Yahoo prohibited telecommuting employees

Touted as a way to better manage work and family life, and reduce transportation costs and pollution, telecommuting is booming. But Yahoo has reopened the debate on its interest in the United States. The boss of the internet group, Marissa Mayer, decided that all employees would now have to come to the office to "feel the energy and excitement" of the team, according to an internal document released this week by the Wall Street Journal."The speed and quality is often sacrificed when working from home. We need to be united Yahoo, and that starts by being physically together," she says. "We do not discuss internal matters," responded a spokesman for the group told AFP. "This is not a general vision in the area of ​​working from home, it is about what is right for Yahoo! now."Telework, saving energy and transportThe group goes against the general trend. Between 2007 and 2012, the share of U.S. companies allow their employees to work flexibly, including home increased from 48% to 53%, according to the Society of Human Resource Management. And according to a 2011 report from the Department of Labor, 24% of U.S. employees work at least a few hours a week from home.In the telecommunications equipment Cisco Systems, which develops virtual private networks (VPN) used to secure remote access to corporate network, the average employee teleworking an average of two days a week. At IBM, 29% of 128,000 employees worldwide participate in a program of flexible work or at home. The IT group considers that the reduction of commuting between home and office in 2011 helped save 24 million liters of gasoline and 50,000 tons of carbon dioxide emissions in the United States nothing.Teleworking "is particularly important in the technology sector," where companies seek "to recruit and retain the best and brightest," said Cindy Auten, head of Mobile Work Exchange, an organization promoting telework. Leave work at home is often a near necessity, accepted by 85% of employers identified among the "best places to work," said she. British billionaire Richard Branson said on Twitter "perplexed by the decision to stop Yahoo! telework. Give people the freedom to work where they want, and they excel," he argues.A need to "return to its roots""There are great benefits to teleworking and there are companies that need to do more telecommuting", but Yahoo is in a particular situation, it "needs to return to its roots," nuance John Challenger, the firm Board Challenger, Gray and Christmas. Internet group, which must innovate to boost its growth, however, will probably not completely prevent its employees to do some of their work at home, warns analyst. "Some people have always worked from home," said he. "And now the technology allows them to work weekends, nights or holidays. There are no borders between work and home."Telework is also not necessarily a panacea for employees: according to the labor department, they often work more at home than they were in the office, thus making unpaid overtime. "The ability for employees to work from home can actually allow employers to increase their expectations for their availability on evenings and weekends, and lead to days and weeks longer working," he noted in its report in 2011.