Is Yahoo’s Move Going to Become a Trend? (I Hope Not!)

The recent move by Yahoo’s new CEO, Marissa Mayer, to order all current telecommuting employees back to the office is creating quite a stir in the business community.  If you have not been following this story, Ms. Mayer made the decision that all employees needed to work in the home office, or else.   Her reasons at this point are unclear but the repercussions are being felt throughout the organization.  Both working mothers and fathers will feel the pain, as they will have to find daycare arrangements thus increasing their pocketbooks as well as their anxiety.  This doesn’t exactly make for a productive workforce.

Yahoo has been co-locating their employees for a long time so I wonder if a study was done that showed the work wasn’t be done, that profits were down or customers were dissatisfied.  Those would be reasons to make a case to end this practice.  As we never truly knows what goes on behind closed doors, or why decisions are made – and from what is being written in the (gasp) press – we can only deduce that this was done from a play of power: she did it because she can.  But what is also interesting is that Mayer brings her baby to work, where he stays in a nursery she had built for him.

All of that being aside, I am left to wonder if ending the practice to allow employees to work from their homes will become a trend, i.e. will others companies take their cues and also end this practice.