Dave62 (3/7/2013)
Yahoo's decision to end telecommuting is another fail on their part not on their employee's.I worked for a global technology company where teams made up from people on several continents collaborated remotely to implement solutions all over the world. It was very rare for us to travel and get any face time. I think it happened once every 3 years or so. Some of these implementations were very high visibility in the $40+ million range.
The company has accountability policies that helped these teams work successfully. The teams did weekly status updates to track progress, mitigate issues, and define action items for the next week. Management would meet with team leaders monthly to track progress, make decisions, and set or change priorities.
This system worked equally well for teams that were together in one location working on local projects as it did for the global teams.
I think the last thought in your article says it all: "... ultimately employee success comes down to each person being held accountable for their work."
If a company (Yahoo) fails to do this for telecommuters then they probably won't do it very well for people in the office either. Conversely, if they already did this well for teams in the office then there probably wouldn't be a telecommuting issue in the first place.
Part of what Dave62 speaks to is correct, but part is not. It is wonderful that HIS company can do the projects that he tells us of and reading about such team work and individual cooperation in projects is something we all should try to achieve.
However, everyone needs to realize that Yahoo is not having the same type of results with their project work. Something is NOT working at Yahoo and the "new" management has decided to start over by having everyone work at the office where better results are the hopeful outcome. I'm sure that once the dust settles at Yahoo that telecommuting will be offered, but you can bet there will be different rules applied to how and when. Better to be able to work at the office then to have the company fail and everyone lose their jobs. Time will tell if the new CEO has made a blunder or the best decision at Yahoo in 5 years.