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Yahoo CEO Mistake Or Stroke of Genius

Recently the CEO of Yahoo Marissa Mayer’s made an announcement to employee’s who work remotely must come in to the office or well you know the other option, not be an employee anymore. 

As a software developer I’ve done a mix of home and office time.  While I don’t have children at home coming into the office to interrupt I do have dogs and cats that love to distract.  (yes both)  It does take discipline to stay focused and on task at home but I believe it takes the same focus while in the office. 

For me I share an office with a fellow dev and we have Product Managers/Owners coming in with new feature requests or bugs to talk about.  Which in turn pulls our attention away from what we are currently working on; and then takes time to get back on the original task that you were working on.

I believe both ways of working have their benefits.  While in the office our team will have these out of the blue organic talks about our business and website that we may not have had if we were working remotely.  However, if you have a team of really solid communicators, I’m not just talking about over the phone but in all forms, (IM, Video Chat) you can still have these moments of brilliance.

One can understand that Yahoo is in a rough spot right now, to say the least and that they need all hands on deck to right the ship.  However, I don’t believe that all your employees need to be physically in the office at all times to get the collaboration that can create magic.  I also think that a sweeping memorandum like this can hurt your company and obliterate employee morale. 

What we here would like to know is what you our fearless readers think?  Do you work from home and get worked up when you think your boss may say to you "come into the office or else"?  Or are you in complete support of being always physically in the office?  Or do you say who the hell is Yahoo?

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