Yahoo and Remote Work

Richard Branson, on Marissa Mayer’s elimination of work-from-home at Yahoo:

Perplexed by Yahoo! stopping remote working. Give people the freedom of where to work and they will excel.

I’ve worked remotely. I know some very successful companies where most, sometimes all, employees work remotely. If I were going to start a new company today, it’d be a small team, all remote. But what works for small teams doesn’t necessarily work for large companies. It may well be that Mayer’s policy change will not help Yahoo, but Branson’s statement is clearly wrong: Yahoo employees have been allowed to work remotely, and they have not excelled.

Yahoo needs a kick in the ass. Mayer is not merely trying to keep Yahoo limping along; she’s trying to lead Yahoo to kick some ass. Same old, same old isn’t going to get them there.

★ Wednesday, 27 February 2013