It has been somewhat challenging to avoid the major employee engagement story of the last week – CEO Marissa Mayer’s announcement that all her Yahoo employees must, from June, work not from home but from their offices. The news was communicated internally via email from Yahoo’s human resources function but almost immediately leaked to the tech industry blog, All Things D and, from there, the world, at speed. The Yahoo email justifies the initiative by suggesting, “Speed and quality are often sacrificed when we work from home” and “We need to be one Yahoo, and that starts with physically being together.”
Although response to the announcement has been largely condemnatory – particularly from Yahoo employees – not everyone is queuing up to disagree with Ms Mayer. The previous week saw Google’s CFO, Patrick Pichette, replying to the question ‘How many people telecommute?’ with a swift “As few as possible. There’s something magical about spending the time together, about noodling on ideas”. Also weighing in on Yahoo’s side, perhaps less helpfully, was Donald Trump.
There were, not surprisingly, plenty keen to voice the other side of the argument, most notably, Sir Richard Branson. Mr Branson suggested the move was a step back and pointed out that he had never worked out of an office, “Remote working is easier and more effective than ever. A big part of this is trusting people to get their work done without supervision.” A view backed up by research quoted in the Economist this week from cTrip, which evidenced findings that their customer service professionals working from home were 13% more productive than their office based counterparts, in terms of greater efficiency and reduced downtime.
An interesting angle to the debate is that of gender diversity. Information Technology does not have such an abundance of female employees that it can afford to disenchant such an important part of the workforce through a working from home ban. Ms Mayer, who herself took just two weeks off post child birth last year, avoided the need for her own telecommuting by constructing a nursery next to her office.
For me, the debate comes down to two main competing themes – collaboration and trust. Although Yahoo’s announcement appears inflexible and unsympathetic, it is not without justification. For better or worse, Boris Johnson does not appear impressed with the productivity associated with home working, “We all know it’s just about sitting around wondering whether to go down to the fridge to hack off that bit of cheese before checking your emails again.” Perhaps the more robust argument supporting Ms Mayer comes from Harvard Medical School research which cites Google’s productivity data or the ‘water cooler effect’ lauding the benefits of informal workplace interaction. Similarly, GSK discovered that creating open plan working environments which encouraged professional interactions increased decision making speed by 45% – this from Dr John Sullivan, talent management thought leader in the US.
And, adding TMP’s more anecdotal perspective, we are in the middle of some employer branding work for a client organisation, whose main employee (that’s right, employee) drivers are enhancing collaboration and ensuring the workplace is ergonomically suited to achieving this aim. People do genuinely enjoy feeding off each other, sharing ideas and contributing jointly.
So if that completes the case for collaboration, what about trust? Whilst Yahoo, in its apparently losing battle with Google, clearly needs as many game changers as they can muster, how are its employees likely to feel about the levels of workplace trust currently circulating in Sunnyvale, California? Responses from downright angry Yahoo staffers have not been slow to emerge – “It’s outrageous and a morale killer”. And to go back to Sir Richard Branson, “You have to trust each other”.
As someone who errs too much to the sports channels and the biscuit tin when working from home, I have a sneaking sympathy for what Yahoo has done. However, if it succeeds in reducing telecommuting, what might be the unintended consequences? The tech employment marketplace appears to have recovered buoyancy in both Silicon Valley and further afield. Great technical professionals have choice and career options. If Yahoo is seen to have to have made the right decision but the wrong call, it may have far less employees it needs to persuade of the value of working from the office. They may well soon be in the offices (virtually or otherwise) of the competition. And whilst collaboration, speedy decision making and innovation are more than likely products of greater employee face time, they are less likely if those faces are disengaged, disheartened and disinclined.
Getting to the heart of your employee mindset 
Of course, we know that people are highly productive in offices, don't we? Boris Johnson needs to realise that they employees are probably looking for the cheese in the communal fridge before going back to check Facebook, talk to their friends on email and attend some mind-numbingly unproductive meeting with colleagues. Meanwhile, the general hubbub of the open plan offices (which have been all the rage for a quarter of a century) help to distract them from getting anything done.
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