At those times, for most people it looked unusual and scary - will I loose my job? Am I not needed anymore? - but what was born from necessity has been around long enough to show that remote work has a lot of benefits, not only for employers but for employee as well.
The advent of portable digital technology allowed and facilitated the propagation of remote working, and nowadays millions of workers across the EU have the opportunity to conduct their work from home.
This development has prompted commentary from business leaders, politicians, and activists across the globe about what this might mean for the future of work. Much of the commentary is positive, but an equal amount is negative.
A famous case is an internal memo sent to Yahoo! employees requiring those who work remotely to relocate to company facilities. “Speed and quality are often sacrificed when we work from home,” reads the memo. “We need to be one Yahoo!, and that starts with physically being together.”
While some organizations might reaping benefits, others might not. Implementing remote work successfully is difficult; it requires a thoughtful strategy and reliable execution, but when it’s done well, it increases productivity and make employees happier by allowing a good work-life balance - not to mention cost savings.
With major shifts in the workplace and the fading line between work and life, remote work is becoming a critical tool for recruitment and employee engagement. Yahoo! may try to reverse the trend, but they’re better off reevaluating what issues led them to ban remote work and putting the right processes in place to address them.