Does telecommuting hurt your career?
Marissa Mayer, chief executive officer of Yahoo, poses during the 43rd annual meeting of the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, on Jan. 25, 2013. / AP Photo/Keystone/Laurent Gillieron
(MoneyWatch) In the now famous Yahoo memo announcing that by June, all Yahoo employees must work in the office, the company's HR head Jackie Reses proclaims several things: They have many "fun" new initiatives, people feel "energy and buzz" when they work in the office, and some of the "best" work is done when you run into someone in the hallway. Therefore, no more telecommuting. Period.
Most companies don't have this strict of a policy, and some, like Virgin, encourage people to work wherever they work best, whether that be from home or from the office.
If you have the opportunity to work from home, should you? Or will it hurt your career? Here are a few things to consider.
If your kids can be heard in the background, your career will suffer. Unlike Marissa Mayer, you can't build a nursery in your office. So, some people want to work at home to increase the time they spend with their kids. However, working from home doesn't necessarily mean you get tons more time with them. You still need daycare or a nanny or after school care.
If your boss values face time, you'll lose out. Some bosses are just clueless as to what is really going on. They judge people on what they can physically see. So, she sees your in office coworker slaving over a presentation for days and think, "Wow! Jane is really working hard!" She doesn't see you doing an equal amount of slaving at home, the finished presentation just ends up in her hands.
Hallway chats can be helpful -- for your career. The Yahoo memo states: "To become the absolute best place to work, communication and collaboration will be important, so we need to be working side-by-side." Hallway chats can prompt people to think of you for projects that they wouldn't otherwise. If you're working from home, you will miss out on that.
You can be much more productive from home. While some people are convinced that you are just doing it for the ability to work in your pajamas, the truth is, some people can be more productive at home. While some of those hallway chats are useful, many others are useless and mostly about non-work stuff. You get to skip those. And your commute time can become working time.
Your stress level can actually drop. Without the stress of a long commute, the panic about being able to arrange a day for the cable guy to show up (between 1:00 and 5:00!) or missing a package, you can actually focus on your job. There's less gossip and you can still foster a relationship with your coworkers through email, IMing, and even text messaging.
It doesn't have to be all or nothing. Telecommuting can be full time or one day a week. For your career, it's often best to work some days in the office and some days at home. You get the best of both worlds.
If you have a good boss, it can be a boost to your career. A good boss judges you on your results, not on your butt-in-seat time. Someone who telecommutes because she works best at home will have better results and win praise from the right boss.
To become the absolute best place to work, communication and collaboration will be important, so we need to be working side-by-side. - See more at: http://allthingsd.com/20130222/physically-together-heres-the-internal-yahoo-no-work-from-home-memo-which-extends-beyond-remote-workers/#sthash.wps9zTX4.dpuf
To become the absolute best place to work, communication and collaboration will be important, so we need to be working side-by-side. - See more at: http://allthingsd.com/20130222/physically-together-heres-the-internal-yahoo-no-work-from-home-memo-which-extends-beyond-remote-workers/#sthash.wps9zTX4.dpuf
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http://mashable.com/2012/05/08/yahoos-fall-from-grace/
Ms Mayer is CEO number five in the last five years. I think she deserves credit for making some tough decisions which she hopes will get the company back on track.
Perhaps we should wait a while to see if this decision was a good one.
I work in a "cube farm" and a manager here brings her sick children to the office in spite of the fact she has a laptop and company paid internet, etc. at home. She was so excited about the laptop air card so she could work while at soccer practice etc. If all employees in my office were not only allowed; but encouraged to follow this kind of work ethic, we would have sick kids in the office every cold and flu season, kids in the office for school breaks, and maybe all summer. The truth is, if someone else does bring in their kids for lack of day care (including illness)they get sent back home after a few hours to work from home or take a sick day if they do not have access.
