telecommuting

To whip the one-time dominant Yahoo portal (remember when those were a thing?) back into shape, CEO Marissa Mayer and company have been laying down the law. All Yahoos now must make it into the office, as telecommuting and work-from-home arrangements will officially become a no-no by June.

The new policy is meant to improve collaboration and communication, but it's also been dinged for being antithetical to the spirit of Silicon Valley, where world-changing work often originates from garages and coffee shops. … Read more

When Yahoo told workers last week that they could no longer work from home, there was no shortage of punditry opining on the merits of the decision.

Richard Branson, who has never worked out of an office, blasted the idea, calling it "a backwards step in an age when remote working is easier and more effective than ever." Blue Jeans, a videoconferencing company, bought a billboard on Highway 101, just north of the San Francisco International Airport, tweaking Yahoo CEO Marissa Mayer, that reads, "Call us Marissa! We can help."

While there are plenty of benefits … Read more

In response to the uproar caused by its upcoming ban on telecommuting, Yahoo issued a brief statement this evening acknowledging that its work-at-home ban runs contrary to practices in the tech industry as a whole.

"This isn't a broad industry view on working from home," Yahoo said in a statement published by The New York Times. "This is about what is right for Yahoo right now."

A spokesperson declined to elaborate and said, "We don't discuss internal matters."

Yahoo's new policy, which requires employees to work in the company's offices, … Read more

Yahoo's focus on mobile apparently requires its employees to stay in the office.

ATD is reporting that CEO Marissa Mayer let it be known yesterday -- via a memo to employees from HR head Jackie Reses -- that come June, any existing work-from-home arrangements will no longer apply.

"To become the absolute best place to work, communication and collaboration will be important, so we need to be working side-by-side," reads the memo, as published by ATD's Kara Swisher, to whom it was leaked.

Swisher reports that the change has rankled some workers who say they were … Read more

A significant number of IT professionals say they'd take a salary cut for the chance to work from home full time, according to a survey from techie job site Dice.

Thirty-five percent of 937 IT pros surveyed in mid-March said they would accept up to a 10 percent pay cut to telecommute in light of soaring gas prices,

A 10 percent slice in the average technology professional's salary would translate into $7,800 less earned per year, according to Dice.

Thirty-six percent responded no, insisting on the same pay for the same work. Another 9 percent said they … Read more

Once considered a novelty, telecommuting has now become mainstream, thanks largely to technology.

More than 38 million people, or 37 percent of the total U.S. workforce, work from home at least once a month, according to the report "Telework and the Technologies Enabling Work Outside Corporate Walls" released Thursday by the Consumer Electronics Association.

The CEA survey found that among telecommuters, 98 percent use computer technology, such as PCs and printers; 90 percent use communications equipment, including cell phones and fax machines; and 75 percent use accessories, such as surge protectors and docking stations.

Home workers cited … Read more

It was simply happenstance but this headline crossed the wire just as I was boring a colleague with another doom-and-gloom update on the skyrocketing price of energy.

"Fortune 500 Visionaries Speak at Woodside Private Home Theatre for Discussion on Smart Energy & Grids."

Turns out that Scott McNealy and Jim Rogers of Duke Energy are headlining the event next week along with CEO Echelon Ken Oshman to celebrate what's being billed as "20 Years of LonWorks Technology."

For anyone unfamiliar with Echelon, the company's embedded control technology fosters "smart energy" applications in … Read more

Maybe I shouldn't come to the office anymore. Working from home would treat the planet better, according to the American Electronics Association.

The trade group issued an Earth Day report Tuesday encouraging employers to expand telecommuting, partly to help cut carbon emissions and use of electricity. Among its arguments:

If everyone who could perform a job remotely did so just 1.6 days per week, $4.5 billion worth of fuel would be spared. That would prevent the release of 26 billion pounds of carbon dioxide each year, according to the Environmental Protection Agency.

Nearly half of workers commute … Read more

Correction: In an earlier version of this item, Ivan Bowman was credited as the inventor of the IvanAnywhere robot. Ian McHardy, a co-worker of Bowman's at Sybase iAnywhere in Waterloo, Canada, is the actual creator of the robot. Thanks to FromWaterloo in the Crave TalkBack section for pointing it out.

Telecommuting is nothing new. Nor is Web conferencing. But building a robot to come into the office while you work at home? That's both new and awesome.

Ian McHardy created IvanAnywhere to cruise around the office and establish a physical presence for his co-worker, Ivan Bowman, as Bowman … Read more