Run Time: 2:41 Link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u1oQaeiYI4g After reading or

Question

Run Time: 2:41

Link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u1oQaeiYI4g

After reading or watch on youtube please answer the following discussion question.

Summary

Yahoo CEO Marissa Mayer’s decision to end the company’s telecommuting policy made headlines around the world. Mayer only recently took the reins at the Internet giant, and her decision caught many by surprise. Many people in the business community have reacted to the new policy with dismay saying that it is disappointing, shocking, and even confusing. Telecommuting is generally seen as the way of the future.

An internal memo suggests that the new policy is expected to improve collaboration and communication among employees. Moreover, the memo suggests that working from home is less productive than working onsite. Yet, most studies show that working from home is actually more productive because there are fewer distractions and there is no commute involved.

For the several hundred Yahoo employees who currently telecommute, the new policy will certainly require some adjustment. Some wonder whether there is even enough room at the company to house the telecommuters who will now be required to be present. Others wonder whether the company’s costs will rise as a result of the new policy.   The new arrangement will also likely reduce the level of satisfaction among employees and raise the level of stress, both of which could ultimately harm the company.

Discussion Questions

1. Discuss the ethics of the new policy at Yahoo. Is it fair to tell employees who currently telecommute to either return to the office location or find a new job? What moral responsibility does Yahoo have to its employees?

2. Should employees who were hired to work on a remote basis be compensated for the time and cost of their commute? Is it ethical to change the terms of their hiring arrangement?

3. Many in the business community expressed dismay over the new policy at Yahoo. Discuss the implications of the new policy on productivity. What message does it send to all Yahoo employees?

4. What responsibility does Marissa Mayer have to her other stakeholders? Is the new policy in the best interest of employees?   Do employees really have a choice in the matter?

Subject: Business Ethics

Please make sense with your answer;

Explanation / Answer

1 .

Yahoo CEO Marissa Mayer’s decision to end the company’s telecommuting policy made headlines around the world. Mayer only recently took the reins at the Internet giant, and her decision caught many by surprise. Many people in the business community have reacted to the new policy with dismay saying that it is disappointing, shocking, and even confusing. Telecommuting is generally seen as the way of the future.

An internal memo suggests that the new policy is expected to improve collaboration and communication among employees. Moreover, the memo suggests that working from home is less productive than working onsite. Yet, most studies show that working from home is actually more productive because there are fewer distractions and there is no commute involved.

For the several hundred Yahoo employees who currently telecommute, the new policy will certainly require some adjustment. Some wonder whether there is even enough room at the company to house the telecommuters who will now be required to be present. Others wonder whether the company’s costs will rise as a result of the new policy.   The new arrangement will also likely reduce the level of satisfaction among employees and raise the level of stress, both of which could ultimately harm the company.

There is data to support the fact that telecommuting has several major benefits. It saves millions in real estate costs, it can help in recruiting, it helps the environment, and it certainly makes some workers happy. But telecommuting unfortunately reduces innovation. And because innovation brings in much higher profits than the traditional goal of corporate efficiency, many firms are now learning the value of emphasizing innovation as a primary strategic business goal.

Additional Reasons Supporting Yahoo’s Decision

Some additional reasons supporting the end to telecommuting at Yahoo include:

2 . Telecommuting, remote work is a work arrangement in which employees do not commute to a central place of work. A person who telecommutes is known as a "telecommuter", "teleworker", and sometimes as a "home-sourced," or "work-at-home" employee. Many telecommuters work from home, while others, sometimes called "nomad workers", use mobile telecommunications technology to work from coffee shops or other locations. According to a Reuters poll, approximately "one in five workers around the globe, particularly employees in the Middle East, Latin America and Asia, telecommute frequently and nearly 10 percent work from home every day".Today, asannual leave or vacation is seen as absence from the workplace rather than ceasing work, telecommuting is used by office employees to work while on vacation.

Skill variety, task identity, and task significance[edit]

Three of the five job attributes: skill variety, task identity, and task significance, influence how much employees think their jobs are meaningful. Skill variety is the degree that a job requires a variety of activities and skills to complete the task. An increase in skill variety is thought to increase the challenge of the job. Increasing the challenge of the job increases the individual’s experienced meaningfulness, how much the individual cares about work, and finds it worthwhile. Telework may not directly affect skill variety and task meaningfulness for the individual compared to when he or she worked in an office; however, skill variety and meaningfulness of individual tasks can increase when working in a group. If the work done at home is focused on the individual rather than the team, there may be fewer opportunities to use a variety of skills.

Task identity is the degree that the individual sees work from beginning to end or completes an identifiable or whole piece of work rather than only a small piece. Task significance is the degree that the individual feels his or her work has a substantial impact on the lives or work of other people within the organization or outside of the organization.Telework may not change the job characteristics of skill variety, task identity, and task significance compared to working in an office; however, the presence of these characteristics will influence teleworkers’ work outcomes and attitudes.

