Working from home

I admit to being surprised regarding the ban on Work from Home by the Yahoo CEO Marrisa Mayer. I was very surprised to see this coming from the CEO of an IT company, a sector which typically revels in offering workplace flexibility, telecommuting and other flexible arrangements to make it easier for employees to have a work-life balance.

I  have had close-hand experience of working at home - myself, and a couple of friends. Based on my experience, I don't think one can have a blanket consensus on the merits or demerits of Work from home.

Let's start with my friend. She works at an IT company and is in a role which does not demand daily face-to-face interaction with colleagues. Since office is a good 2-hour commute each way, she works 4 days from home and 1 day from office. This flexible work arrangement from her company allowed her to manage looking after a new-born baby, work without taking a career break  and also contain the most important mommy-guilt of leaving the child at  day-care at a young age. She had a full-time help to be with the child at all times, had a separate room (read office) to lock herself into. My friend tells me that there would be times when her kid discovered that mommy going to office was only entering the spare room! The plus is she is there for her kid most times.

Another friend of mine moved to a bigger role in a smaller company which does not have an office where he lives. So work from home was a forced option, till the company had invested in an office space etc. He says that he missed interaction with colleagues, the feel of working in an office, the welcome distractions of the office,  and hence the motivation to work needed to be rigorously managed at times. Also, once his children came back from school, there was noise which disturbed his concentration. On the plus side he enjoyed the no commute, spending more time with family, the occasional power-nap :), which is not possible in the office space.

I attempted to do some voluntary work from home for one of my friends. I did not find it easy, I had a lot of other devils to handle - a new industry, concepts, prospecting with clients who were already biased against outsourcing, and managing my time with my language courses. Did I mention house-work and cooking and cleaning which falls on my squared shoulders? Everytime I looked up, i could only see work, work all around me. Also, since this was only voluntary, I also was not willing or even able to devote full 6 or 8 hours to it. Project on hold for now:( Personally I would prefer to work in a place outside home, work with people, interact with them. Work and home need to be two distinct spaces for me, not spilling and overlapping into one another. A place where I don't feel the necessity to water the plants or responsible for making coffee or feel guilty if left undone.

In all this, I believe there are some jobs which can't be done from home. Some people, like me, prefer to come to an office to work and can be more productive there. But for those skill sets and jobs that allow a work from home possibility, the employers ought to make it a choice for the employees. And if they use the lunch hour to go for a swim or finish cooking the evening meal, it's totally their choice.

Cross-Posted at IndianMomsConnect here