Communications of the ACM
Working From Home: The End Of Productivity Or The Future Of Work?
Credit: NYC PR Girls
The leaked memo from Yahoo that bans telecommuting for its workers as of June generated controversy in the technology sector, where companies continue to debate whether working from home is the end of productivity or the future of work. In its bid to reshape itself for the future, Yahoo is returning to a workplace culture of the tech industry's past, many experts argue. They say that the move goes against a popular workplace perk among tech companies and a wider trend toward more work-from-home options across several industries. On the other hand, while technology has made collaboration easier, it does not necessarily mean that a distributed workforce is more productive.
Technology has made collaboration easier than ever before for employees who aren't physically in the same space, and companies who back telework say it has helped cut costs and made it easier to compete for wider talent pools. Ten years ago, it was seen more as an employee benefit. Today, businesses around the world are seeing telework as a necessity. According to a recent Microsoft survey of more than 4,500 information technology workers, there has been a steady rise toward more teleworking — and this trend is expected to persist.
Having no central workplace certainly works for some companies. They claim that having a distributed workforce is the future of work. Yet, it takes work to get right. It's difficult for a culture to transition from being reliant on in-person interactions to being just as effective in a distributed fashion, and one employer says it's something you can't do halfway and that the change has to come from the very top. Just because Yahoo no longer wants to do it doesn't mean there's anything wrong with being distributed. Even the government sector, which isn't considered an early adopter of workplace culture change, has a high-profile teleworking case study: the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office boasts that 64% of employees work from home under various models.
From NPR
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