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Remote workers must be judged on how much they produce, while office workers can show up for eight hours and that’s what the office manager remembers. That's a

Remote workers must be judged on how much they produce, while office workers can show up for eight hours and that’s what the office manager remembers. That's a common situation. I've also seen remote workers get away with doing almost nothing while the co-located ones pick up the slack. I've seen remote working be used as a "reward" for some, and it's lack be a "punishment" for others. Letting any of these situations happen is down to lousy management and leadership. I do a heck of a lot of remote work myself - I see many advantages to doing so. But from what I've seen it's not a universal performance benefit. I've seen smart, committed teams almost double their measured performance by deciding to co-locate to a single team room... even with all the skype video / IM / chat windows you could wish for open. There's a lot of ambient communication that happens in meatspace. I really wouldn't be surprised if this turns out to be a really smart decision for Yahoo!.

johnjlocke 14y ago
This decision alone won't save Yahoo!, I think the problems are a lot deeper than this. The return on remote work is dependent on two things: the right people getting hired, and the managers making sure that work is being produced. Anyone left to their own devices is going to slack, unless they are invested emotionally in the job. There's an old saying: Inspect what you expect. It holds true for office workers and remote workers. Both have the potential to slack or produce. The person in charge needs to measure what each person is producing, and perhaps Yahoo! is lacking a way to measure that right now.
- adrianhoward 14y ago
  This decision alone won't save Yahoo!, I think the problems are a lot deeper than this. Wasn't trying to imply that it would ;-) However I'm less convince by many seem to be that it's a dumb decision. Especially since, in my experience anyway, fixing those problems of engagement are much easier to do when everybody is in one place. The return on remote work is dependent on two things: the right people getting hired, and the managers making sure that work is being produced. Anyone left to their own devices is going to slack, unless they are invested emotionally in the job. There is also a moderate amount of evidence (see http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5145358 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5145358) that there is a performance hit with distributed teams regardless of other factors. The person in charge needs to measure what each person is producing, and perhaps Yahoo! is lacking a way to measure that right now. I disagree with the first bit. What folk need to measure is what the productivity of the team/group as a whole. Optimising for individual productivity will often hit global productivity.

johnjlocke 14y ago

This decision alone won't save Yahoo!, I think the problems are a lot deeper than this. The return on remote work is dependent on two things: the right people getting hired, and the managers making sure that work is being produced. Anyone left to their own devices is going to slack, unless they are invested emotionally in the job. There's an old saying: Inspect what you expect. It holds true for office workers and remote workers. Both have the potential to slack or produce. The person in charge needs to measure what each person is producing, and perhaps Yahoo! is lacking a way to measure that right now.

adrianhoward 14y ago
This decision alone won't save Yahoo!, I think the problems are a lot deeper than this. Wasn't trying to imply that it would ;-) However I'm less convince by many seem to be that it's a dumb decision. Especially since, in my experience anyway, fixing those problems of engagement are much easier to do when everybody is in one place. The return on remote work is dependent on two things: the right people getting hired, and the managers making sure that work is being produced. Anyone left to their own devices is going to slack, unless they are invested emotionally in the job. There is also a moderate amount of evidence (see http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5145358 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5145358) that there is a performance hit with distributed teams regardless of other factors. The person in charge needs to measure what each person is producing, and perhaps Yahoo! is lacking a way to measure that right now. I disagree with the first bit. What folk need to measure is what the productivity of the team/group as a whole. Optimising for individual productivity will often hit global productivity.