor Thomas Friedman in his piece on the evolution of learning. MOOCs (massive online open courses ) are beginning to draw millions of online participants, many learning from some of the most esteemed educators in the world, for free and in the comfort of their home, car, office, you name it. At a time when college loan debt has reached a staggering $1 trillion in the US and with college tuitions rising over the past two decades at three times the rate of inflation, MOOCs have got to be one of the biggest black clouds hanging over the head of the middle-of-the-road private colleges whose reputation and draw can't rival the Ivy's, but with tuitions that are double those of state universities.
These colleges are in most cases hunkering down and making the case for face-to-face classroom time. They are stressing the incomparable value of real-time interaction with professors as the rationale to continue to pay a king's ransom, and for many to in fact ransom future financial security, for traditional college courses on campus. Can the raison d’etre of a college be purely the in-person experience? This in an age when technology is making the virtual experience easier, better and cheaper?
I don’t believe the action by Yahoo (and now Best Buy,
another company with issues) signals the end of telecommuting. The success
stories outweigh the downsides.
Companies are smart enough to know that happy employees with flexible
work arrangements bring their "A game".
They are investing in the technology that allows all of use to answer
emails and work on presentations from our phones, tablets and laptops at all
hours of the day. And with increased
globalization, how can a 9 to 5 workday begin to make sense for everyone, all
the time, as we cross time zones with colleagues and customers?
No doubt the physical college campus will also stay around. But the fast growing MOOCs are a signal that college administrators must
take heed. The world is evolving. Student debt is becoming a political issue
and the means exist for students to take a new and different road to
education. As Friedman writes, "We’re moving to a more competency-based world where there will be
less interest in how you acquired the competency and more demand to prove that
you mastered the competency." Colleges
need to create experiences for students that go far beyond the classroom and
provide hands-on interaction and experiences that cannot be replicated online.
At
the end of the day managers, CEOs, students and educators need to figure out when we need to be able
to smell each other to be successful.
