It has been a few weeks since Marissa Mayer's memo to Yahoo employees decreed - “To become the absolute best place to work, communication and collaboration will be important, so we need to be working side-by-side” . “Speed and quality are often sacrificed when we work from home.”
Was past midnight in India when a colleague in the US pinged me the article. I had been at work since 8 AM that morning, from my home office (mind you!), closing on project issues with colleagues from across the globe.
But possibly because I spared myself the trauma of being caught in a Bengaluru traffic jam, spending an hour staring at a mole on the neck of a motorcyclist (true story!)...I still had the energy to type 'It's a loyalty test...' in response.
Marissa, in my view, is playing the age old game of 'cut the flab'. Whatever the reason, am stumped by the method and the message that it sends out on telecommuting.
Wasn't telecommuting the bait that was used to lure 'cubicle haters' like me to work in the industry in the first place?
I remember the converzation I had with my first mentor, an Apple fellow, who pointed at my zany Macintosh and said, "Remember, with this baby right here...its always going to be about the quality of your work. Not where you work from."
Zaps me therefore that after 20 years of building business models based on 'going virtual' ...we come to this...the absurdity of professing 'co-location for better collaboration'. Couldn't you have picked a better excuse Marissa?
Well....its not like I haven't experienced the advantage of midnight pizza binges with my colleagues in the Singapore office and the 'creativity' that our dinner conversations on Posh Spice and David Beckham's bedroom antics induced. Fabulous days those....!
But my argument is that we managed to get the same creative buzz, high quality work and inane gossip fixes, irrespective of where we connected to work from...our homes, the beach, the office or from another country. We were a team of performers who took pride in our deliverables and the company we worked for. Where we worked from was immaterial.
Also the reason I get shocked when I hear senior folks in my India office equal telecommuting to slacking. Comments I hear often - "Only for dead end jobs." "For moms who have babies to take care of." "Real consultants don't telecommute. They work at client sites." "Men who telecommute run their own businesses you know...they are not doing company work most of the time."
Point to note is that these comments are made while we are in the midst of putting together 'deals' via ping or telephone with colleagues sitting in the same office, because it is so 'darn difficult' to find a meeting room. Or while 'the consultant' works out of an expensive 5 star hotel room at a client site, waiting for the fleeting hour long face time with the 'client' that he traveled 4 days to get to. Ho Hum.
Marissa, congratulations on your bonus and wishing you the very best with locking your employees in their cubicles, to (ironically) dream up innovations that will help the world 'collaborate virtually'!
http://twohourblogger.com/why-work-from-home-is-bad/ ….interesting & I can see some points in this blog.
ReplyDeleteI am a huge fan & promoter of “work from anywhere”, wherever you are just be present, and get things done. Several US corporates and HR are reluctant over requests for even part time working outside of the office building. Even the occasional ones need lots of support doc. and approvals. I can see see the advantages and reasons why work from home culture is gaining popularity in India & is much needed. But the West needs to change cultures to, and think about cost saving, commute, other. Most important I want to be there to greet my child when she returns home from school !! What better reason do companies need? Especially when we are so big on family values and work life balance topics these days !? what are organizations providing to their employees to achieve this...a few workshops and some team building session here & there, Lo...you are on our own after this, back to justifying, begging, convincing, even lying, so they let you out of the cubicle. Personally I am an individual contributor and my strength is to work off an Island, but still remain connected, present, committed, available, & approachable. And I am damn good at this ! I didn’t loose any social or inter personal skills or anything as such ! Still as human as ever with all the needed soft touches and much more. Infact very content & the happiest person, as I am working under my terms, in an atmosphere I am most productive, and this has only made me a better contributor! Thanks to my company for the trust they have in me and I am giving back to them in doubles. So simple na :)))
Super article Prasanna !
I read the 'why work from home is bad' article and have only one word in response - poppycock. What has work from home to do with being rude? It is my experience that you need to be more of a people person to be able to bridge the gap in a virtual environment. The bottom line is that, it is all very contextual. Face to face meetings are great for intense discussion sessions and brainstorming. But this works only if we are a group of 10 people holed up in a room. What do we do if we have to reach out to the collective power of 5000 brains to solve a problem? Go virtual!
