Female Yahoo! CEO Kills Work from Home Option? Why Americans Need a More Flexible Workplace

[Gormy Cuss]

43. Have you ever worked from home?

I was far more productive because no one was casually popping into the office for a quick chat and I wasn't spending so much time going to and from meeting rooms. I just picked up the phone when the meeting began.

I also didn't need as long a lunch break. In the office it would be a solid half hour to 45 minutes. At home, it was about 15.

I could "go back to work" after taking a dinner break to finish up something due the next day rather than stay in the office trying to slog through it when I was tired. I could and did work a few hours on the weekend from home on projects that had been put off during the week. I never would have hauled myself in on a Saturday to work for two hours but doing it from home was easy.


Many of my coworkers did the same. Typically it was one day a week as a scheduled telecommuting day. For a handful of us, we went from in-office staff to fulltime telecommuters when offices closed or employees moved too far away for the daily commute. The CEO of our 1000 employee company recognized that on the whole telecommuting had increased productivity and saved the company money in terms of office space allocations and staff retention.

Where telecommuting can fail is when an employee can't configure a workspace at home that is free from distractions. Most companies address this issue when telecommuting is an option.