5 ms·

it's hard to maintain culture with remote workers. It's a trade off and not clear completely which pattern is better

wsc981 14y ago
I'm not sure if we should want to force a company culture on workers. And perhaps this idea of company culture doesn't fit these times anymore. People are much less inclined to stay within the same company for most of their lives anyway. Personally I never cared too much for a company culture. I don't join a company because of a culture. I join it because the projects are interesting, the money is good, the benefits are nice, etc... I do feel the approach Yahoo is taking is bad for the company. I'm sure for some work it's good to be at work in the company offices, but for some other work a home environment works much better. In most companies I've worked I always got bothered by other employees, making it much harder to concentrate on tasks. Since june last year I started working with a friend on our start-up and I thrive much better in this environment. Now I work from home and the silence and serenity helps me achieve much better results. I should note I have no wife or kids, just 2 cats, so very little distraction there. A company like Yahoo should realise that some employees will deliver much better results when giving them more freedom. One example could be Bill Atkinson, who delivered great work for Apple, yet did most of his work at home: http://www.folklore.org/StoryView.py?project=Macintosh&story=Round_Rects_Are_Everywhere.txt&characters=Bill%20Atkinson&sortOrder=Sort%20by%20Date&detail=medium http://www.folklore.org/StoryView.py?project=Macintosh&s...
- djt 14y ago
  its much easier in start up environments generally to telecommute. Once a business becomes huge there are other factors at play that may mean there are trade offs. For instance Bill Atkinson left apple in 1990, Similar to Woz. Great people for their time but not happy when it goes corporate.

I'm not sure if we should want to force a company culture on workers. And perhaps this idea of company culture doesn't fit these times anymore. People are much less inclined to stay within the same company for most of their lives anyway. Personally I never cared too much for a company culture. I don't join a company because of a culture. I join it because the projects are interesting, the money is good, the benefits are nice, etc... I do feel the approach Yahoo is taking is bad for the company. I'm sure for some work it's good to be at work in the company offices, but for some other work a home environment works much better. In most companies I've worked I always got bothered by other employees, making it much harder to concentrate on tasks. Since june last year I started working with a friend on our start-up and I thrive much better in this environment. Now I work from home and the silence and serenity helps me achieve much better results. I should note I have no wife or kids, just 2 cats, so very little distraction there. A company like Yahoo should realise that some employees will deliver much better results when giving them more freedom. One example could be Bill Atkinson, who delivered great work for Apple, yet did most of his work at home: http://www.folklore.org/StoryView.py?project=Macintosh&story=Round_Rects_Are_Everywhere.txt&characters=Bill%20Atkinson&sortOrder=Sort%20by%20Date&detail=medium http://www.folklore.org/StoryView.py?project=Macintosh&s...

djt 14y ago
its much easier in start up environments generally to telecommute. Once a business becomes huge there are other factors at play that may mean there are trade offs. For instance Bill Atkinson left apple in 1990, Similar to Woz. Great people for their time but not happy when it goes corporate.