Yahoo’s Marissa Mayer speaks out about her work-from-home ban

Yahoo CEO Marissa Mayer finally spoke out about the work from home policy at a conference yesterday, after keeping very hush-hush since the policy was enacted in February.

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Soon after Mayer, the shining light of hope for a flailing Yahoo, joined as the company’s chief executive, she started to turn around the team dynamic. She instated Google-like food options, offered new phone benefits … and she also canceled working from home.

Yeah, so that last one doesn’t sound as awesome. The rest of the tech world thought it was a weird move, too, taking sides on whether this would promote creativity or quash employee morale.

Mayer stayed relatively quiet since, providing only company statements through a spokesperson. But today, remaining true to her product-centric form, Mayer explained the move as a way to promote “innovation.”

She began the conversation by projecting an image of elephant with the letters “WFH,” or work from home, according to CNN. Mayer explained that she needed to talk about the elephant in the room, and, of course, she said, “It’s not what’s right for Yahoo right now.”

So, what is right for Yahoo? Mayer believes that having people in the office may diminish how much they get done in a day, but this will likely improve the quality of those products.

“People are more productive when they’re alone,” she said at the conference, “But they’re more collaborative and innovative when they’re together. Some of the best ideas come from pulling two different ideas together.”

She cited Yahoo’s weather app as the latest innovation to come out of the work-from-home ban.

Marissa Mayer image via earcos/Flickr

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