True: If you feel connected to your job it doesn't matter if you work at corporate, at a branch office, or out of your spare bedroom: You know you're an important part of the team. If you don't feel as though your work matters or you don't know what the company does or where it's headed, then being physically present in an office won't change that opinion (other than give everyone a central location to complain). 

This is all she could come up with to keep her ship afloat on a meager salary of $117 million over the next 5 years?   

It seems ironic that a company that's about communication is telling the world that all its employees must be located within offices, doesn't it? I know many small companies use telecommuting, but many big businesses have successfully implemented it, too. Think of AmEx and IBM, for example. If she'd required people to come to the office a few times a week, that would have been more understandable. An all-out ban makes no sense to me, either, @sarahp.

The work-from-home problem is merely a symptom, not the source of the problems at Yahoo!  It is a metaphor for a disconnected company that no longer has clarity of purpose or direction.  Marissa Mayer is simply adding to the dysfunction and demonstrating her own disconnection of purpose, vision and life.

Yes, I agree with pretty much everything you say, Geoff. I know, firsthand, how unsettling it is when new management comes in, even if they don't have the reputation Mayer has and even when they do a great job with minimal disruption. I  don't begrudge Mayer the private nursery she built - with her own money - any more than I begrudge someone a $10-million mansion. That's something she earned the right to do (not that I necessary agree with her parenting choices, but that's a whole other issue!). The whole class warfare thing is annoying and obvious.

As you say, if there are written contracts -- or even verbal agreements -- between current Yahoo employees that state they can work from home, then the company will, most likely, see some lawsuits come out of this mandate. I'm not a lawyer and I certainly don't know California employment law when it comes to changing the rules of employment, but you'd think a company does have the right to alter the scope of a job; I mean, if you're in charge of manufacturing and the factory wants to keep you in that role but it moves to another state (after telling you it would 'always' remain in XYZ), then your job would relocate, too, right? Plus any contract would have been with the old management, not existing management. Even if I'm right, though, that doesn't mean some people won't sue! 

I like your point about the wide variety of stakeholders here, all of whom are very vocal in their disagreement with Mayer's decision. Add to that the clunky wording of the memo and you've got a real lightening rod for bad PR and poor morale. I agree: Mayer has made a lot of enemies at her prior positions, many of whom are delighted to have another reason to jab at her. To me, it seems a lazy approach; instead of doing this blanket, no-telecommuting rule, I think Yahoo would have been better-served working with managers or at the top to ID those people who weren't doing their jobs (either at home or in the office--some of the best skivers I've ever met worked in offices), and deciding about their futures on a one-by-one basis. But again, I think this work-from-home ban is one way for Yahoo to shed workers without layoffs -- although the company will lose a lot of its best people as well as those Mayer deems no good. 

I think that Marissa Mayer has put the final nail in the coffin for Yahoo. It seems like the already dying company just jumped back by 30+ years with this new policy. With more and more companies adopting remote workers, you would think Yahoo would want to be seen a cutting edge technology website. But no, they decided that they want to stay back in history as former cutting edge website. Shame on you Marissa!

Personally, I have mixed feelings about this issue. I know what kind of company Mayer wants to run  I don't care for those companies... but they can be very effective. She is the CEO and since stories about her hours at Google were well-known, everyone should have known what they were getting.

But that's not why we're seeing this, Alison. The story has legs because muliple coalitions-- each with its own agenda-- can use it for their own needs:

1. Yahoo employes who are slacking off-- and don't want to work-- have a very selfish incentive to push this.
2. People who accepted the position, presumably turning down others, primarily because they were allowed to work remotely have a good reason to feel ill-used. (If they had the terms written into the offer, more than that.)
3. The zealots who mistakenly believe that every job can be performed remotely (it can't) have seized upn this nice, high-profile case.
4. Working moms who can't afford to build a nursery in their cubes can feel put-upon.
5. People who loathe the Google culture (where a 50-hour week is considered "part-time") can be upset that Mayer is propogating it.
6. People who've noticed the deliberate, recession-enabled shift toward making workers chattel, are upset to see another public case study.
7. The media, to quote Newt Gingrich, are a bunch of wrestling promoters. They love nasty, messy fights, and they can smell the potential.
8. Everyone at Yahoo who hates what Marissa Mayer has been doing realizes this might be their best and only chance to kill her.

It's no secret that Yahoo has been a toxic soup of fiefdoms, engaged in a war that makes the Hatfields and McCoys look like a friendly disagreement. There are people who have no interest in what is best for Yahoo-- who want the company to enable their agenda. They've sunk more than one manager, director or CEO who tried to lead the company out of the swamp.

The investors and board members are furious that Mayer sold Alibaba and didn't give them every penny. It's one of the reasons companies go private-- the feeling that the stockhoolders should get their needs met before evryone else.

Some people want Yahoo to be a media company, because they want to own a media company. They scooped up Yahoo stock cheaply, figuring they could use its credit to buy properties. They're livid she doesn't agree and is moving away from it.

Mayer has fired people who had lots of allies for the quixotic reason (by Yahoo standfards) that they were incompetent and unproductive. She's hired people who had enemies. She's killing projects that have been sacred cows and reviving properties that were exiled to Gehenna after the leader lost a turf war.  

Mayer has been getting away with it because she has a much stronger reputation than any of these yahoos (pun intended) and they've been afraid to protest because they'd look like the selfish obstructionists that they are. 

But nobody should kid themselves. These folks haven't gone away-- they're just lying in the weeds. They'll sink her if they can-- frankly, I'm shocked that she got such a long, placid honeymoon.

I don't have any sense of whether Mayer will win, and avoid joining the same club as (to name two) the "abrasive" Carol Bartz and "unqualified" or "unethical" Scott Thompson. But those non-stories are fundamentally identical to what's playing out now 

This the real deal. The end of telecommuting is beginning and in few years all people will be required to report to offices for work in company polo and khakis. You will slave away in a bare cubicle with no windows and florescent lights . . while a 21 year old supervisor who is a relative of the CEO hovers over your shoulder reminding you that if you keep contributing more than you cost, your job is secure - eight times a day on the hour.  He will interrupt every deadline project your behind on as if like clockwork, and ask you to do things like go downstairs and help unload a big truckload of printer paper at the loading dock right in the middle of it. When that's done he'll ask you why your late with your deadline and then remind you it's company happy hour day and that attendance is now mandatory for all employees. A cool DJ will be providing the music, so don't be planning to go home at your regularly scheduled time because you will be seen as a non team player.  The appropriate response according to company policy regarding happy hour notifications of this nature shall be to tell your supervisor - Wow! Neat! Kewl!

Do you think one reason this story has legs is that, with more people working remotely at least part of the time these days, some employees are concerned that their organizations may be following the results of Mayer's edict to see its impact on Yahoo's future and fortunes? Sort of a, "if it works at Yahoo, that approach may work at my company?" FUD.

MItch,

Grubers Insight here is a Breath of Fresh Air!!!

Just because Companies have the facility to do Remote Work does'nt mean it works in each and every situation.

Marrissa Mayer is just tailoring the work culture there to suit her needs ro push Yahoo upwards towards becoming a Better company.

All Power to her.