ReplyDeleteA blog entry that I recommend:
ReplyDeletehttp://www.danpontefract.com/i-am-a-corporate-floater/
"But put him in front of a human being? He’s lost." I loved this statement from the other blog suggested. I personally feel, it is more of a current generation issue than anything else - whether in India or elsewhere.
ReplyDeleteAnd I do agree with Prasanna on being a people person. I quite liked this blog, though I do feel certain roles will still require more of a face to face interaction, co-location, et al. Otherwise, being accessible wherever you are is surely the key.
Absolutely agree that it is context driven. I feel you benefit from the advantage of working in a F2F environment when you start out.
DeleteBut having said that, telecommuting does not mean that you work in isolation. In most cases, you telecommute because your team is spread across the globe and you can't but work with them virtually. In such instances (like in my current role), it means that you work with over 30-50 people spread across the globe on a daily basis. That's a lot of calls and talking (too much sometimes! ;-)) You don't have anyone that you can meet F2F though because none of my team mates sit in B'lore.
Another key requirement is the 'infrastructure' to stay connected. I can telecommute because:
I have a quiet study to work in everyday - a clear separation of my office and work space.
A fast broadband access (much faster than the connectivity in the office at most times) and
A good electricity backup.
Would not have been able to enjoy the benefits of telecommuting otherwise.
I have mixed views on this Prasanna. I have seen working together with a team in a room....makes a huge difference...you bond as a team and are able to brainstorm faster.
ReplyDeleteIt also makes a huge difference when all members of your team are not at the same level. I find that the junior guys on my team learn so much more when I am with them..sitting beside them.
Working virtually is not a bad thing...but it is a far more difficult thing...it requires alot of discipline and clarity in words.
I have worked quite a bit in both the modes...virtually and at client locations...and frankly i prefer sitting with my teams....seeing my client face to face...the physical interaction can never be replaced. There are many advantages to working virtual...infact alot of women are still working because of this....( me included) but you lose the human connect and the bond of friendship which often dissipates when you are virtual and cant share the pain of a deliverable gone wrong or the joy of a workshop done well.
Well...working face to face is not bad either. It is just not scalable in the world we live in today. I've hopped onto the bandwagon of getting over the discomfort and getting to enjoy it because I had to. I had no choice. I've had to pick a 'best of breed' approach and blend it with the economics mighty early in the cycle. If the best animators resided in Thailand, I had to find a way to work with them. Bringing them to Singapore was not an option, though I would have resorted to it if I had a chance, because it was easy. What we learnt by being a part of a startup was that we worked wonderfully well when we were a team of 10 people sharing a room. We were faster, smarter, more in touch. But we were also not scalable. As we grew bigger, we learnt that we needed to give up on what was comfortable to embrace 'what was the future'. That is all I am alluding to.
DeleteAnother lesson we learnt in the process was that working 'side by side' didnt mean as much as 'working out loud'. We learnt to 'articulate', to build a discipline around our articulation, to take the effort to record and share our thoughts. We learnt to change/adapt. And discovered that change had more advantages up its sleeve over comfort :-)
The funniest thing about me reading this article - I am right now logged in from home! If I was (and I mostly am :( )continuously working from home, I probably wouldn't have read this article. There are many reasons I would rather work from home. For starters the office chairs are no match for my sofas - I get to eat 'Ghar Ka Khana' in my pajamas, I don't need to waste time deciding what to wear, and worse waste my time commuting to and from office (Help!). The possibly the best part of working from home is to be surrounded by the things and people who matter the most to you - For me its not just picture perfect my Feng Shui enabled living room, or my family, but the fact that I get to work more, and do not have to worry about unnecessarily having to go down for some sort of stupid break with colleagues who are equally waiting for the day to end. I can instead happily listen to some soothing music. I guess that's enough music to my ears...
ReplyDelete