Culture of Onsite vs Remote Employees
Today, an internal Yahoo! memo was leaked in which all employees were told that working from home is no longer an option. The reasons for this change as listed in the memo include:
- Onsite employees participate in the company culture and contribute to the positive momentum
- Some of the best decisions and insights happen impromptu in hallways and cafeterias and by meeting new people
- The need to be one Yahoo!
Perhaps this move by Yahoo! is about rectifying some its problems and should not be broadly applied to healthier companies, as is suggested by Geoffrey Moore. But the reasons listed in the memo are strong arguments for having a culture of onsite employees.
However, I think flexibility is required. Employees should feel comfortable working from home when needed. ROWE should be the aspiration of the culture. Providing reasonable personal flexibility can help employees maximize their productivity.
On the other end of the spectrum from Yahoo! is Hiten Shah and KISSmetrics. I shared a lunch with Hiten this week, and he explained that over half of his employees work from home full-time. That requires a great deal of discipline in processes and extra-level of video communication to keep things humming.
Where do you and your startup fall in the spectrum of cultures regarding onsite vs remote employees?
Update: Turns out that Mayer used VPN logs to determine that remote employees were not checking in enough to be productive. Interesting and relevant data to make her decision.
Related articles
- “Physically Together”: Here’s the Internal Yahoo No-Work-From-Home Memo — Which Extends Beyond Remote Workers
- Yahoo’s Mayer bringing remote workers back to the office
- Marissa Mayer tells Yahoo employees who work from home to get back to the office … will other tech companies follow suit?
- Here’s The Confidential Memo Yahoo Sent Employees About Working From Home (YHOO)
- Yahoo sets precedent, recalls all remote workers, Buiness model unfunctional.