Marissa Mayer’s Work-From-Home Ban
Final Exam Paper

Marissa Mayer’s Work-From-Home Ban On July 16, 2012, Marissa Mayer was appointed as President and CEO or Yahoo!. The placement was effective the following day. Mayer is a member of the board of directors at Yahoo! as well. Before taking the position of President/CEO with Yahoo!, Marissa worked for Google for the previous 13 years. She is one of the youngest CEO’s for a fortune 500 company according to Forbes. Since Mayer has taken over as CEO, Yahoo! stocks have risen 59%. (Forbes online, April 2013) In September 2012, two months after becoming CEO, Mayer announced a major change. She implemented a ban on working from home. Mayer made the decision in hopes of creating higher productivity as well as a more unified company culture. In the memo she delivered to Yahoo! employees, Mayer’s states “To become the absolute best place to work, communication and collaboration will be important, so we need to be working side-by-side. That is why it is critical that we are all present in our offices. Some of the best decisions and insights come from hallway and cafeteria discussions, meeting new people, and impromptu team meetings. Speed and quality are often sacrificed when we work from home. We need to be one Yahoo!, and that starts with physically being together.” (Mayer, Forbes Online, 2012) Her decision to take away employee’s ability to work remotely was met with a lot of criticism. Employees were unhappy because a privilege they have been entitled to had been removed by someone who had not been at Yahoo! for an extended period of time. Critics of her decision have openly expressed disappointment. Jennifer Owens, editorial director of Working Mother magazine called it “a step backwards- a mindset from the days when Yahoo was launched.” (Owens, Forbes online, 2012) Many see being able to work flexible schedules or telecommuting as the future of working professionals. Flexibility has become essential for many employees, especially parents who feel as if they are time crunchers. Mayer’s motivation to make the decision comes from her vision to improve Yahoo’s blemished image, after the departure of the former CEO, as well as increase productivity. Mayer would like to see Yahoo! become as well respected as her former employer, Google. Mayer’s decision to remove the ability to work from home is helping increase workplace cohesion. She feels as though if employees are in the office, they are more productive as well as able to develop relationships with their co-workers. Mayer is also motivated by what some would consider personal reasons. Since becoming one of the youngest CEO’s of a Fortune 500 company, she has faced critics who are unsure of her ability to run Yahoo!. Mayer is trying to prove to the critics that she can in fact run the company and is more than capable of producing increased results. This has already been seen by the increase in stock prices over the year she has been CEO. Mayer encompasses qualities of both directive and participative leaders. Directive leaders have set views on how and when things should be accomplished. They leave little flexibility for employees. As CEO of Yahoo!, Mayer feels removing the work at home for employees, she has started the process of weeding out employees who are not motivated enough to be at work every day. This is an important quality of being an effective leader. Mayer wants the best of the best in employees for Yahoo!.
Participative leaders are focused on getting the best out of the team as a whole. Mayer believes that the best ideas come from casual conversations employees have with each other in the lunchroom or during breaks. Employees can come up with productive ideas just by sitting around talking or thinking about how to make their jobs easier. Mayer wants all those ideas brought into the office. By having employees at home, ideas are not spread as easily as they would be if employees are in the office.
Mayer has created incentives such as offering free lunches for employees. This helps increase productivity and helps keep employees motivated. By offering lunch, Yahoo! should never have an employee unable to focus or be productive because they are hungry.
Another incentive Mayer offers is that all employees are offered smartphones. It allows employees to be able to maintain a connection with the office if they are out of the office. This helps to keep productivity up because employees do not have to suspend a project or email because of waiting for another employee to answer.
Since Mayer has become CEO, the biggest organizational change is that employees are being brought back into the office. If you are working at home, it is easier to get distracted, as shown in the video of the employee with her cat. By bringing employees back into the office, there are less distractions, more team cohesion, and increased productivity. There was a culture shock that ensued after the ban on working from home was enacted. Since employees were used to being able to work from home and have that flexibility, the organization culture shifted when the change was made.
Mayer has made another change recently to the Yahoo! organization. She has recently extended family leave benefits for all Yahoo! employees. The reason she made the change is unclear. Maybe it was herself being a mother or maybe it was to show modern women you can have it all, a career and a home life. Whatever the case, she has change the organizational culture once again. Many believe this change is to help her save face in light of banning telecommuting a few months ago. This organizational change will help improve the organizational culture of yahoo by showing employees Yahoo! does care about them as individuals. When the change was made to ban working from home, there was conflict among management and Yahoo! employees. However, depending on whom you asked, would depend on who the conflict was aimed toward. Mayer’s conflict was constructive conflict, or aimed at the situation of working from home. Employees may have felt it was relationship conflict, or where one person (Mayer) undercuts the other person(s) (employees).
Mayer felt that working from home was not an advantage to Yahoo! as a whole. Employees felt it was a great advantage and Mayer was taking it away from them. Mayer saw the productivity and cohesiveness that comes from working on site, face to face. She envisioned it to help Yahoo! achieve greatness once again. The conflict will eventually resolve itself as it always does when major changes happen. Moreover, the change was a culture shock more than anything else.
When Marissa Mayer was appointed CEO of Yahoo!, she knew she was in for a challenge when it came to restoring Yahoo! to the great company it once was. She accepted the position with many changes in mind. Mayer knew that not all of the changes she saw for Yahoo! would be easily accepted and she was ready for that. Mayer has been a positive influence on Yahoo! as can be seen just by looking at the stock prices in April 2013 and comparing them to those just one year before. A fifty nine percent increase is amazing.
Not all changes that are being made to Yahoo! and its structure are bad. Extended family leave is one excellent benefit new parents can look forward to enjoying. Looking to the future, Yahoo! can expect to rise to greatness once more so long as Mayer is part of their team.

References
McShane, S. & Von Glinow, M. (2013) Organizational Behavior (6th edition). McGraw-Hill Companies

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Fernandez, L. & Schuppe, J. (2013). After Work-from-Home Ban, Yahoo Expands Maternity, Paternity Leave. Retrieved on May 1, 2013 from http://www.nbcbayarea.com/news/tech/NATL-After-Work-From-Home-Ban-Yahoo-Expands-Maternity-Leave-205377421.html
Pepitone, J. (2012). Marissa Mayer’s Yahoo turnaround Starts to Take Shape. Retrieved on April 30, 2012 from http://money.cnn.com/2012/09/26/technology/yahoo-strategy/index.html