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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."
This is a terrible move by a dying entity that is showing its irrelevance by going back further into the dark ages.
Sig: I stole this sig.
I don't think it's been a seller's market for some time now.
Karnal
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.
has nothing to do with working from home. They need to get rid of a bunch of employees and this gives them a way of doing so without actually having a reason to fire them. They know a certain percentage won't be able to work locally, and will have to "voluntarily" quit.
Where are the environmentalists who should be protesting the increase in the use of resources, especially petroleum products, that will be required when all these employees return to an office? Especially when many of them took the job under the betrayed promise that they would not have to often commute to an office that was perhaps an hour or more away?
Gamingmuseum.com: Give your 3D accelerator a rest.
I just wonder if any agreements were made with employees at either Yahoo or BB that they would be allowed to do a certain amount of their work remotely.
Again.. it goes back to the current American belief that it's okay for a corporation to break their word or contract with an individual but absolutely wrong when it's vice versa...
"Will code for food" so says the sign the man on the corner street is holding. While a line of college students outside of Yahoo are saying "I will pay YOU just to work there for experience and references". Ok, not that bad -yet-. Getting there though.
Life is not for the lazy.
Look at the history of companies like DEC, Compaq, Dell, the list goes on an on.
They all did great until MBAs and Investment Bankers got control.
Then the value was squeezed out and the carcass disgarded.
Yahoo CEO Marissa Mayer's decision to end telecommuting, which ignited a firestorm of criticism.
There was no firestorm, just whining from unproductive Yahoo employees and media parasites.
Perhaps they didn't get the memo, but Google (which is what Yahoo wishes it was, and is where every Yahoo employee wishes he/she was working at) doesn't allow telecommuting either. Marissa was just putting in place policies that worked for Google.
Its a great way to lay off people without saying its a layoff, or paying for unemployment since quitting would mean no way to collect it.
Work exactly 40 hours per week, and not at all from home.
Person sits at desk from 9-6. Person taps keys. Appears to be breathing. It tells you nothing about whether they're doing their work, so if you can't tell by other means, you're an incompetent employer. And if you can tell by other means, then there's no problem with telecommuting.
Should Slashdot include a disclaimer when linking to a corporate sister?
In case you don't know, Slashdot is owned by Dice Holdings (see the bottom left of the page you are reading), which also owns this link from the front page story:
http://news.dice.com/2013/03/05/yahoos-telecommuting-policy-could-find-fanboy-ceos/
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.
Keep a bullet proof lab book with verifiable work and you'll be fine. The issue is that no one tracks what work they do so months after you finish everything there is no trace. Hence telecommuting looks back because how do you know who does any work. On the other hand if you can hand over a well kept book that is documented about the work you've completed then you look fine.
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.
Any displaced Java developers wanting to work in the Oklahoma City area, contact me. We're hiring.
If you are not allowed to question your government then the government has answered your question.