Clearly, there are successful companies that are thriving in this global economy and making good use of telecommuters to achieve their goals. I worked for one and cited in my first post how a company can do this correctly.

The problems with telecommuting come down to these things:

1) A company must have policies in place for monitoring and tracking progress (and of course enforce such policies - aka: accountability)

2) The potential telecommuter must not have personal circumstances that prevent her or him from being productive while working remotely.

The most important thing (and this is where Yahoo is failing) is the number 1 item above.

If a company is tracking progress and holding employees accountable correctly then they will be in a position to know if there are any deficiencies in performance no mater what the reason.

Simple:

- No performance problem, telecommute all you want and keep up the good work.

- Performance problem, work in the office and if the problem continues there's the door.

Yahoo will make a great test case. If they don't learn how to track progress and make people accountable even after being ordered back into the office then they won't be around long and case closed

As long as there are companies doing this successfully it will be difficult to make a credible case against telecommuting. Especially when all the failures ultimately point back to the company not the employee. 😉