1. Four out of five employees have families. When a child or a spouse is seriously ill, your employee is going to need to stay home. Not allowing them to telecommute is going to affect your schedules and productivity for that day. Side note: Historically please remember that most companies had very generous sick leave policies before telecommunicating (i.e. Ford Motor had 22 sick days a year, which could accumulate each year, and add to your pension retirement). This sick leave was used to take care of serious illnesses with you or for you to take care of a family member (i.e. heart attack).
2. Employees on average spend at least part of one day per month doing essential life items - visiting the Dentist/Doctor for themselves, or family member (i.e. child, spouse, parent), waiting for an appliance to be delivered at home, waiting to have a repair person come to their house. Side note: Historically please remember that most companies used to call this emergency leave - which covered these days and bereavement (i.e. AT&T had 5 days allocated per year).
3. Employee health issues do happen that allow them to only work at home for a short time - broken right leg that won't allow them to drive, heart attack/pneumonia recovery that affects walking long distances, and contagious disease exposure like MRSA/chicken pox/etc. where an employee needs to stay home and not expose other employees.
4. Weather is also another factor - ice storms can cripple a large area from being able to drive to work, but the Internet can still be up (i.e. Eastern USA). The Bay Area also gets usually 2 "Pineapple Express" storms a year on average, which have created havoc in the past. One year we had a rain storm that closed Hwy 101 near Redwood City in both directions, closed highway 92 west entrance into Highway 280 in the tunnel, Highway 880 was blocked both directions with traffic accidents, and Highway 92 East going to Livermore had an accident. On days like this the commute would be hours long, and just would not condone coming into work at all, but the Internet would likely be up.
5. Lastly, as a woman CEO, I want to you to understand that women hold today only 14% of the upper ceiling jobs. You need to think about why. We don't need to go back to policies that hamper women going up the corporate ladder. It is because, companies don't think about families (i.e. staff meetings lasting past 5 p.m.), when you need to pick up a child by 6 p.m.)
6. Having a family is a fact of life for four out of five people. Families require time. They need you to take them to the doctor/dentist. They need you to pick them up from school. They need your to talk to their teachers. They need you to pick them up after school sports. They need for you to take care of them when they are sick. They need for you to be at their plays, their awards ceremonies, and to see you play a basketball game.
If you want to have a strong company with high productivity and schedules kept, then you will need to revamp your HR policies for not allowing people to work everyday at home as stated above. If you don't then when women get pregnant and have small children to care for you are going to lose them (it costs over $100K to retrain another employee). They will leave your company for another company that is family oriented. You will be surrounded by single people and contractors, and will have lost a valuable talent pool of married men & women who understand that facts of life that the job is to put a roof over your head, food on the table, and most importantly is a financial vehicle to nurture their family.
As a side note, when I am on a job, the first thing I do as a manager is make sure my employees have laptops, can log in remotely, have flexible hours, and if they stay on schedule, they get to go home at 5 p.m. (i.e. no early or late meetings). These employees don't take long lunches, don't talk much about non-business, and are always very productive. My projects don't usually slip and when ask why I say because my group knows that I support them and their families. This is my formula for success.
But I don't think that especially for females, working in the home doesn't get benefit in terms of working condition because so many distraction exist in home for females, like children, cooking, cleaning, tv and so on. These things are starting to getting females keeping outside from their business.
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the real question will be ... does setting an edict banning all telecommuting hurt your career?
I am quite a loose supervisor, in the sense that as long as you hit your deadline I will give you a lot of leeway on timekeeping. And I will accept working from home. But anyone who doesn't admit sometimes workers abuse the process is full of it.
Years ago, someone said to me that at the end of every month you should ask yourself if your employer got their money's worth from you that month. It's the best advice. Your employer does NOT have a duty to keep you in employment. I work with some superb people, and I mean really superb, but I have zero patience with the lazy ones and the con artists. And they make it hard for the rest.
But, there's always a 'But'. If the wife is home, its best I just go into the office. After 30 years, she still doesn't seem grasp the concept of doing normal office work from home.
"Are you working from home today? Great, I want you to help me paint the back bedroom then".