Best Buy Follows Yahoo in Banning Remote Work

bednarz writes "Is telecommuting the new scapegoat for poor performance? Best Buy, in the midst of a corporate restructuring, has canceled its flexible work program and expects corporate employees to put in traditional 40-hour work weeks at the retailer's headquarters (they used to be able to work whenever and wherever they wanted). The announcement comes on the heels of Yahoo CEO Marissa Mayer's decision to end telecommuting, which ignited a firestorm of criticism. It also follows news of Best Buy's plans to lay off 400 corporate workers as part of a plan to cut $725 million in costs and restructure its business. This could signal the beginning of a trend, or be an indication that telecommuters need to actively justify their preference for working outside the office."

Comments

Terrible move by a dying entity

[ModernGeek]

This is a terrible move by a dying entity that is showing its irrelevance by going back further into the dark ages.

Re:Terrible move by a dying entity

[Karl Cocknozzle]

Nope - that's the point of the exercise. You're not fired - you're quitting.

If this is truly what they're up to they'll be disappointed. A great many states unemployment laws explicitly take into account a fundamental change in the terms of a job as "involuntary termination." It is hard to imagine that a person being required to move thousands of miles as a condition of continued emplyment wouldn't be viewed as a "fundamental change of terms."

Since a lot of these people will likely be moms or people with family "situations" they're coping with lawsuits seem almost to be a given. They must really be short on cash if this is how they choose to conduct a layoff.

Re:Terrible move by a dying entity

[Karl Cocknozzle]

Agreed. Best Buy is circling the drain. I imagine the reason they are asking folks to come in to the corporate headquarters is because they have to see them in person to lay them off.

I thought the "in" thing these days was to lay people off by email or SMS. Right before Christmas.

I worked at a place where they laid off several dozen telecommuters in one day (but not every telecommuter) via conference call. The way it worked was this: The condemned got invited to a "mandatory team meeting" conference call at 9am the following day. All of the survivors got invited to another conference call to tell them who was getting fired to run concurrently with the termination call to the damned to prevent anybody from finding out via rumor or innuendo.

It mostly went okay (I mean, as well as firing somebody from their full-time-pay-a-mortgage quality job over a conference call can go) except a handful of "fired" people ended up getting sent the code for the "Survivors call" and got the false hope they'd survived because that call started with (I was on it) "Okay, we just want to let you know about some changes in our department, and specifically, some layoffs that happened earlier today. If you're on this call you have been retained by the company. We want to let you know who moved on..."

And then these temporary "Survivors" got to hear their own names on the list of the condemned. I mean, I don't know how it would have been any easier to be on the "correct" conference call and find out. But it sucks balls to hear "There's a layoff, and you've been spared!" and then it turns out no, actually, you're fired too.

Actually, somewhat dickish to fire a guy on the phone, too, I suppose.

Re:Terrible move by a dying entity

[Austerity Empowers]

Actually, somewhat dickish to fire a guy on the phone, too, I suppose.

I don't see why, especially if you telecommute. Feels like a holdover from a bygone age.

Re:Terrible move by a dying entity

[tehcyder]

Who has the time or energy for that?

If I were in that situation, it would be a far better use of my time to make three or four phone calls and wind up employed again by the end of the week, in the position and circumstances I prefer than to drag out a bunch of bullshit in some legal action.

Well aren't you the lucky one?

I know it's hard for the geniuses on slashdot to understand, but a lot of people can't just waltz from one highly paid job to another. Amazingly, there is this thing called unemployment that affects normal people.

Your attitude reminds me of those CEOs who are happy to get fired from their current position with a few million in share options and bonuses, because they know they'll be walking into a similar job after a short holiday.

No one ever said that capitalism doesn't work really well for the lucky minority.

As a former Employee

[Anonymous Coward]

I can tell you Best Buy treats their employees like total crap. I did not work in a retail store, I worked in one of their service centers. Worst run company ever. They actually had a VP come down one week and tell us we needed to tape yellow lanes on the floor to tell people where to walk and then 3 weeks later another VP came down and made them change it to red tape, then 2 months later another VP came down and wanted all the lines moved because he didn't think it was clear which areas were for walking and which areas were work areas. Ridiculous.

Re:What firestorm

[MickyTheIdiot]

This while she was building a nursery in her office so she could spend time with her kid at work.

http://healthland.time.com/2013/02/28/how-yahoo-ceo-marissa-mayer-is-building-a-nursery-by-her-office-and-dissing-working-moms/

If that's not her giving her workforce the finger then I don't know what is.

Re:Real motive

[Whatsisname]

Best Buy is headquartered in Minnesota, an at-will employment state. They can eliminate anyone at any time for any reason, and don't need a bogus excuse to do so.

Very misleading headlines

[Wister285]

Does anyone seem to realize that work from home is not being banned, but PERMANENTLY working from home? There is a huge difference. Casual work from home is much different than never seeing your coworkers. Is permanent working from home a scapegoat? Perhaps, but it's not unreasonable that troubled companies need all hands on deck while at their most vulnerable.

This is worse than it sounds

[Saxophonist]

Best Buy headquarters is in one of the areas of the Twin Cities metro with the worst traffic congestion already, and it is not well-served by public transit. Public policy in Minnesota is starting to tend toward encouraging more remote work and/or flexibility because the cost of maintaining and upgrading roads and transit is becoming unaffordable. I don't know about other areas of employment, but competent programmers are not usually having trouble finding work in the Twin Cities metro. Granted, many of Best Buy's developers are contractors anyway.

This move is likely just to drive away people with other options, and with a company that's already a sinking ship, it's certainly going the wrong direction.