3 .

the three of us set out for the nightly adventures of Google and Yahoo smelling every blade of grass, peeing on every corner, and me guessing the year the houses were built as I walk by. A clear night of getting lost in the timeless of the stars.

Shoot! I left my head phones. Back in the house I go, as I have so many times before. After five minutes of looking for my ear phones I found them. I open the back door to see my trusted Google, and his googly eyes and wagging nubby tail waiting patently, yet where is Yahoo? A long whistle usually brings Yahoo running clumsily towards me, but no Yahoo. Hum, odd... I walk around the block whistling...still no Yahoo. I knew then someone has her, this has never happened before.

I then informed my partner, Paul, about our missing pup. Without a moment he was out the door on his bike. Five minutes goes by. I figure, If you need to get info out fast in Port Alberni... AV Chatter on Facebook!! As I was ready to post about my missing pup, Paul runs frantically into the kitchen. Out of breath he runs upstairs as he tells me there is a drunk "guy" who's auntie took Yahoo and he needs to get money to pay this "guy" for his auntie's number. Before I even had a moment to think how bazaar this all was, Paul was outdoors taking the car and no phone.

4 .

Marissa Mayer has repeatedly preached that it will take time for her to turn the company around.

But analysts and investors are increasingly reluctant to give her more time and are even speculating about whether she should (or will) be fired sometime soon.

Shares of Yahoo (YHOO, Tech30) have plunged nearly 35% this year and many on Wall Street are tired of hearing that Yahoo is a turnaround story. They want results.

SunTrust Robinson Humphrey analyst Robert Peck wrote in a report Monday morning that his clients have been asking him a lot about Mayer, especially since many Yahoo senior executives have left the company in the past few months.

This Yahoo "brain drain" has some investors worried that Mayer is managing a sinking ship.

Some of the top candidates on this wish list?

Peck felt that Levinsohn and Rosensweig would be the most likely candidates given their past experience with Yahoo.

But if Yahoo were to part with Mayer, investors may want someone who has more of a fresh perspective.

Ironically enough, Mayer was thought to be that person when Yahoo hired her away from Google(GOOGL, Tech30) more than three years ago.

And interestingly, several candidates cited by Peck also have Google ties.

Related: Marissa Mayer STILL hasn't fixed Yahoo

DoubleClick was bought by Google in 2008 and Rosenblatt continued to work at Google for a year after the DoubleClick acquisition.

Sandberg was a Google executive before she joined Facebook.

And two other people cited by Peck as possible Mayer replacements also now work for Google: YouTube CEO Susan Wojcicki and Margo Georgiadis, president of ad sales and operations for Google's North American and Latin American units.

Still, is Mayer's job really in jeopardy?

NYU Stern School of Business marketing professor Scott Galloway told Bloomberg in September that Mayer is the most "overpaid CEO in history" and that she still has her job only because she is pregnant. (Mayer is expecting identical twin girls in December.)

Those provocative comments surprisingly did not cause as big of a backlash as you might have expected though.

And it's likely because Yahoo has continued to struggle to turn itself around.

Shares fell 5% the day after the company's third-quarter earnings disappointed Wall Street.

Peck wrote in a report earlier this month that unless Mayer has the support of senior executives, employees, partners, and investors, then "a seamless transition to new leadership could be in the best interest of the company and shareholders."

One of those shareholders -- Starboard Value's managing member Jeffrey Smith -- has been extremely critical of Mayer and Yahoo's board as well.

Smith wrote a letter to Mayer and Yahoo chairman Maynard Webb earlier this month and asked for the company to try and sell off its core search and display advertising assets instead of spinning off its stake in Chinese online retailer Alibaba (BABA, Tech30).

Smith also appeared to suggest that Yahoo will never be able to turn around the core assets under Mayer's leadership.

He wrote that the value of Yahoo is likely to decline further "without significant change to the culture" and added that "we cannot imagine that any prudent individual assigns a high probability that Yahoo is on a path to substantially increase" its profits.

Related: Yahoo will spin off Alibaba stake no matter what IRS says

But it's not clear who would want to buy Yahoo.

AOL was once thought to be a logical candidate for a merger. But Verizon (VZ, Tech30) scooped up AOL earlier this year. It seems unlikely that another major media company would want Yahoo at this point.

Yahoo continues to lag Facebook and Google in the digital ad race. Twitter (TWTR, Tech30), despite its troubles, is still expected to gain market share while Yahoo steadily loses it, according to figures from eMarketer.

That means Mayer will likely have no choice but to stick with the plan to spin off Alibaba, even though Wall Street no longer thinks it can significantly boost the company's fortunes.

For one, it remains uncertain if the IRS will rule that the Alibaba spin-off will be tax free.

What's more, the value of Yahoo's Alibaba stake has plunged this year. Shares of Alibaba are down 20% due to concerns about the Chinese economy, increased competition and pirated goods on Alibaba sites.

Yahoo had no comment for this story. And to be sure, there are no rumors whatsoever that Mayer is on the way out.

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